Day 1 Fertilization Report

Well, I'm trying really hard not to feel completely deflated. We have 5 good embyros as of this morning.

Yesterday they told me that that they'd call btw 12 and 3 with the fertilization report, so when Dr. G called me at 9am, my heart leapt into my throat, and I just knew that he was calling to say that none of them fertilized, or that none of them made it thru the night.

Instead he said that all 14 of the eggs they retrieved were mature. He said that was great, since only mature eggs are able to be fertilized. But, he went on to say that although 9 of the 14 fertilized, only 5 began dividing normally. The other 4 either divided abnormally, or were fertilized with more than one sperm.

So, on Day 1, we only have 5. Dr. G. said that he could tell by the tone of my voice that I was crestfallen, but that this was actually good news. He reminded me that he has had many, many patients with similar fert reports who went on to get pregnant. I'm sure that's true.

I guess I just had this fantasy that R and I were going to turn out to be the superheros of the IVF world. That we'd have maybe 10 or 12 fabulous embryos on Day 1, that we'd end up with 5 or 6 superb looking blastocyts on Day 5, and that we'd have lots of embryos to freeze as an insurance policy or for future family building attempts. Doesn't look like that will be the case. I'm now just praying that we end up with at least two to transfer.

I asked Dr. G if today's report meant that we'd most likely have a Day 3 transfer, since we have so few already. He said that it's still too early to know the answer to that, but that 80% of the patients at this clinic have Day 3 transfers, so that was always a safe bet.

He'll call tomorrow to let us know how they fare overnight, and what we're left with.

I have to say, I'm very surprised at the depth of emotion I feel for the embryos - all 9 of them. I didn't expect for this to feel so real - for it to really hit home so quickly that these tiny little multi-celled living things have the potential to be children with R's beautiful brown skin and my eyes running around our house. I didn't expect to have any sort of grief feelings yet, for the embryos that didn't make it, but I do.

We are praying, praying, praying hard for our 5 little precious embryos up there in the lab. Please, please be strong! Just a few more days and you can be nestled snugly in your new home...