So, if you guys remember, 6 of my eggs were fertilized and two embryos were put back into me on Friday. Where, might you ask, did the other four go? Well, they stayed in the culture to see if any of them would make it to the 5 day blastocyst stage. If they should make it, they would be frozen for me to use on my next try (if this one does not work). The beauty of the frozen embryo transfer (FET) is that you don’t have to do all those nasty shots, blood draws, ultrasounds, and retrievals. During an FET cycle, you take some pills and then they transfer them back on the appropriate day. Soooooo much easier!
Well, our embryologist didn’t have too much hope that any of our remaining four would make it to the five day stage. See, growing in the culture is not as easy as growing in the uterus, so the embryos often just stop. Since the highest quality embryos were put back into me, he felt the ones that were left didn’t have too great of a chance.
I guess he doesn’t know what fighters our little guys (or girls) are! I called this morning fully prepared to get the word that none had made it too freeze. He told me that as of yesterday (day 5) the answer was “No”, but they had given them one more night to see if any magic happened. He put me on hold and ran down to the lab to give them one last look. Like I said, I was already prepared for bad news, so I sat on hold playing Word with Friends until he returned to the phone. After a few minutes, he returned and I was struck by the surprise in his voice. “Well, things have really turned around! You have TWO embryos that made it to blastocyst stage and look good to freeze!” Shocked, all I could say was, “That is AWESOME!” One is a grade 3 and one is a grade 2. So we have two snow babies, which is what they are called in the infertility lingo. Snow babies, frosties, snow angels, snow flakes….you get the snow drift.
I am over the moon with this unexpected news! Our little embryos really beat the odds. Just like their mom and dad…..