Thursday, March 1, 2012

Embryo Transfer, CHECK!

Well today was the day, our three day embryo transfer! Wow-how exciting and nerve wracking!

It all went very well. Dan and I were brought into the new part of the clinic which was off-the-hook gorgeous! Makes me realize exactly how much money these people are bringing in; unfortunately, there are a lot of us infertiles out there. Prior to going in, we were waiting in the waiting room and a lesbian couple had come out of an appointment. They went to get some coffee (as they have coffee and tea in the waiting room) and one of the girls remarked that it was a great "10,000 dollar cup of coffee". My heart went out to them, because it is so true. It's amazing how much people pay out in order to have the chance of conceiving. All that money for a chance, no guarantees ever. They seemed very nice and very in love. I hope it works out for them. Thank God I have good insurance and that's one less thing to worry about!

Anyway, I digress...as usual. So we went back to the new portion of the clinic which was spectacular! We were able to see the blood lab and the lab where the embryos are kept and worked on. It was amazing! I would have loved to take pictures...it was just so gorgeous and high tech and like nothing I have ever seen.

So then they led Dan and I back to a beautiful "embryo transfer" room which has a door right into the embryologist's lab. Again, beautiful and relaxing room. The doctor who had done our egg retrieval came in and talked to us about our little ones. He mentioned that the quality was good, but they decided on a three day transfer because I had less than four. Basically, we have three 8 cell eggs, which is exactly where they should be at this stage. One was rated as a 2 (4 is the best, one is the worst), but the other two were rated at 3's (and one was almost a 4). The doctor recommended the transfer of all 3, as did the embryologist. However, upon having a long heart-to-heart, Dan and I decided that we were only comfortable with transferring two.

This was a SUPER difficult decision, as we don't normally go against doctor recommendations. But, we really are apprehensive about having a twin pregnancy (even with transferring three, triplets would be very rare). We went back and forth for what seemed like an hour: two? three? God-what a tough decision. In the end, we chose to do two. It lowers our rate of fertilization to about 30% from 35% if we did three, but it also significantly lowered the chance of a twin pregnancy. Of course, now I'm scared that this cycle WON'T work because we chose against three. But really, it's out of our hands. It's done. We did what we felt was right at the time and hindsight is 20/20. I just have to be ok with the fact that this *might not* be our cycle, but that doesn't mean the next one won't.

We transferred the best two: the grade 3, 8 cell embryos. It gives me some peace that the best ones out of the three are in me. And hey, if our other little embie keeps growing and makes it to blast stage, perhaps we will have a little one to freeze so we can retrieve it later. And if that third one doesn't make it to blast, it probably wouldn't have made it "in" me anyway.

I hope we made the right choice. Not that there is a "right" choice in this case. When it comes down to something so important,  I rarely think that there ever is a "right" choice. Life just doesn't work that way...I'll add a pic of our two little ones later....

4 comments:

  1. CONGRATS on being PREGNANT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE (PUPO) :))

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  2. LOL...thanks! Gah-I already feel super pregnant with bloating and acid reflux-darn hormonal supplements!

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  3. Hi there! I just came across your blog! I had my first frozen transfer this past Tuesday (our first fresh transfer unfortunately didn't work), and I'm on my day 4 of the dreadful two week wait. I too have had many ups and downs due to my high estrogen levels, and I relived all my worries, heartache and frustration while reading your past posts. What a journey... My husband and I also had a hard time deciding how many of our frozen embryos to transfer of our remaining 3. We decided on two, and we cannot look back. I wish you peace during this difficult waiting time, and I hope that you do not ever question your decisions. Enjoy the love of your daughter and husband these next few weeks and I look forward to your good news!! :) Elizabeth

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  4. Hi Elizabeth! We are pretty much in the same spot for our 2WW! Me-I probably won't wait until my beta blood test to test though...I just can't help myself! It was a very long and trying cycle-much more difficult and different from my IUI cycles. Having super high estrogen is not fun!

    I wish you the VERY best luck on your FET. I've read so so very many stories lately on women who have had successful FETs, even if their fresh cycle was not successful. I hope we both get fantastic news in the next week-and-a-half. Please keep me updated :)

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