Successful swimmers

So the news was good yesterday! Of the 7 eggs that were fertilized "naturally" (in a test tube)- 5 were successfully fertilized. Of the 6 that were ICSI'd, 4 were successfully fertilized. So we have nine. The other really encouraging news is that the quality of the eggs themselves was "excellent". This has long been a concern of mine, perhaps for irrational reasons... but I do know that women with PCOS can experience diminished egg quality, even when they are theoretically "young and fertile" like me. On a humorous note, Jeff decided to reassert his belief that having natural selection determine which sperm is the winner would somehow produce superior children. We got a good laugh out of the thought that 10 years from now, when little Jeff Jr. or Elisabeth Jr. misbehaves or fails a math test, he will look at me and say "see? ICSI. I told you so!" We will let this little debate play itself out over the next few days, as we should know which embryos were produced using which technique. We'll put back the most healthy-looking embryos regardless of how they were created, of course. This little intellectual debate is all fine and good, but at the end of the day I'm not granting it enough weight to allow it to influence our chances of pregnancy!

Today we should get a call from the embryologist regarding whether we will do a 5-day (blastocyst) transfer or a 3-day. This question will be answered by how well the embryos are developing in the lab environment. If they seem to be thriving, we will give them an extra couple days. During this time they will develop into blastocysts- and being able to accomplish this bodes well for their viability. If they're not doing so well in the lab, they will be transferred into a more natural environment (my uterus) on day 3- when they should have between 6-8 cells. My first IVF pregnancy was a 3-day transfer- so I know this can work! The main reason that you want to go to five days is that it allows you to put fewer (theoretically higher quality) embryos back. If we do a day-5 transfer, I will put back two. I will have to take many precautions in a future pregnancy (cerclage, bedrest, high-risk monitoring) so whether there is one or two makes little difference. If I do a 3-day transfer, much will depend on the quality of the embryos. The first time, I put back three- 6, 7, and 8 cell embryos. If I have two perfect 8-celled embryos, I will put back two... and if the quality is a little less perfect, three.

So now I wait patiently from the call from the embryologist to let me know how the nine "maybe-babies" are doing 48 hours after fertilization. Hopefully most of them are developing!