"We Have a Problem..."

So yesterday I was waiting for my nurse to call me and give my Embryo Report (meaning how well the fertilized eggs had been growing into an embryo.)  She didn't call, didn't call, then finally I see her number pop up.  So I answer hello and my darling nurse says, "Olivia?  Hi, it's Katie.  I am calling because, um, we have a problem..."  Immediately I think, "Oh no! Not again! Did they all die?  Did someone drop the petri dishes and they got contaminated? What? What?"  Then Katie continues, "Well, I know I had you scheduled for 10:30 on Sunday, but some things have come up and I need you to come in at 9:00 instead....is that going to be okay?"  She sounded so nervous and worried I almost laughed when I realized it was just a scheduling conflict!  Seriously darling Katie -- don't call someone waiting to hear about their embryos and start a conversation that way!  After I confirmed that 9:00 would be just fine, she continued on to let me know that she didn't have my Embryo Report yet.

A few hours later, I was wondering why I hadn't heard back from her yet, so I called.  Katie answered and said, "Oh my gosh!  I totally forgot to call you back!  I am so sorry.  Let me get that report for you..."

So the deal with a day-3 Embryo Report is this:  by day 3 the fertilized egg should have grown into a 7 or 8 cell embryo, 8 cells being the optimal number.  But there is also a varying degree of quality, depending on things like how uniform the cells are in size, if there is any fragmentation (pieces of the cells broken off), etc.  They rate them as Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor.

This is what an "Excellent" day-3 embryo looks like.

This one is a "Fair." See the fragmentation?

 So here is our Embryo Report:  (from worst to best.)

1 10-cell Fair

1 8-cell Fair

1 8-cell Fair+

3 8-cell Good-

1 7-cell Good

1 8-cell Good

1 8-cell Excellent

Katie told me I should be excited about the "Excellent" one because they rarely see embryos that perfect.  And though I am, here's the "rub" for us:  no matter how perfect that embryo is, if we find out tomorrow that it is affected with CF, we will have to just throw it away anyway.  If we were doing regular IVF, we would be thrilled!  We would have an "Excellent" and a "Good" to transplant and seven others to freeze.  But we don't really know what we have yet. That said, we have six embryos that are looking pretty great, and three others that aren't too bad.  (We didn't have any Poors, or even Fair-, so that is quite good, actually.) So we are nonetheless quite pleased at this stage.  

Yesterday was also embryo-biopsy day, where they remove one of the cells from each embryo.  And although they do this as carefully as possible to avoid further damaging the embryo, sometimes they die because of it.  Here is a picture of a cell being removed from an embryo:

So now it all comes down to tomorrow.  We have an appointment with Dr. Heiner at 9:00.  We will get the PGD results from RGI then.  We will compare the PGD results with a new Embryo Report and see what we have to work with.  By day 5, an embryo should have around 256 cells, and either be an advanced morula or hopefully a blastocyst. (If you want to see a picture of both of those, go to my second blog post -- I have a picture of both from my last cycle...)  So either we will find out that we have something to transfer and we will continue on to that procedure, or we will find out that we have nothing CF-free left alive and we are left with nothing.  But with nine potentials, we are actually hoping that we will have two to transfer AND have something left over to freeze!  Even though we know embryos don't usually thaw well, (the failure rate is very high) it still would be nice to have the choice/chance of another child in the future without having to go through this whole process again (which is pretty much NOT going to happen...) 

For tonight, let me end with this:  everyone has been asking me how I feel about the whole baby thing now that I am this far into the process.  So I have really been thinking about it, and here is what I realized.  I honestly have no desire to be pregnant or have a baby!  In fact, I really dislike being pregnant!  (I am very, very grateful to have my own biological children and accept that pregnancy is a necessary part of that, I just don't have to like it!)  And babies are so hard!  I dread the lack of sleep, the constant pooping and feeding, etc., and am not the least bit eager for any of that.  HOWEVER (and this is a really big "however,") I DO WANT another child, in fact, very much.  I think another sibling would be fantastic for my girls, and so much fun as they get older.  If I could go to a store and pick out my very own 18-month-old, I would totally do it tomorrow!  (And no, I am not interested in adoption right now....I want to do it this way.) So I have finally come to the conclusion that I DO want to have this process be successful, just that I will have to endure the pregnancy and find the joy that I can in the newborn/needy phase.  Because after some time, I will have my wish, another darling toddler of my very own!