Arrested

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Good morning.

I don't have the happiest of news today.
But what I do have is determination and a cut-throat attitude, so just know I'll be okay.

I have spent the last week dealing with a range of emotions.
Partly due to the these damn Endometrin suppositories (oh yea, I'm going there).
They are a natural form of progesterone, to help reduce miscarriages and keep a pregnancy going.

And they also prep someone should they be doing another IVF cycle right away.
That's what I'm doing.

I knew from the second they told me they collected six eggs, I would be gearing up right away for another round.

I am fucking determined and ready because this round did nothing but shit in my face.

As I mentioned in my last post, of the six eggs retrieved, five were considered mature and of the five, only three were fertilized normally.

Since I was not doing a fresh transfer, we would not get another call until Day 5, when a typical normal developing embryo makes it to a stage called Blastocyst.

Cells divide and multiple to this point until the little ball of cells pulls away from the center, leaving a fluid pouch that will eventually become the placenta.

The ball of cells eventually grows to be the baby.

And of course, every day in between, my emotions ebbed from hope and happiness, to despair and sadness.

The progesterone was also enhancing a lot of this, so it may be partly to blame.

The typical survival rate for fertilized embryos is 30-50%, and Mark and I would chat about just how many would make it.

We both agreed that 1 seemed to make the most sense.

On Day 5 (Monday), I received my first call from the nurse.

Good news! All three of your embryos are still growing. We have 1 early blast, 1 morula, and 1 ten-cell.  It's normal for them to not be at full blastocyst stage exactly on Day 5, so we'll continue to monitor them and will call you tomorrow.

Side note: a morula is what should be developing on Day 4, it's an embryo full of tightly packed cells that haven't yet separated to let fluid in. There are typically between 10-30 cells at this point.

The other 10 cell was lagging behind, but, of course, there was always a chance to catch up.

I was elated. I drove home with a huge smile plastered on my face.

What luck!! We still have ALL THREE.

On Tuesday morning, I received our next report.

Hi Tia, unfortunately none of the embryos are ready for biopsy. We have one Grade 3CC blastocyst, 1 early blast, and 1 morula. Again, we will continue to monitor them for one more day.

The grading of a blastocycst runs 1-4 with 1 being the least developed and 4 being the most.
The letters are A-D, with A being equal sized, tiny cells, and D being very few, possibly fragmented cells.

A grade of 3CC means that the "3" is rather good, as a full blastocyst would be considered a "4".

However, the CC means that both on the inside and the outside of the embryo, the cells are few.
Not enough to biopsy. We want a lot of little cells instead.

Now I'm getting worried. These little embryos seem to be growing so slow that I just can't imagine more than 1 will be ready.
I was overly concerned all day, but still hopeful that the front runner would be our golden ticket this cycle.

Wednesday morning I got my last call...this time from the head nurse.
This is never a good sign.

Hi Tia, it's Kim. I have bad news. All three of your embryos arrested (stopped growing) overnight.
I'm so sorry. I wanted to be the one to break the news because you're my girl. 
I want you to take the day for a pity party, and then get back in the saddle, okay? 
We are going to adjust your protocol that should yield better results the next go around.
You got this lady. 
Take care.

Ugh.
My constant thoughts that I got off too easy with this round were confirmed.
Unfortunately, they believe it's a combination of lower quality egg and sperm, mixed with our genetic issues, but no one can be sure.

We will continue to take our supplements and vitamins and hope the next go is better.
I have already been given my new calendar, to begin May 21st.
They are adding a Letrozole pill to the mix to hopefully yield better egg quality and quantity.

All I can do is find peace with this first cycle and move forward.
We're bummed, but are hopeful for future egg retrievals.
Who knows?! Maybe this next cycle will get us all the embryos we need and we can move forward with testing.

As always, thank you for reading. XO