Blasts: Day 6 update

Well I'm still in shock.  Not quite sure how to take everything.  'Praise Jesus' is all that can come out of my mouth at the moment!  The hand of God was on this cycle for sure – and praise God for his faithfulness in all this!   I don’t want to give credit to all the supplements I was doing this cycle, or all the electro-stim I did, because I know that is not what made this cycle, but I will say I will recommend it to anyone who ask what I took to help with quality!  I can not thank my amazing Acupuncturist enough for all her help.  She has a list of the Top 3 hardest clients she has treated over the 19-20 years she has been doing this - I got to make that Top 3, luck me!!  In her amazingness and extremely generous heart, she saw me for almost 3 months leading up to this last ER ... all on her.  She was determined to make this cycle successful!  I am so grateful for her,  her determination and her heart, because I know it made a difference!! 

With that being said.  A little info on Day 5 Blastocysts.  Embryos on Day 5 are continuing to divide and the number of cells are continuing to increase and at this point and are doing so into specific cell types.  Embryos that have been grown out until Day 5 are now referred to as "Blastocysts", or "Blasts" because they have formed a cystic cavity called a blastocoel in it center.  A Blast has two tissue types, the trophectoderm (TE) and the inner cell mass (ICM). The trophectoderm is what develops and become the placenta, while the inner cell mass is the begning of the fetus.  Think of a balloon.  If you blow up a balloon and put a ping-pong ball inside, that is what a Blast looks like. The latex of the balloon is the TE and the ping-pong ball is the ICM.  

Blastocysts have survived an important "survival test."  During the first few days, the embryo relies on the egg cell (mom) for its growing nutrients, but to survive past day 3, or 4, the embryo must activate its own genes so that it can carry on growing and diving.  If an embryo is able to make it to the Blastocyst stage it is sort of a sign that those embryos are the product of "survival of the fittest."

There is a 3 list of Blastocysts: Very Early Blast, Expanded Blast and Hatching Blasts. 

--  Very Early Blastocyst: the cavity is just beginning to form in the embryo and the cell types are not yet distinguishable;

--  Expanded Blastocyst: the cavity is fully formed, the embryo contains 100 to 125 cells, but is still contained within the shell

--  Hatched Blastocyst: the embryo is outside of the shell (hatched), and contains upwards of 150 cells.

On Day 5 (yesterday) they biopsied all our embryos for aCGH testing, or in general terms - they are testing to see what embryos are genetically normal.  After they biopsied them, they then continued to grow them out though today, Day 6.  Those that didn't arrest and were Graded 1 or 2, where then frozen!  Anything that would be considered Grade 3 typically doesnt survive a thaw and make it to a successful pregnancy, which is why they don't freeze them.

Around 2:30p this afternoon, I got the call for the payment for our CGH testing and was very confused.  The financial lady was charging me for a lot of biopsies.  Too many in my opinion.  It’s a flat rate of $2250 to test up to 8 embryos, and the bill was for *a lot* more, so was that meaning I had more than 8 embryos on Day 6??  Couldn’t be!!  I ask the billing lady some questions in regards to the numbers and everything, but she was unable to give me any information, just told me "I got the paperwork, this is what it said and was calling for payment, any more than that you have to talk to Linda (my nurse) or Dr. Sher."  I figured she had the wrong information or they misunderstood and thought I was doing Day 3 testing (which we did last time around) because the charge was for embryos numbers I had on Day 3.   I asked her to hold the charge until tomorrow because I wanted to hear from my nurse first – it just didn’t sound right. 

I emailed my nurse this morning at 11:30a because I had still yet to hear from her, she replied promptly and said she had not heard from the embryologist and promised she would call me after the cryopreservation.  6pm rolls around and still no news, despite the 2:30p payment call, so thought I would send her another email to check in.  Just before sending it, the phone rang.  It was her.

 
I explained to Linda I had talked to the billing department earlier and had an idea of the news but told her it didn’t seem correct.  She laughed at me and said that she had to double, then triple check the papers before calling me tonight because she too thought they had given her the wrong patient information.  HAHA!
The news, well ... A bakers dozen!  Yes 13!  13 Blasts is what we currently have in the freezer. WHAT!!  I was shocked.

Pregnancy rates are the same with Grade 1 and Grade 2 Blasts.  She said its on the rarer side for her to see many Grade 1 embryos, although it does happen from time to time, but most everyone has Blasts that are Grade 2 -just means the Blast has minimal fragmentation. 

Ours?  4 of them are Grade 1 (meaning no fragmentation at all) and 9 of them are Grade 2 (minimal fragmentation.)   AH!  Double shocked is all I can say.  Utter double shock. 

Of course now we are anxiously waiting for the last report to come on Friday.  The aCGH news, which tell us how many of those 13 are normal, and how many are abnormal.  Typically they say to expect 50% to be normal, (however the older you are the lower that % goes) I was told due to my age (being on the younger end) to expect a little over 50% to be normal - of course cant help but be cautiously optimistic about that too.  Would love to get news of 6 being normal, but honestly that seems like we are asking and hoping for a lot, so at this point just praying for new of at least 4 being normal!  These next 48 hours are going to crawl.  Patients is not my virtue and I am having to learn it the hard way with all of this.  

  

The Lord has been faithful through this whole cycle and I am going to have faith He will continue to do so with the aCGH news, I am grateful we are only asked to have faith 'big as a mustard seed' because at times like this, when you want something so much, its hard not to dwell on the past - and the past, our past, doesn't show the best of numbers in all this.

Thank you Jesus for these 13 Bakers Dozen!  Unexpected to say the least, but not unwanted!  My mom has always said 13 is a lucky number, mostly due to the fact I was born on the 13th and she hated that everyone would say it was unlucky.  But I will agree with her now - it is lucky!!!