IVF in April..anyone else? - Page 3

[Alisa]

WOW! Sounds like things are really progressing . I'm so excited for you and your family.

Thanks for keeping us updated. Please keep the info. coming; I love to hear positive reports .

[chiromama]

Way to go Brenda! Can't wait to hear the next update.
My retrieval was pretty uncomfortable. Make sure you have a good hotpack on hand and lots of fluids

[Mom2Ellis]

Right...hotpad ... check!

Had another ultrasound this morning. Everything looks good to go! They took 8 vials of blood (a medium for the embryos) so now I have a massive headache. I stop all medications tonight and at exactly 9:00 I take my one time shot of HCG (I believe it's what is refered to as the "trigger shot"). DH is NOT looking forward to that one. Retrieval is set for 9:00 AM on Tuesday and transfer on Friday. I can not believe it's all moving so fast!!!

[jenn s]

good luck fingers crossed for ya.. are you planning day 3 oe 5 transfer??

[Mom2Ellis]

It will be a 3 day transfer...Friday. I seriously can not believe this is all happening so fast!

[jenn s]

awesome I did a day 5 transfer...

can't wait to hear about your fert report etc

[tuck]

I never before heard of a day 5 transfer...that gives them more time to watch the embryos growth/health I guess? Does anyone know how its determined- to do day 3 or 5? Good luck ! Don't be surprised if this shot causes a bit of swelling and lingering pain at the injection site. The actual shot is like the others, no big deal. If it bothers you, rub the site a bit afterwards. I always did them in my leg, and it got hot and sore after. Nothing to worry about anticipation-wise, just didnt want you to be alarmed if it happened..

[chiromama]

Our clinic preferred a 5 day transfer. at day 5 they are blasts, not.... what ever they are before that. I can't remember. They determine it based on how many embies you have, and how they grow. I also think your age determines if they would prefer a 3 or 5 day transfer.

Brenda... anxiously awating an update!

[AdinaL]

Jumping in....

Day 3 v Day 5....

Basically, the hurdle between day 3 and 5 is a big one. So, statistically the embryos that make it to day 5 have a better chance of sticking. It all depends on your embryologist and clinic policy.

I think that anyone can go for a day 5 transfer, as long as they have enough viable embryos to try and make the jump, since you can lose all of them. Sometimes age can determine when you do the transfer, sometimes just egg quality can determine it, how you respond to stims, how many eggs you have...etc.

We went for a day 5 transfer, and ended up with only 4 viable blasts.

The reason it is preferred is because they do stand a better chance. Not to say that day 3 don't. Fact is, the medium they grow them in is NOT you! So, if your embryos look like they might not make it in the medium, they will likely transfer. You are the optimum environment. This is one of the things that our embryologist explained to us - because when you say "day 5 is better" people get very discouraged when they only make it to day 3. Getting to day 5 is a risk, sometimes day 3 embryos will do better in you, than in an artificial environment.

The odds are good with either. Day 3 is minimum, day 5 is just a little more oomph. OOur embryologist went into the details a ton with us...and we did push to day 5, on his advice, it was kind of a tense couple of days, as the medium that they put the day 3 embryos into doesn't let you see the emrbyos. So we could have walked in for the transfer on day 5 and not have had anything.

http://www.embryoivf.com/embryology.html#Blastocyst

That is what my embryologist (who is a family friend, and an awesome awesome guy) wrote about it.

It is all pretty interesting stuff. Day 5 is pretty new actually, there are still a lot of clinics that don't do it.

I didn't realize that you both were in Colorado! Schoolcraft rocks - he is one of the best...my mom's fiance's twins were a result of his help. I went to Conceptions...as I said the embryologist was a family friend, and I wanted him to do all the futzing with the eggs. The IVF nurses there are AWESOME!

[jenn s]

schoolcraft is the best

yep day 3 v 5 is exactly how adina put it.. good luck

[Alisa]

Just want to add...

that this time around, our clinic is doing a five day transfer (as opposed to the three day that another clinic did for us last time around). This time, we are trying to optimize our chances of pregnancy but we are trying to avoid multiples. The clinic said that going to the blast stage decreasing the occurance of multiples because they have a better idea of which ones are more likely to make it, so fewer are transfered. In fact, if we have good blasts at day five, we may just transfer one.

Thanks for all of the great information about 3 vs. 5 days, Adina, I have been really nervous about doing a five day because three day worked great for us last time . Plus, I have heard some negative things about five days. Thank you so much for renewing my hope!

[Mom2Ellis]

Egg Retrieval

The actual procedure went really well. They put me "under" while DH sat next to me. I had something like 15 follicles to retrieve eggs from. You would think I would get quite a few eggs...nope. We only ended up with 4. I am so depressed and just don't know what to say. Everybody was very surprised, including my RE and the embriologist. The just couldn't understand why I would have so many nice looking follicles with nothing in them.

So, here we sit, waiting for the phone call tomorrow morning to see if any of them fertilized. From what I've read on the internet, only about 60% of them will fertilize (even with ICSI) and after that the ongoing dividing embryos decline. At this point I'm hoping for just one. That's all I ask for...just one. : and praying.

[AdinaL]

Very interesting. Did they have any ideas why you would have developed follicles with nothing in them?



I hope everything goes okay. I went from 18 eggs, to 4 embryos in 5 days. It is possible to pull the rabbit out of a hat. Keeping my fingers crossed

[Mom2Ellis]

They have no idea why we only got 4. I believe the stat I read on the internet was 80% of the follicles will contain an egg. Guess we're WAY below that.

[chiromama]

I'm so sorry you didn't have as many eggs as you'd hoped Brenda . I had 14 eggs, 13 fertilized, but only had 8 by the end. so... As Adina said, anything can happen. : I'll be thinking of you.

[AdinaL]

Bizarre. The human body does some weird crap...and it just goes to show that they know only so much.

I will be thinking of you. I know how stressful it is to start this whole process and then get bad news. Finding out that we were down to 6 embryos on day 3, and everything else arrested stressed me out more than anything has to date. Hopefully, your four will be super quality!!!

[jenn s]

i know the felin i had 8 embryos/8 eggs retrieved in day1, by transfer on day 5 i had 3 "very poor" quality embies and 1 strugging as the embryologist said.. they put all 3 back. they called 2 days later and told me my "struggler" didn't make it. i took that as a sure sign that the 3 in me were going to not make it either, however one did just takes that one..

rooting for ya

[Yulia_R]

I'm so sorry you got only 4 eggs . But keep in mind that you may end up with 4 embryos (we had 9 eggs and got 9 embryos).
And also remember you really don't need more than one to have a little cuttie in there .

I wish you best of luck! Relax, this is your job now (you have to stay relaxed and posivive not letting stress take over you, it never helps...).

[Mom2Ellis]

Eggie Update

4 eggs retrieved
3 fertilized
1 immature

So far so good!

Thanks for the love guys!

[chiromama]

GREAT news Brenda! excellent!!! :