Transfer Day Results

Spring. New beginnings. Rebirth. According to my acupuncturist, this year in Chinese medicine (the year of the Monkey) is supposedly known for luck and for miraculous occurrences. Sure hope she's right because it looks like we're really going to need one.

Only 2 of our 6 fertilized eggs made it to the blastocyst stage of embryo development (on day 5 of development, which is today, they are called blastocysts -- or blasts-- and blasts are preferable for transfer as opposed to earlier stages of embryonic development), with one more that is "hanging on" and we'll know more about that one tomorrow. But unless that 3rd one pulls through, there is nothing to freeze for a later cycle. Huge blow. Additionally, our 2 blasts are not as far along developmentally as the blastocyst embryos we had to work with before, so that was another dose of unexpected news. Last time, our blasts were stage 3 and 4, and this time, one is stage 1 and the other is stage 2. It's all very technical. The doctors and embryologists all conferred and agreed that transferring the 2 that were ready today would give them the best chance at survival and would in turn, give us the best chance of success.  The good news is that they are blastocysts, which as I said before are preferable for transfer. But bad news is that unless that 3rd fertilized egg catches up developmentally, this is our last try. That reality is still sinking in.

Normally, day 5 blasts that are further along in development come with a success rate of around 66% with a fresh transfer like we did today. However, since the two they transferred today were in earlier stages, they were not able to determine their quality so they put our success rate at 50%.

Are we disappointed? Yes. But a week ago yesterday, we were in danger of losing out on this cycle entirely so it is a blessing to even have this chance. The way I see it, we have two choices: despair and spend the next 10 days fearing the worst, or remain optimistic and hope for the best. We've made our choice and I'm happy to report that our hope is far bigger than our fear. We will not give up. These two embies are precious to us. They are likely our final chance for a biological child and we love them dearly already. After the rollercoaster cycle we just had, the fact that we have them at all is miraculous. Our embies deserve every ounce of optimism we can muster. After all, one or both could make our dreams of parenthood come true.

Beta day is April 2. Please join us in remaining hopeful and optimistic that this will be our time. We thank you all so much for your love, for your continued support and for sharing in our dream. We couldn't navigate this journey without you <3

Our beautiful embies <3

UPDATE: The third embryo we were hoping would pull through for us to freeze for a later cycle (if needed) did not make it. The two that were transferred on 3/23 are our two shining beacons of hope. This IVF attempt will be our last.