The Little Embryo that Could?

We made it through transfer day, but it wasn't without its moments.

Both embryos survived the thaw, which was obviously fantastic news.

But.

The quality of the embryos was not particularly good. To put it bluntly, it was pretty bad. The RE came just before the transfer with the Fert Report from embryology, and she told us we might consider transferring both, since neither of them are very strong. She stepped out for a few minutes so we could discuss, and I have to admit I was incredibly conflicted. Dearest didn't really waffle- we don't want twins, we should not transfer two. Clear, right? Becomes a little less clear when you've been repeatedly stabbed with a 2" 22 gauge needle in the rear in the name of becoming PREGNANT. Ultimately, we stayed with our decision to do an elective single embryo transfer. And I have questioned it every second since. Now we have the cost of refreeze and the potential of another cycle with a sub-par blast to think about if this cycle is not a success, where as if we had transferred both and had a failed cycle, we would be able to clearly close the door on this chapter of our lives. But if we had transferred both and wound up with another multiple pregnancy, it would have been difficult and stressful, at best.

Sometimes it's hard to take the path of least regret. Not because you don't want to, but because it's not always as clearly marked as we anticipated.

Anyway, 2dp5dt, and nothing much to report here. Pregnant until proven otherwise, but no real symptoms to report that can't be explained by the crazy progesterone supplementation. Not feeling hopeless, but being careful not to get carried away with optimism either, especially in light of a good friend recently announcing her pregnancy. Having the girls as a constant distraction is incredibly helpful.

I keep telling myself, "I'm ok either way. I'm ok either way. I'm ok either way."

Maybe at some point I will convince myself that it's true.

Anyway, for comparison's sake, here is "Baby C."

If I were super fancy at the internetz, I would link you back to my blog post that has the petri dish pictures of "A" and "B" (that would be Sophia and Olivia) so you could compare. A super awesome blastocyst has a tightly packed cluster of cells in the center, some nice blank space, and many regularly spaced dense cells around the inside edges of the circle. The cluster goes on to be fetal cells, and the cells around the inside edges go on to be placental cells. This little blast has a so/so cluster of stem cells, and a not so hot group of placental cells. There's everything I know about embryology. The girls were a 3AB and a 4BB if I recall correctly. This embryo is a 4BC. Anything CC or below CRM won't really bother with. 

Anyway, I'll leave this post with Dr. Jaffe's parting words to me-- "You never know. I've seen some beautiful babies come from some ugly embryos."