Day Two Embryo Report

Lab called again this morning. Trevor answered because he was up with Fletcher and I was trying to get another hour or so of sleep (I seem to not be recovering as well after this retrieval… still lots of soreness, which doesn’t translate into the most restful nights).

I heard the phone ring and Trevor starting up the stairs. He knew that I had wanted to talk to the embryologist and didn’t want to take the chance of missing any important info. The embryologist said exactly what I thought he would say. Typically they like to have at least 5 embryos to send out (the testing is done off site at a lab in Maryland or somewhere), reason being is that by day 5 usually about 40% of the embryos that fertilized are still alive and dividing, so there is a good chance that if you start with, say, three embryos on day three (the day they biopsy for PGD) there is a real possibility that you may end up at day 5 with no viable embryos and you have just wasted all that money for nothing (and as you can imagine, as with everything else related to IVF, the genetic testing is not covered by our insurance, and it is not cheap). That said, they will send out less than 5 (and we actually did in the past, with cycle two we sent four); it is ultimately our call.

My lovely friend Sara, who also happens to be a comment-leaving rockstar (thanks, Sara!) had a good question. She asks, what exactly is PGD. Having been indoctrinated and living in this crazy infertility/IVF subculture for over four years now, I sometimes forget that there are certain things that all you “normal” (ha) people know nothing about. So I will link to a little more information here and here (the second link has a helpful FAQ section). Basically, PGD stands for preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The first link, above, lists a number of reasons why people may be candidates, and we fit many. This is a process that screens the embryos for genetic defects before they are transferred. I must clarify that we do NOT use it for gender selection (in fact, they won’t even test our embryos for that, or at least will not include those results in the report we see). What they test for are by and large conditions that are incompatible with life, and, even if we didn’t test these embryos, chances are the ones with genetic defects would not survive to day five, or if they did, would not implant, or if they did, would likely miscarry in the first few weeks (or, as the doc explained, nature usually does a pretty good job of doing its own genetic screening). And, if this process only involved me, I am not sure I would do PGD.

There is a really long explanation that I started to type out, but it is just not making any sense. So the short of it is that many times the genetic testing doesn’t increase the chance of live birth, rather, it decreases the chance of miscarriage, and I want to minimize the chance of miscarriage, in general, and specifically because it is not me that would have to go through it… it is Angie. She is already subjecting her body to so much for me, if we can do something to minimize the chance of her miscarrying, I am all for it.

The embryologist will call tomorrow to discuss how the embryos are looking, and we will make the PGD decision at that time, so check back tomorrow for that news.

And, in case you were wondering, our fab five are still going strong. Five little 4-cell embryos– right where they are supposed to be.