Transfer

I still had not heard from the Lab and needed to leave to head down there no later than 10:30, so I gave them a call around 10:00 and left a message for the Embryologist. He called back shortly and the we had the following conversation (of course this is the abridged version):

Me: Are the results in?

Embryologist: We have yet to get the PGD results in, but as far as morphology goes, all five are fit for transfer.

Me: Did you say FIVE? But, what about the one that "didn't do much" after biopsy?

Embryologist: It is still a little behind, but has progressed to an early blastocyst.

Me: Oh. But none of this matters until PGD is in.

Embryologist: Exactly. So, why don't you come on down and, worst case scenario, they are all bad and you wasted a trip.

Me: If all of the embryos are abnormal the last thing I will be mad about wasting is my half-hour drive to the clinic.

Embryologist: Good point.

So, that was that. On my way down the results came in and he called my cell phone to let me know. Remember the scenario I described in my prior entry which would be the ONLY way we might transfer more than one embryo? You guessed it. Out of the five embryos, three were genetically abnormal for one or more of the chromosomes tested and two were normal. Of the two genetically normal embryos, one looked great and one did not. So, obviously I wanted to transfer the good looking embryo. The question remained of what to do with the other.

I agonized (and I will admit it, called my mom (who was at bible study and didn't answer) and cried) over this decision for the remaining 20 minute drive to the clinic. Once there Trevor, Angie and I (and Fletcher and Michael) sat down with the RE and the Embryologist to go over all the facts. It was a really hard decision. Transferring two embryos "significantly" improves pregnancy rates, and even transferring two, given my (you guessed it) diminished ovarian reserve, the RE still only gave us a 50% chance of getting pregnant. Only transferring one would decrease that percentage, plus, essentially, we would be more or less throwing away the other genetically normal embryo, as there was "a good chance" that it would not meet the clinic's criteria to freeze. On the other hand, transferring two increases the chances of multiples, and all of the associated risks, to Angie and the potential fetuses. And believe me, I take none of that lightly.

In the end, we decided to transfer them both. Neither Angie nor I could bear the thought of discarding a genetically viable embryo, which was a very real possibility had we only transferred one. I will do a post a little later on this week with more details about the PGD report, in case anyone is interested. And I am hoping, since she has to just lay around for the next couple of days, that Angie will do a post about the actual transfer, so stay tuned.