Tomorrow is the day

Tomorrow we go in for our day 5 transfer. We will be transferring two of the best embryos we have. Hopefully that will be two blasts graded a BB or higher. That is my hope.

We received our day 3 call about 30 minutes before our appointment on yesterday so we ended up just going in and talking to them. After hearing the gradings I wasn't 100% sold on continuing to a day 5 transfer. Here are the results:

14 embryos:
4 grade 2s
9 grade 3s
1 grade 4 - this one they said wasn't looking so great and they didn't think it was going to make it.

If you remember from our last cycle we had 5 embryos, 3 grade 2s and 2 grade 3s. None of our grade 3s made it to day 5. Two of our grade 2s made it to blast stage, one was transferred and the other was discarded as it wasn't high enough quality (although it was the same quality as the one we transferred) and the last one never continued growing past the early blast stage.

So hearing that we still had a few grade 2s, mostly grade 3s, and now even a grade 4 it pretty much sounded to me like we were in the exact same place as last time only with more embryos. I was heartbroken. I was so hopeful that extra day would improve the quality of my eggs. I haven't heard of a single person my age getting the embryos reports that we have. Most people that have reports that look like ours are in their mid to late 30s.

After meeting with the doctor I knew that in all honesty waiting to day 5 is the best option. I knew this before but it's hard to make those decisions alone when you feel so emotionally attached to everything. We had one of our grade 2s not make it last time. If we had chosen to transfer on day 3 there would have been a chance that one of the ones they chose would be one that wouldn't make it and the other one could have been low quality. The whole goal of this is to put two very much alive and growing embryos back in. To know which ones are the best one we would need to wait. I kept saying I didn't feel like we were changing anything. The doctor kept emphasising that we are. We are putting back two. That increases my chances this time. Transferring on day 3 wouldn't have changed anything.

For those that may not know this on day 3 the male dna starts to take over and is in charge of the egg growing. Up until that point growth is 100% the female dna. There have actually been studies where they poke the eggs (not fertilize them) and high quality eggs will actually grow and divide some even up until day 3. After day 3 if growth stops it could very well be from a severe male factor. Which we know we have as an issue. Sometimes morphology can present not only a fertilization problem but also a genetic problem in that they produce genetically deformed embryos. It is expected that there will be some that do not make it but if a large number were to arrest then it would be an indication of a larger issue. We are very much hoping that this is not an issue for us and we don't expect it to be. It is just another fear that we needed to face by once again moving on to a day 5 transfer.

So pretty much all we can do is hope and pray that we walk in there tomorrow with some better news than we did last time. Last time our best was a B-/C. If that is our best this time I'm not sure how I will be able to handle that. I hopeful for at least a BB based on our crappy quality eggs and sperm I know A anything is highly unlikely. Also it doesn't look like we will have anything to freeze so this is pretty much it for us.

Wish us luck tomorrow :) Thanks for all the support.