IVF Transfer Experience

As you know from my previous post, my retrieval was on Jan. 15th and they retrieved 30 eggs. 14 of which had fertilized by the next day. I received another update on Sunday, which was day 3 for our embryos, and I was told we had 5 that were on track and 2 more that were a little behind. The rest had 2 or 4 cells but we were told they probably wouldn't catch up.

The embryologist told me on Sunday that we needed to have a discussion about how many embryos to transfer. Daniel and I have had this discussion several times, but it's always been a hypothetical scenario. On Sunday we were still feeling good about just transferring 1 and hoping that we'd have at least 5 others to freeze.

My transfer was on Tuesday, Jan. 20th and I didn't get any calls from the office that morning so I assumed all was good. We were put in a room very similar to where we were prior to the retrieval procedure. I had to get undressed and wear one of those hospital gowns with a hair net and booties. Daniel had a full length gown he had to wear over his clothes, including a hair net, face mask, and booties. We both got prepared, made a crude video of Daniel dancing in his garb, and then patiently waited for my RE and the embryologist to come in.

They finally arrived and the embryologist was doing most of the talking. She seemed hesitant to give us the news. She said that we only had 2 embryos at the blastocyst stage at this point, which is where they should be at day 5. She said I had 3 others that were close but not quite there, but she couldn't guarantee that they would make it to where they needed to be. So she said that we needed to make a decision to transfer both of the good quality blastocysts that we had, or to just transfer 1 and freeze the other.

Honestly I wasn't expecting this. I thought for sure we would have more blastocysts by now. My RE mentioned that my endometriosis may have affected egg quality and that's why we didn't see as many embryos progressing to the blastocyst stage by day 5.

So they left the room and Daniel and I were left to make a very important decision. Do we transfer 1 or 2 embryos? Are we comfortable with the idea of twins? Could we handle it if we only transferred 1 and it failed?

There's a lot to consider and think about and we only had a few minutes. But I told myself from the beginning that I would trust my RE and his recommendation. He is in the top 1% of IVF docs in the nation and he has great success rates. He hasn't led me wrong yet and I trust his advice.

So Daniel and I decided to take the risk and transfer 2 embryos. We've spent 4 years trying to get pregnant and have spent thousands of dollars. It's been a long journey and we are SO ready to be parents. For us, the risk of twins is scary but at the same time I think we could handle it. And part of me feels like it's out of our hands anyway. If we are meant to have twins, then we'll have twins regardless. A single embryo could still split and we could have twins from that.

So here we are 1DP5DT and I'm already searching on Pinterest for "ivf twins" and finding cute ideas for onesies, announcements, and nurseries. The idea is growing on me. We will be happy with a singleton or twins and I'm trying to stay very hopeful and positive that this is our chance. This could really be happening for us after so much time.

So here they are! Aren't they cute???

The transfer itself went very smoothly and wasn't painful at all. It just felt like a pap smear. I was then transferred to a gurney and had to lay flat for 20 minutes following the procedure. I was put on bed rest for 24 hours afterward.

Then I got a call today that 2 embryos made it to the blastocyst stage at day 6 and were frozen! That was a HUGE relief! So we have a back up if this cycle fails, or we have embryos on hand for the future if we decide for more siblings. It feels good to have a plan b.

Just an afterthought - I'm not going to post about our beta results right away, since we will need to process the news individually and then will need to let our family know. Hopefully we'll have good news to share in a couple weeks!