Embryo Growth & Testing

 So, I’m doing an abysmal job of keeping this updated but I’m finding myself just absolutely swamped with a never-ending to-do list at the moment and then have been written off with a rotten cold and cough for a bit too!  I spend half my time wondering how I will ever cope with another human being to take care of and the other half thinking it will be okay because at least I’ll be on maternity leave and Oscar will be at school by then!

 

We got a phone-call the day after egg collection to tell us that, of our 16 eggs, 12 eggs were good quality and we had 9 that had fertilised.  By the Monday we had about 6 that were looking good and on the Wednesday they managed to biopsy and freeze 5 which is exactly the same as last time and hopefully gives us a good chance of having a successful pregnancy.  This time we are doing PGS testing as well as PGD which means we might end up with less embryos overall but hopefully any we do get will be more likely to be successful.  Last time we got 3 out of the 5 which is about par for the course as the PGD test is a 50/50 chance so we would be expecting maybe 2 or 3 this time but with the PGS I am conscious that it could be lower.

 

I’d established that I would be accepting of 2 and happy with 3.  Anything more and I would be absolutely ecstatic but if we only got 1 I would be definitely petrified because it gives us just the one chance.  However sometimes it only takes one and anything is better than nothing.  I can’t even bring myself to consider the possibility of not getting any!  I have however suggested to Ant that, however many we get, we need a pregnancy with the last one.  For example; if we got two embryos and the first didn’t work but the second did then we get our sibling and everyone is happy.  However, if the first one works and we have two children, we then have to decide whether to use the third (which I reckon we would).  In doing so, we set ourselves up to accept a three-child household so, even if we would never initially have had three children, it becomes something you want and then end up losing if it doesn’t work.  It’s really hard to put into words but I know what I mean.

 

We were due to have an appointment with the Consultant to discuss the results on 26 July however we had to cancel this as we still didn’t have the results back.  We were told they could take up to three weeks and it was only 19 days post-biopsy so we knew there was a chance of them not returning in time.  However, last time they only took ten days!  Currently it is 29 July, so 3 weeks and 1 day post-biopsy and still nothing.  I’m generally not stressing about it, or even really thinking about it, however every time my phone rings I get so nervous so I’ll be glad when we are taken out of limbo.  Our nurse is brilliant and I know she will let me know as soon as she has the results.  The Consultant can’t fit us in for an appointment now until September but he is going to arrange an ad-hoc phone consultation once the results are back so we don’t have to delay unnecessarily.

 

I’ve spent SO long agonising over the timing of it all but now I think I just need to take it as it comes and go for it whenever we can rather than thinking too much about it and trying to plan too hard.  Ideally we would avoid a due date around when Oscar starts school as both starting school and having a sibling are massive life events that he might struggle with so we would rather not do both at the same time.  It would be nice if we could have a baby before that point so that I’m on maternity leave when he starts school but I was initially cautious about not wanting a summer baby because they would be so young starting school.  However, I guess it would save on childcare costs!  So, as it stands, we will just go for it whenever we can but aim to avoid an August or September due date to help Oscar out!  I did like the idea of an October due date but I don’t think this would be achievable given the closures of the clinic over Christmas and I’m also a bit impatient and don’t really want to wait that long.  I’m going to have a discussion about it with Tracy and hopefully she can provide some insight as it also very much depends on the isolation rules.

 

First things first, we need to ensure we actually have an embryo to use I suppose!