IVF: Day-3, Day-5 & Embryo Transfer

I'm a bit behind on my IVF updates because I didn't do a post on Friday and was sick all day yesterday. Sorry for those who have been wondering.

On Friday, Katie called me in the morning to give me the embryo report. She said that on day-3 they want to see 8 cells. They grade their quality from excellent to poor with most typically falling in the good to fair range. This was the breakdown of our 9 embryos on day-3:

2 - 8 cell good

3 - 8 cell good- (minus)

1 - 9 cell good

1 - 5 cell fair

2 - 4 cell poor

She said based on this report they wanted to grow them out to day-5 to see which ones come out the strongest and if any come up from behind. She said that the 5 cell embryo could jump ahead, but it was unlikely that the two 4 cells would and that they would most likely just fall behind.

Katie said to come prepared for the transfer on Sunday morning. She said to arrive at 8 AM for an 8:30 AM transfer. She told me to come in comfortable clothing with a "filling bladder." She also said they would be giving me Valium to calm nerves and relax my uterus. I was pretty happy with our day-3 results and excited to see how they would continue growing on day-5.

The next day I woke up at two in the morning feeling totally nauseous and awful. This continued all night long and I was finally able to force myself to throw up in the morning. Of course I was terribly concerned about how this might impact our transfer day. I stayed in bed in the fetal position sleeping on and off most of the day. I called RCC to talk with a doctor about whether or not I could take Zofran to help with the nausea and what we should plan for the next day. He assessed my situation to make sure it wasn't hyper stimulation problems due to the egg retrieval. He said it was ok to take the medication and to plan on coming in the next morning and decide based on how I was doing whether or not we would do the transfer then or extend to the next day (which is not optimal).

Around 5 PM, Kerry came by with the Zofran. She was headed to a Robert Burns dinner where Matt had a part in the presentation and I was supposed to attend with her for her birthday. We were both really sad that I wasn't able to go with them. :( But I am so grateful she brought the medication because within 30 min to an hour, I was feeling well enough to drink more liquids and eat 4 saltine crackers. Woo hoo. I am incredibly grateful for all the prayers, virtual hugs, positive thoughts and fasting (thanks Mom) because one Unisom (thanks to my friend and neighbor, Meri) and 9 hours of sleep later, I felt much improved in the morning (oh, and 7 lbs. lighter too).

Also, I need to give some praise to my husband in here for being so amazing to take care of both Owen and me yesterday. I was a stinky mess, and Owen was crying/screaming all morning long because he knew I was home, but he couldn't "have" me. He's such a mama's boy and was so sad I wouldn't hold him or play with him. I felt terrible for both Miles and Owen. Our friend, Bridget, relieved Miles for about an hour and a half in the afternoon by letting Owen come over for a play date. After that, he seemed to be much happier.

This morning I was so happy to be feeling well enough to take a shower and get out the door to our appointment. We dropped Owen off to Carly's at 7:20 AM and headed up to Sandy in the icy snow. (Yay! It *finally* snowed!) When we arrived, our doctor pulled up right after us. I was happy to see him and said, "You came!" He had mentioned that he was going to a youth conference this past weekend and might be back late Saturday night and could possibly be there for us for a Sunday morning transfer. I wasn't planning on it, so I was happy to see him. It was also very nice considering that he had a very limited window of time to be there and only came in for us. :)

He brought us back and said that the embryologist was running late due to needing to change his tire this morning. Since he didn't have the day-5 report in front of him, he talked hypothetically with us and what we wanted to do in terms of how many embryos to transfer. We said we wanted to transfer two if available.

Luckily, the embryologist arrived shortly thereafter. The doctor had me take my Valium while he went over the report with us. I don't feel like I got a really good understanding of what happened to all 9 embryos. He explained a lot of technical things about each stage of embryo development and "morulas" and "stage 3" and when it breaks out of the shell, etc. I decided to look some things up about this. I found this site, which tells a lot about each stage of embryo development and kind of makes my head hurt. Here are some pictures from that site of excellent embryo development.

Anyway...what I gather from what he said is that we had two embryos that looked pretty good. Both were blastocysts (what they want) with one being further along than the other. He also said we had a couple that weren't as far along (morulas, not blasts) that they would like to grow out until tomorrow to see if they will turn to blastocysts and be worth freezing. I think when they call tomorrow to let me know about those two, I'll ask Katie for a broken down, layman's report on all the 9 from yesterday.

Here is a picture of the two that were transferred today. Since we named our embryos last time, we had to name them this time as well. We went with Dusty (he said it's the size of a speck of dust) and Potato (Miles says it's for "scalloped" potatoes - you know, the scallops around the edges). Dusty is on the left, Potato on the right.As compared with the two from last time. These were named BOB (Blast-o-baby) and Pepper (for being the size of a pepper flake). Pepper is on the left, BOB is on the right.

By the time the nurse came in to get us, I was feeling the Valium take effect and was quite woozy and dizzy. I don't remember it affecting me as much last time, but I'm sure that had to do with being dehydrated and not eating more than 8 crackers within the previous 30 hours. Here is a picture of Miles and I while I was laying down on the bed keeping warm under blankets while waiting to go into the OR for the transfer.

The transfer went well. We saw them suck up our two embryos from the dish and watched on the monitor as they were shot up inside my uterus. You can't really see them individually, but you can see the liquid as they go in. Then the embryologist (with an awesome Aussie accent) checked to make sure they didn't get stuck on the side of the catheter. They didn't, so we were all good. I rested in the room for about 15 min or so. We talked about the possibility of twins. While it's daunting, we would of course be ecstatic. Although if the embryos split and we got triplets or quads...oh heaven help us! In all reality, we would obviously take whatever we are blessed with. At this point...we're just hoping for one. :) After a bit, we got ready to go. Let me just say...that Valium is practically like sedation on me. I was so dizzy and could hardly stand on my own. I guess I'm a light-weight when it comes to drugs.

The nurse gave us our instructions. She told me that bed-rest is a strong word, but to basically take it easy today and lay around. I was obviously more than ok with this, especially since I was still recovering from being sick. Poor Miles was in for another day of care-taking! She said to keep exercise to a minimum for the next couple weeks and just do light activity. I am supposed to return for a pregnancy blood test on Feb. 2, but I'll be in CA. So she gave me a script for it so I can still get the results and not have to wait.

I went home and have been sleeping and mostly laying around (and playing with my baby since yesterday I hardly saw him at all and missed him so much) today. Now is the long wait. But of course even a positive pregnancy test in 12 days is not a guarantee. I just hope all goes well. We're crossing our fingers and keeping our faith! And thank you to everyone for your love and support!