A Science Lesson

"Good news."

That's what the embryologist said when Derek and I first walked into the room. I told her that I liked hearing that. Here are the numbers...

Out of the thirteen eggs that fertilized and became embryos five of them were good to go. Two didn't make it. Six of them are still too early to tell. They're classified as morulas. The embryologists will wait until Wednesday to see how they're doing and then make a determination if they are viable or not. What's a morula you might say? (I know I said that.) I have no idea. I tried to get a good definition and here's what I found...

1. a solid ball of cells resulting from cleavage of a fertilized ovum
2. a solid mass of blastomeres that forms when the zygote splits; develops into the blastula
3. a solid, spherical mass of cells resulting from the cleavage of the fertilized ovum in the early stages of embryonic development. It represents an intermediate stage between the zygote and the blastocyst and consists of blastomeres that are uniform in size, shape, and physiologic capabilities.
4. a cluster of organisms appearing as an inclusion in the cytoplasm of circulating leukocytes infected by Ehrlichia spp

And the one that kind of makes the most sense for those of us without PhDs in science

5. an animal organism in the early stages of growth and differentiation that in higher forms merge into fetal stages but in lower forms terminate in commencement of larval life

So basically it's a "maybe baby."

The embryos - well, technically I think they're called blastocysts now - were decent quality but not quite as high as the ones I had last year. They range from 3BC to 4BB. The number can be 1-4 and represents the expansion of the blastocyst. I asked the embryologist to explain what that means and she said "Y'know...it's how it expands." Nothin' like using the word expand to explain expansion. I asked for a better explanation -- an expansion on the definition if you will -- and she showed Derek and me a picture. Her explanation of the picture was "See how it expands!"

"Yeah," I said, not really sure.

Derek and I later decided it basically means that it gets to the point that you can't count the cells any more because there are too many of them. That's the definition we're sticking to.

The first letter refers to the placenta and the second letter refers to the fetus. It can be either A, B, or C. I didn't ask what makes them an A, B, or C. I'm guessing it has to do with the quality but my head was still trying to expand so I could understand the first ranking.

I had talked with Chloe last night about the possibility of three embryos being transfered. She is concerned about carrying triplets. I am too. I'm concerned for her health, the health of the three fetuses, my wallet and my sanity having three infants. I didn't want her to decide last night because I wanted doctor input but I wanted her to figure out how she felt about that. She said she had thought of it too.

After talking with the embryologist we found out the statistics...

Transfering 2 embryos
singleton: 65%
twins: 20-25%
triplets: 3% (if one embryo splits)

Transfering 3 embryos
singleton: 65%
twins: 30-35%
triplets: 15%

So the chance of pregnancy is the same but the chance of multiples is higher. Twins would be OK, but the 15% chance of three babies was a little too much to handle knowing it didn't really improve the overall chances. So we settled on tranfering two 4BB babies.

Now we wait. And pray.

And Wednesday we'll see how many of the six can be frozen but so far things are still going well.