Then there were three

None of our remaining 4 embryos made it to blastocyst today. I figured the best case scenario was one. The odds of the three that were already 2 days behind in development catching up was probably almost zero, but I was hoping that other morula would make it although it was a day behind as well (and not as far along as the morula we had transferred yesterday). Some embryos reach morula at day 3 and blastocyst at day 4 but the "norm" is day 5 for blastocyst. Nadia took until day 6 to reach blastocyst, but we've now had 7 embyros make it to day 3 but then not make it to blastocyst by day 6, and of course I've had 3 embryos, 1 morula, and 3 blastocysts transferred to my uterus if you put the 3 transfers together. At first I felt stunned that last time we started with only 7 embryos and one did make it to the freeze whereas we started with 13 embyros this time and none made it to the freeze. Of course last time only 1 of 4 made it to blastocyst (who knows about the 3 transferred on day 3 in 2007) and 2 (probably 3) made it to blastocyst this time. I am SUPER glad though that I had that third embryo transferred yesterday. I have no regrets on that decision whatsoever.

The good news is that if I get a +++ next week it means we will have saved some $$ as the freezing costs $1,000 not to mention the costs of doing a FET. Plus if I have a sticky BFP from this fresh transfer it means we won't have any hard decisions to make regarding any frozen embryos. I would have wanted to keep transferring them, but especially if I am carrying twins or triplets, Paul would have wanted to give those frozen ones up for adoption which would have been hard for me. So I am trying to just trust that God has everything under control and there's a reason that the other 10 embryos stopped growing at various stages over the past 6 days. Of course the frightening scenario is that I lose these triplets inside me. Then I would really be wishing we could do a FET. It will be so hard to decide whether to do another fresh cycle of ivf or switch back to pursuing adoption instead. We have until December to reactivate our contract with Adoption Consultants. Reactivating our contract means doing a 4th home study and creating another batch of profiles. I forget how many we've made already, but it's more than 200. Well there's no need to figure that out now. First, we just have to wait and see if any of the three transferred to my womb yesterday will result in a heartbeat (or beats) on the ultrasound screen in about 3 weeks.

I have to admit though I feel a sense of grief today - for the 6 embryos that stopped growing before day 5 and for the 4 which didn't make it to blastocyst by day 6. They say this happens all the time with couples who get pregnant the normal way - that conception occurs far more than pregnancy. Sometimes conception occurs but not implantation, and sometimes implantation occurs but the m/c is so early that AF shows up at the regular time so the woman has no idea she was pg unless of course she's obsessive with taking hpts on the early side of things. With ivf though you know about the little lives from the first day of conception, and although you know it's almost impossible that all of them will make it, and most people aren't actually trying to have say 13 kids, it's still sad. At least for me anyhow. Especially since I've seen one of our blastocysts grow into a 10 month old baby.

It's been strange having Nadia gone for so many hours today. Paul has been upstairs in his office grading papers and working on a presentation he's giving in class on Thursday. I've been working on preparing the Blackboard sites for my summer courses. Paul said she didn't cry when he dropped her off which was great. She sees Sarah every Sunday at church which had to help. She's never been with a non-family member for this many hours in one day (6), but it would have been impossible for me to stay on bedrest AND Paul to get work done if she was here all day. I'm sure she's doing fine. She actually cries on Sunday if she sees Sarah when someone else is working in the nursery.