Fertilization Report

I received the fertilization report, and of our 29 eggs retrieved, 24 were fertilized. I can't believe this - 2 dozen embryos? Are you kidding me? Unbelievable. Based on this, we are scheduled for a Day 5 transfer on Sunday. Started Crinone 8% twice a day, and estrace, and Vivelle patch today.

It’s crazy to think about these numbers. I know that the chances of most of these embryos making it to day 5 are slim to none, but still. It makes me feel very secure that I have this many cooking in the lab, and I will definitely have some to freeze – right? What if this IVF cycle was my only one? What if from now on all I have to do is FET cycles? Shoot, what if I transfer two embryos on Sunday, and two implant, and I give birth to two babies? Could it possibly be true? Except then we would need to consider what to do with the rest of our embryos. We already signed the consent that said that if both the hubs and I die, that we would donate our embryos to research. I would want to be around to make any further decisions about our embryos, so we decided on that. And I know I’m opening up a huge can of worms when I start to think about what to do with the others… But right now, I need to just focus on two. Two embryos. Two babies.

Speaking of numbers, I have a friend at work who knows all about our IVF adventures – actually, I have a few friends who know about this stuff, which is very nice. But this one guy who sits next to me, he’s been very nice and asks almost every day about what’s going on with my eggs. He’s been very good to talk to, as he always turns it into some big joke, and no matter how stressed I am, he ends up making me laugh about the whole thing. He does our financial models at work, and I don't think he has much to do, because after hearing about my 29 eggs, he built me a model which will predict the number of babies I'll get after transferring a certain number of embryos. You can change the chance of baby, and the number of eggs transferred, and it will calculate the chances for each number of babies. He really thinks I should have lots of embryos transferred, call TLC, who will come and tape the whole thing – we could make so much money! He thinks the hubs and I would be great on a reality show… Anyway, here is the spreadsheet assuming 50% chance of each blastocyst working (I saw this chance on a few different sites), and 2 transferred (sorry for the ugly look - I'm not an expert on blogging...):



Here it is assuming 50% chance, and 3 transferred:



And this is what my friend thinks we should do - aspire to be another octomom:



He keeps saying, "this almost GUARANTEES you a baby - don't you want a baby???"

It is interesting to see the impact of the chance of implantation - what if the chance wasn't 50%, and instead it was 30%, and you transferred two embryos?



The odds are back to 50/50 - which I don't love...

Of course, I sent the spreadsheet to the hubs, who also spends a lot of time with financial models, and he pointed out that our friend's model doesn't have certain variables like the chance of embryos splitting and having identical twins. Just goes to show you, you never know... A model may be a good predictor, but as all of us in finance know, past performance is no guarantee of future results! And all models have errors...

For now, I'm just so very happy that I have 2 dozen (!!!!) embryos growing away happily in the lab. I'm so very grateful for all of this - that I had the chance to do IVF, and for all of your support throughout this process. I'm just on top of the world!!! (Plus, I recently took 1/2 of a vicodin...)