Embryo Biopsy and Freezing

I got a call from Ashley today with the final tally on frozen embryos. The final number is 11. Two out of the fourteen embryos that had grown stopped growing before the biopsy. One of the 12 embryos that were biopsied did not make it through the freezing process. We are of course, thrilled to have 11 embryos left but we are still kinda bummed about the 3 that didn't make it.

In an effort to not bore you by spewing out a bunch of terms and numbers, here are some examples of what our embryos have been doing over the past 5 days! Be sure to read the captions next to the pictures or the rest of this blog will get very confusing...

Most of the Embryos have grown into Early Blastocysts.
Only one of them is still compacting to turn into an Early Blastocyst.

3 of them are Hatching Blastocysts

3 of the embryos were mature enough to biopsy on Tuesday
1 young Blast - Grade 1
1 Young Blast - Grade 1 Plus (we got a show-off over here!)
1 Young Blast - Grade 3

The others were biopsied and frozen this morning
1 Young Blast - Grade 2 Plus
1 Hatching Blast - Grade 2 Plus
1 Young Blast - Grade 2
2 Hatching Blasts - Grade 2
1 Compacting embryo - Grade 2
1 Young Blast - Grade 3
1 Hatching Blast - Grade 3

I went over the grading scale a little bit in my last post. Obviously a Grade 1 is preferred over a Grade 3, however all of our embryos have a good chance of creating a healthy pregnancy. I don't really understand the grading scale so I'm not even going to try explaining it any more.


I will start nightly Lupron injections on Friday. I'll be on the Lupron at least until we have the results of the embryo biopsies which will be 2-3 weeks. Once we have the results, we will schedule my embryo transfer and I'll have to be on estrogen for 21 days before the scheduled transfer date. There will be more blood tests, ultrasounds and all that full stuff along the way, but we are getting closer!!

- Emily