Thursday, March 29, 2007

THE EMBRYO'S PROGRESS

As each day drew them closer to their first frozen embryo transfer, Jenny and Erin monitored their embryo's progress closely. I had warned them that on my other two transfer attempts, my embryos had never grown very large.

The largest size a three-day embryo can reach is eight cells. On my two embryo transfer attempts all of my embryos had been four or 5 cells. This is considered quite small.

The smaller an embryo at transfer, the less likely the transfer will result in pregnancy. In addition, my other embryos had all been grade "B". That is normal, since it reflects as little as 1% fragmentation. Grade "A" embryos have no fragmentation whatsoever. That grade is rarely given out by our clinic. I told Jenny and Erin that if their embryo was consistent with our other embryos they should expect small grade "B" embryos.

Though the size of my embryos statistically reduced the chance of success, in our case the transfer worked on each of our two attempts. We were successful both times we transferred embryos: each transfer resulted in a child.

I told Jenny and Erin not to worry if their embryo didn't grow very large. Past experience showed that my embryos were slow starters but successful implanters.

We waited to see how the embryo I had given to Jenny and Erin would grow.