TTC#2 - 8 Out of 9

We called back the biologist yesterday and were told that 8 out of 9 eggs were fertilised. We told them that we wanted to transfer only ONE egg and hope that it will be cultured at Blastocyst stage. .

Blastocyst Development
By definition, a blastocyst is an embryo that has divided into hundreds of cells and is composed of two parts. The outer sphere of the blastocyst is called the trophoblast. The inner portion of the blastocyst is filled with fluid. Inside the trophoblast, there is a clump of cells called the inner cell mass. The inner cell mass is the portion of the blastocyst that actually becomes the baby.

Blastocyst Transfer
Only a small percentage of embryos will reach the blastocyst stage. This self selection of the embryos allows the embryologist to pick the embryos that are most likely to produce a pregnancy. When transferrring blastocysts, it is not necessary to transfer as many embryos to maintain a high pregnancy rate. This reduces the risk of multiple pregnancy and therefore increases the chances for a couple to have a live born healthy baby.Many experts believe there is another reason for the higher pregnancy rates seen with blastocyst transfer. In a normal "in-vivo" (in the body) conception, the embryo does not reach the uterus until the blastocyst stage. If we were to place an embryo into the uterus at the 8-cell stage (after only three days of embryo culture, it is deviating from the normal body processes. That is, the 8 cell embryo does not belong in the uterus at that time. Transferring the embryos at the blastocyst stage is more "physiologic".


By choosing to have embryo culture to Blastocyst Stage, we risk to have none of the embryos survive as well. I do not want to transfer a 3 days embryos and get a negative nor I want to have 2 embyros transfer to get a twins. If none survive, I just need to go thru everything again but if kenna twins, its for life. It's not easy to raise a child in this world now with the higher living standard and competition. After weighing the pros and cons, we decided to take the risk!