Biopsy Report

it's 4:30 am the day before transfer, and I'm having trouble sleeping. I finally decided to get up when I remembered that I didn't write yet about our embryos and thier first biopsy!

Wow - just thinking about that makes me pause. My babies are having surgery before they are ever even... implanted! So, when they go fill out an intake form at a new doctor and it has, any surgeries, do they put, "Uh, i got biopsied pre-gestation."

Yeah, proabbly not.

But I digress.

Ok, so yesterday morning, we got the call from a different embryologist, not our normal favorite. But that's okay, I know she has to have a day off sometime. At least it was okay when this Other Woman Embryologist first called.

She says, "Hi This is Nellie from the Lab, and I have a report for you." All 17 of your embryos are dividing and we are getting ready for biopsy this morning. It looks like we will be able to biopsy all 17, so that's great news! We'll call you when it's over and let you know."

At this point, she expected me to say, "Thanks! Bye!"

But, I'm like, Whoa, Nellie! I need more information than that. I gotta have details. I gotta write all this down. I gotta know exactly what happened in case there is a next time! (And at this point, I'm thinking there will definitely be a next time, since we'd like to more than one child.) And I gotta post the details! My two regular readers care. (I love ya'll, by the way!)

So, I ask "How many cells are each of them" and rummage through my purse for a pen and paper and try to put my Blackberry on speakerphone at the same time. While I'm doing that, she had already rattled off the stats and is ready to get off the phone. I'm liking My Embryologist even better at this moment. I slow her down and chicken scratch the following:

1 12-cell
3 9-cell
4 8-cells
3 7-cells
2 6-cells
3 5-cells
1 2-cells
----------
17 cells

I remember from Our Private Egg Class, that they are expected to be 6-8 cells today, so I'm pleased to have a few overacheivers.

But I also remember that they told us that they would biopsy any embryo that was 5 cells or greater. So, of course, I ask about my little slow-growing 2 cell friend. She contradicts her earlier statement, saying

Nellie: We might not biopsy that one, you're right. We'll just have to see.

Me: I'm like See what? (I just want to understand.)

Nellie: Well, if it grows to 5 cells by the time we biopsy.

Me: When are you biopsying?

Nellie: We are getting all set up now, so pretty soon.

Ok, fine, I stop pressing the issue. So probably 16 will get biopsied, and then parts of our embryos will take their first airplane trip to Chicago. Nellie confirmed that the super embryologist has arrived and it will take "a while" to do the biopsy and she will call us "later" with the results of the biopsy.

So, we are happy they are all alive, not all alive and kicking, but hey, we only need one, so we're happy to have extra. We don't know what is going to happen the next few days or with the PGD.

More to come!