Embryo creation is a passive (for you) but stressful process. If you are fertilizing your eggs right away, the lab will get to work immediately after your surgery. They fertilize the mature eggs, watch to see which ones are still developing after six days, and then take a biopsy for genetic testing (optional) before sticking them in the freezer, and will report on how many pass each step. Again, you can expect to lose 50% at each step of fertilization, blastocysts, and genetic testing.
I was hoping for like three embryos. Even after I found out they retrieved 32 eggs, I was so afraid, following Amy Schumer’s example, that I’d end up with only one viable embryo. It’s all a crapshoot and I didn’t feel safe with the number until I got the embryos back from genetic testing.
My numbers were super high, beyond my wildest expectations at every step. Don’t use this as a point of comparison.
Here were my numbers:
32 eggs retrieved - This is so many eggs! I was happy about this. (Note that, following the 50% loss rule, I could expect maybe 4 genetically normal embryos at the end)
26 mature eggs, 25 fertilized - This is still so many! My mom started getting attached to them at this point, I still thought of them as cells.
11 blastocysts - After six very long days, I found out that 11 embryos had developed sufficiently to send to genetic testing. I knew I wouldn’t get the results for three weeks so I just put them out of my mind.
10 genetically normal embryos - My results came back a full two weeks early with some unexpectedly great news: 10 viable embryos! Four females and six males. This is the point I finally let myself become a little excited and the embryos became actual people to me. I wanted to show everyone my chart from the lab like it was a picture of my children.
You will get a score from the lab with some numbers about how good your embryos are. Each lab is different on how they grade these, so you should talk to your lab to help you interpret the results.
Here are my embryo scores:
Biopsy Day - This indicates whether the embryo sufficiently developed by Day 5 or Day 6 (D5/D6). Day 5 embryos are generally better than Day 6.
Embryo Results/Sex - This indicates if embryo has all of its chromosomes (euploid) and the sex.
Morphology - This is the most important measure. Here’s a great explainer on this. Basically the first number is how big the cell is (1-6 with 6 being the biggest), the first letter is the quality of the inner cell mass (A-C, A being best), and the second letter is the quality of the placenta (A-C, A being best). In order of importance, they go: inner cell mass, placenta quality, cell size. That said, a lot of these grades are subjective (i.e. up to the discretion of the embryologist as opposed to based on specific measures) and even lower-quality embryos can still result in a live birth.
Mitoscore Value - This measures how much mitochondrial (yes, the powerhouse of the cell) DNA is in the embryo. Less mitochondrial DNA = higher chance of implantation. So, a lower number is better here — <20 is best but <25 is still good. My embryologist said this number isn’t super important and is only used as a tiebreaker.
The excitement over the large number of embryos then turned into a little bit of oh-god-what-do-I-do-with-all-of-these panic.
My friends’ suggestions:
Form a cult (tempting)
Form a soccer team
Sell them on the black market (definitely illegal, btw)
Implant them all and become the next Octomom (no thx)
I felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of embryos. I was glad that it seemed unlikely that I would have to do another round of IVF, because egg retrieval was obviously not my favorite, but… what the hell. Ten??? I only wanted one child because I can’t deal with being outnumbered (I also live in a two-bedroom, one-bath house), and my doctor had estimated a 65-80% success rate per transfer for me, so 10 seemed really excessive.
Before you start IVF, you have to sign paperwork indicating what you want to do with any leftover embryos, and I asked to donate mine to other couples for extremely selfish reasons (I think I’m awesome, and I think more of me is good). The embryos are still mine so I don’t have personal experience here, but unfortunately I believe if you donate them, you have to be an anonymous donor. If it turns out I have other biological children out there someday, that’s gonna be wild.
So around this time, the Dobbs decision was happening in the U.S., meaning there was a lot of uncertainty about whether or not these embryos counted as people in certain states and therefore could not be destroyed. Since I opted to donate mine rather than destroy them, I was not overly worried about this particular part of the decision (everything else though — extremely worried). The lab storing my embryos also sent out an email saying that the embryos do not become subject to these laws until they are put inside a body, although I have my doubts about how they can say that so authoritatively when it still feels like the wild west out here. I have been procrastinating on a section about my feelings and mindset going through this process, for obvious reasons (Who wants to talk about feelings?? Not me.) but I will go into that more next time.