Last time we cycled the embryologist wrote down our embryological grades on the paper for us, yesterday was a different embryologist. I asked her to mark the embryos for us and she just wrote which ones we transferred. Oh well.
So what do I know about the twelve smudges above?
I know that two of them had already arrested, and two were at the morula stage which means they were about 12-18 hours behind in development and on their way to arresting.
Four of them are early blastocysts which means that their cells are too cloistered to be graded. They are under observation today to see if they will be candidates for cryopreservation.
The blastocyst grading system assigns 3 separate quality scores to each blastocyst embryo: a number and two letters. The number indicates its blastocyst development stage (expansion and hatching status). The first letter indicates its inner cell mass (ICM) score, or quality. And the second letter indicates its trophectoderm (TE) score, or quality.
If that makes no sense to you, don’t worry, I didn’t understand it either. Here are a few tables that will help:
Okay, so back to my embabies. I had four that were graded on this scale. The big round embryo at the very top right is graded at a 3AC. Originally we thought he was going to be one of the ones transferred but the embryologist elected to use the one labeled Me! in the top frame (he’s on the left and is the first Me! in the image).
That little guy is graded at a 1AB. The other two in the middle also labeled Me! are both 2AA and they were our highest quality embryos. I know nothing about embryos but I was really proud of how these guys looked.
We’re still waiting to find out if the 3AC was good enough to freeze. I hope he was. I just hate the idea of them making it so far and then not having the chance to become a baby. It tears me up.
So as of today, we have 5 embryos under observation for cryo, that in and of itself is amazing. We should know later today or tomorrow if they made it to freeze. Our beta is Monday May 17. Of course, I will be testing every day from now until then. Wish me luck!
