Note on wall: "Bang Head Here"

Sigh. I thought we were on a roll with good news.

We got a call from the clinic today that our embryos are not ready for transfer tomorrow, as planned. Out of the seven fertilized embryos, 6 made it to morula stage. Unfortunately, because none have transformed into blasts yet, our RE really wanted them to grow for an extra day or so to see which ones make it to blastocysts.

I asked why we couldn't just transfer on Sunday (a day later instead). Unfortunately, because there is dysynchrony between my uterine lining and the embryo growth, it would not be the most ideal situation for successful implantation.  The RE explained it to me this way: our embryos were growing at like day 4 1/2, while my uterine lining was at day 6. Even though the difference is literally a 12-24 hour window, it lowers our pregnancy rates dramatically.

So we were basically left at a crossroads: cancel the cycle completely and dispose of our embryos, or cancel the transfer, freeze the blasts that make it into day 6, and do a frozen embryo transfer (FET) in the next cycle. I did a bunch of research and asked a lot of questions before we made a decision. It somehow choked me to think that a morula consists of 10 - 30 cells. 10-30 cells that will continue to divide and hopefully form a human being. 10-30 cells of our combined DNA, our potential offspring. At this stage, these tiny cells became less of an abstract outcome of science and more of a miracle of life.

Cost-aside, we were advised that FET would be the option to give the best chance possible for those embryos (and for ourselves).

However, cost WAS an issue as our insurance does not cover cryopreservations, and so it'd have to be out of pocket. Upon sharing our concerns about cost, my RE actually gave us a 25% discount on cryo because she really wanted this to happen for us and didn't want cost to be standing in our way. I love my RE!

Well, so that is where we are. Truth be told, we are disappointed but the results could have been so much worse. At least we have 6 embryos that seem to be making it at this point! On the other hand, it means more waiting, more meds, another cycle to endure. Everything in this cycle was going right... so it sucked to have another bump in the road to parenthood. Patience is truly a virtue in the IVF process.

The clinic will call us back tomorrow with the number of blasts that get frozen. Meanwhile, I guess I should make the most of it. I could use a drink anyway.