For the Love of Pete
Meet Pete!
That spot with the little blurb coming out of it is "Pete" our embryo. Why is it named Pete? Well why the hell not? Actually, I kept calling it a "him" and told Matt I needed a pet name instead of calling it "it" or "him". (Side note: we have no idea if the embryo is a boy or a girl, immediately when I saw it I thought it was a boy. But based on my own guessing and being convinced Bug was a boy, it's probably a girl embryo) So Matt suggested we call it "Pete" which could either be for Peter or Petunia, we will not be naming our future child either, for the record. Scarlett was affectionally called "Zetus Lafetus" until we knew she was a girl.
We went in on Saturday for our transfer. I worked the night before and had to haul ass from work, to get Matt and then to Highland Park. The procedure itself was simple. The wait was brutal, they had me drink a lot of water before hand, and for whatever reason I have been peeing like 20x more than usual, and already pee a lot. I had to pee before I even got there and had to bribe the nurses to let me pee with the promise that I would most certainly have to pee again in 30 minutes when they did the procedure. Which I did.
The embryologist came in when we got there and explained that out of the 14 fertilized 9 had made it to day 5, but several were lagging. They had Pete who was graded 4BB (I'll explain the grading later) and froze 2 more. they had 4 more that were a little behind but were giving them 2 more days to catch up. When looking at the picture the big ball is Pete (the embryo) and the little blip is where it is starting to "hatch". Like chickens, embryos need to hatch. However, when they hatch they attach to the uterine lining and hopefully burry deep in.
The whole procedure took less than 15 minutes. The had me take the valium right before going back (this is to help relax the uterus after the procedure) and brought me back to the room where I had the retrieval. They had the embryologist, the ultrasound tech, lab tech and Dr. Jacobs. And surprisingly they were all male, and all hysterical. My legs were up in the air, again, and Matt and I were able to watch the US machine. I knew we would be able to watch it there, but then they turned on the big screen TV above me and there was Pete. And I lost it.
Like full blown ugly crying. I don't know if it was from all the hormones, the valium, working all night or just from sheer happiness. I was expecting to see our embryo on the big screen. They had is zoomed in at 1000x, then at 100x where we were able to watch Dr. Jacobs suck it up, see it in the syringe and then via the US were able to see it placed in my uterus. It was incredible. Besides Scarlett's birth, the most incredible experience of my life.
I explained to my gentlemen staff that my job is to save lives and it's what I know, but see the beginning of life is a whole new level of awe. Beautiful, scary and crazy all in one. Matt and I don't remember Scarlett's conception (hello whiskey and vodka) so to potentially see the start of our newest member is pretty amazing.
After the procedure Dr. Jacobs gave me a huge hug (seriously, he is the best doctor ever) and sent us on our way home. Part of the old wives tale is to eat salty french fries. So we set off to find them. At 9am we were limited, I ate hash browns and then when we got closer to home I had Matt get me french fries from Wendy's. Then I passed out in valium induced bliss for like 8 hours.
I've felt fine since the procedure. I'm 4dp5dt which means I am 4 days post 5 day transfer. I have my beta (or blood pregnancy test) on October 25th. I am going to try my best to not test before then. But I doubt I'll make it that long. It feels good just being on the progesterone. Even though it's messy (suppositories) and painful (shot in my butt) I feel so much better. The medications make me sleepy, but I run baseline tired, so that doesn't really change anything in my world.
Two days after we had our transfer we got the final report on our embryos. We have 4 froze, plus Pete we had 5 usable embryos. We had two 5BB, one 5BC and one 5CC. The first three are pretty good quality. The last is just an okay one. I'm calling this our bonus that we would probably put in with another of our embryos.
Grading scale:
The first number has to do with where they are in the cycle of a blastocyst and how close they are to "hatching" on their own. So these babies are 5, which means close to hatching on their own.
The first letter is from A-D and has to do with the quality of the cells that will become the baby itself. I spoke w/ our embryologist who said that aParent IVF has only 12% that are A quality because of how picky they are with their distinguishing. She said that their B rating is equivalent to A's in most labs. So our B's are considered great quality.
The last letter is also from A-D and is not as important as the first letter. This is the quality of the cells that make up the placenta.
I spoke with the embryologist for sometime about all of the qualities and such and where we fit in, and she was happy with the qualities minus our 5CC embryo, but I was insistent that we froze everything that could potentially be viable, even if it wasn't a great grade. Plenty of babies have been born with a low grading, and the way I see it we might as well give it a shot.
We went from 21 eggs, 16 mature eggs, 14 fertilized to only 5 making it to hight enough quality to use of freeze. A lot of clinics will do 3 day transfers, mine does not. The reason is a lot of embryos will arrest in development those next 2 days. We had 9 at day 3, and in the end only had 5 usable.
I'm bummed.
I know that sounds stupid, but I am. I was hoping we would have 9-10 embryos to freeze so that I never had to go through the stimulation again. And I might not even need to. Pete could stick and we could have another successful transfer in the next few years. Some women do not even get one embryo and I keep trying to remind myself that. I'm going to talk to Dr. Jacobs too and see if there is anything we could have done differently, but for now we're in the clear. Keeping our fingers and toes crossed this transfer is successful so we don't need to worry about this for years to come!
That spot with the little blurb coming out of it is "Pete" our embryo. Why is it named Pete? Well why the hell not? Actually, I kept calling it a "him" and told Matt I needed a pet name instead of calling it "it" or "him". (Side note: we have no idea if the embryo is a boy or a girl, immediately when I saw it I thought it was a boy. But based on my own guessing and being convinced Bug was a boy, it's probably a girl embryo) So Matt suggested we call it "Pete" which could either be for Peter or Petunia, we will not be naming our future child either, for the record. Scarlett was affectionally called "Zetus Lafetus" until we knew she was a girl.
We went in on Saturday for our transfer. I worked the night before and had to haul ass from work, to get Matt and then to Highland Park. The procedure itself was simple. The wait was brutal, they had me drink a lot of water before hand, and for whatever reason I have been peeing like 20x more than usual, and already pee a lot. I had to pee before I even got there and had to bribe the nurses to let me pee with the promise that I would most certainly have to pee again in 30 minutes when they did the procedure. Which I did.
The embryologist came in when we got there and explained that out of the 14 fertilized 9 had made it to day 5, but several were lagging. They had Pete who was graded 4BB (I'll explain the grading later) and froze 2 more. they had 4 more that were a little behind but were giving them 2 more days to catch up. When looking at the picture the big ball is Pete (the embryo) and the little blip is where it is starting to "hatch". Like chickens, embryos need to hatch. However, when they hatch they attach to the uterine lining and hopefully burry deep in.
The whole procedure took less than 15 minutes. The had me take the valium right before going back (this is to help relax the uterus after the procedure) and brought me back to the room where I had the retrieval. They had the embryologist, the ultrasound tech, lab tech and Dr. Jacobs. And surprisingly they were all male, and all hysterical. My legs were up in the air, again, and Matt and I were able to watch the US machine. I knew we would be able to watch it there, but then they turned on the big screen TV above me and there was Pete. And I lost it.
Like full blown ugly crying. I don't know if it was from all the hormones, the valium, working all night or just from sheer happiness. I was expecting to see our embryo on the big screen. They had is zoomed in at 1000x, then at 100x where we were able to watch Dr. Jacobs suck it up, see it in the syringe and then via the US were able to see it placed in my uterus. It was incredible. Besides Scarlett's birth, the most incredible experience of my life.
I explained to my gentlemen staff that my job is to save lives and it's what I know, but see the beginning of life is a whole new level of awe. Beautiful, scary and crazy all in one. Matt and I don't remember Scarlett's conception (hello whiskey and vodka) so to potentially see the start of our newest member is pretty amazing.
After the procedure Dr. Jacobs gave me a huge hug (seriously, he is the best doctor ever) and sent us on our way home. Part of the old wives tale is to eat salty french fries. So we set off to find them. At 9am we were limited, I ate hash browns and then when we got closer to home I had Matt get me french fries from Wendy's. Then I passed out in valium induced bliss for like 8 hours.
I've felt fine since the procedure. I'm 4dp5dt which means I am 4 days post 5 day transfer. I have my beta (or blood pregnancy test) on October 25th. I am going to try my best to not test before then. But I doubt I'll make it that long. It feels good just being on the progesterone. Even though it's messy (suppositories) and painful (shot in my butt) I feel so much better. The medications make me sleepy, but I run baseline tired, so that doesn't really change anything in my world.
Two days after we had our transfer we got the final report on our embryos. We have 4 froze, plus Pete we had 5 usable embryos. We had two 5BB, one 5BC and one 5CC. The first three are pretty good quality. The last is just an okay one. I'm calling this our bonus that we would probably put in with another of our embryos.
Grading scale:
The first number has to do with where they are in the cycle of a blastocyst and how close they are to "hatching" on their own. So these babies are 5, which means close to hatching on their own.
The first letter is from A-D and has to do with the quality of the cells that will become the baby itself. I spoke w/ our embryologist who said that aParent IVF has only 12% that are A quality because of how picky they are with their distinguishing. She said that their B rating is equivalent to A's in most labs. So our B's are considered great quality.
The last letter is also from A-D and is not as important as the first letter. This is the quality of the cells that make up the placenta.
I spoke with the embryologist for sometime about all of the qualities and such and where we fit in, and she was happy with the qualities minus our 5CC embryo, but I was insistent that we froze everything that could potentially be viable, even if it wasn't a great grade. Plenty of babies have been born with a low grading, and the way I see it we might as well give it a shot.
We went from 21 eggs, 16 mature eggs, 14 fertilized to only 5 making it to hight enough quality to use of freeze. A lot of clinics will do 3 day transfers, mine does not. The reason is a lot of embryos will arrest in development those next 2 days. We had 9 at day 3, and in the end only had 5 usable.
I'm bummed.
I know that sounds stupid, but I am. I was hoping we would have 9-10 embryos to freeze so that I never had to go through the stimulation again. And I might not even need to. Pete could stick and we could have another successful transfer in the next few years. Some women do not even get one embryo and I keep trying to remind myself that. I'm going to talk to Dr. Jacobs too and see if there is anything we could have done differently, but for now we're in the clear. Keeping our fingers and toes crossed this transfer is successful so we don't need to worry about this for years to come!
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