Reality Check

Here's an update, real quick, because it is midnight on a "school night" (I have to go to work in the morning).

We talked to Dr. Babycraft yesterday for our pre-FET follow-up. We decided to transfer 2 embryos although he would be willing to do three, given my age and my past failures. I declined, saying I'm afraid of triplets. I suppose if this attempt is another failure, we can do a Hail Mary Transfer with 3 next time. That's assuming that all 5 of them "thaw" nicely.

Other than discussion of the number to transfer, the only other news flash from the Babycraft call was that I somehow distorted the success rate for embryos that have tested normal. I was thinking it was 70% per embryo, but it is actually 70% per transfer. Dr. Babycraft seems to think that my chances are actually lower than 70% because, again, of my past failures, my age, etc.

Oh -- and he said that having 5 out of 6 normal embryos was good news and bad news. The bad news is that if that many were normal now, that many were probably normal before and it still didn't work. I pointed out that I've only made two embryos before. Also, and I didn't think to say this during the call, those two embryos from a year ago were poor quality (and cultured in an inferior lab). They were below average three-day embryos with quite a bit of fragmentation. The grades our 5 current embryo indicate they are in a different league than their "sibs" from 2009.

Despite all of that *encouragement* the call ended on a good note. He said that it is amazing that I've responded as I have, considering the poor responses from before. I reminded him we went from 7 eggs making 2 embryos to 3 eggs making 0 embryos to 17 eggs making what we have now. He said, "It's like you're a different patient." I agreed and told him I'm feeling optimistic. DH told him how glad we are that we are cycling with them.

So, nothing like a good reality check with Dr. Babycraft. His brilliance just gets in the way of his ability to be encouraging. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I fell asleep last night with a few tears on my pillow. Today, I've been okay, though. Up and down. Scared. Impatient. The usual.