Here's What It Means

To culture frozen embryos.

The scientist explained that it was suggested at our last FET because while our first embryo thawed okay, it then went on and 3 cells fused into one, suggesting an abnormality. Our second embie thawed okay and only lost one cell - but it didn't stick.

So we have three remaining.

The suggestion is that they thaw all three and then culture on to either day 3. or day 5. that way being in the best position to pick the strongest embryo to transfer.

Yowza!

So the risks are that when you thaw all the embies you are then exposing them to the lab conditions, potentially causing embies to arrest - and there being no way of knowing if those embies could have implanted if transferred earlier.

The pros are that you could end up with say two of the embies going on to beoome high quality blastocysts and being in a position to make a decision on transferring the best and then having one to freeze. Thereby having the best chance of success.

To me this means one thing - an all or nothing cycle.

Problem is I don't have a back up if it doesn't work.

Thawing and transferring one by one is the slower way, the more conservative, but the least risky in terms of losing embies.

I think scientists take a more dispassionate view - they are looking for the fastest way to find the strongest embryo and have the maximum chance of success.

Nagging in the back of my mind is ... we've never been lucky ... we transferred high quality blastocysts before (mine) and didn't get success - so no guarantee there ... we've never been lucky.

I lie, we have been lucky, we have BabyG - but we had no other embies from that cycle - either to transfer or freeze. It was all or nothing with that one 4-cell embie. Wow that thinking has bought me full circle ... all or nothing worked once... shit...

Thoughts?