Coming back as a follow up to [this] entry concerning the tentative "timeline" that was strictly a guess-timate at the time. Ironically, that loose timeline was dead-on accurate!
So since Part 1: The Egg Acquisition, we have ordered, received, thawed, fertilized, embryo created, and refrozen. They call this whole timeframe and process The Hunger Games (because the attrition rate of your eggs is mind blowing). Here is a run down of our stats.
S T A R T
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
We started with 6 Frozen (MII Graded) Mature Eggs.
T H A W
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
6 of 6 Eggs survived the thaw. mind blowing, we always anticipated at least 1-2 lost here.
I C S I
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
All 6 of 6 were injected with sperm via ICSI
F E R T I L I Z A T I O N R E P O R T
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
5 of 6 fertilized normally. Now we wait...
D A Y 5 R E P O R T
[★] ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
1 superstar Day5 blast, 4 remaining potential "early blasts"
D A Y 6 R E P O R T
[★ ★] ★ ★ ★ ☆
1 superstar Day6 blast, 1 potential blast, 1 multicell, 1 single cell.
D A Y 7 R E P O R T (final)
[★ ★] ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
2 superstar embryos submitted for PGT-A. The 1 "potential" was of very poor quality, the 1 Multi-Cell arrested, and the Single-Cell never progressed.
___
P G T - A R E S U L T S
Day 5 Embryo
High Quality
Normal Chromosomes
XY (boy)
Day 6 Embryo
High Quality
Normal Chromosomes
XX (girl)
Otter and I agreed to not selecting the sex. We are leaving that up to the professionals and their expertise about which one would be best to transfer. I have to admit, I am slightly Team Girl but I'm terrified of the first transfer not working -- so I'm too scared of going with XX first anyway!
In a perfect world, this is exactly what we wanted. We wanted to know the sex so that hypothetically, should everything work perfect, we would go back for a sibling -- especially knowing it would be the opposite sex. Now the reality is glaring us in the face. Its quite possible that we could only have 1. Or, worst case, still end up with none.
I'm trying to ward off those types of thoughts. It's a very active effort to put my "mental phrasing" back on the optimistic path, instead of letting it drift too far into pessimistic territory.
ALICE + EMMA + ERA
Next up, I believe I'll need to start gearing up to book my "Mock Cycle" for November. Originally, I thought December would be fine, but I just feel like I should grant myself more wiggle room for getting results back and brace for anything that would require treatment. I know my Official Follow-Up Mammo is the first week in January, and I'd rather be done with any Biome meds or Antibiotic regiments -- which we can only know about from the ALICE [analysis of infectious chronic endometritis] EMMA [endometrial microbiome metagenomic analysis] and ERA [endometrial receptivity analysis] biopsy during the mock cycle. The combo price for these is around $1,000.00 but individually, ALICE $300, EMMA $500, and ERA $200, respectively.
Luckily, I've rearranged my paycheck disbursements, and have been adding more to the "Baby Fund" account every payday with my direct deposits. It's made a nice buffer, so this should be covered Out-Of-Pocket no problem.