The Lonely Uterus

Today was the big day!  We had to be at the clinic at 6am and my retrieval was at 7.30.  My RE came in early so that he could personally do the retrieval himself.  Now for the VERY good news he got a whooping 26 eggs.  Not bad for someone that is 9 days away from turning 42 years old.  I am pleased by the awesome number and now I'm patiently waiting to see how many of the 26 are mature and will be fertilized.  The next report will be tomorrow afternoon.

The next major hurtle will be for the embryos to continue to grow and make it to the blastocyst stage which normally occurs on day 5.  Boring and feel free to skip -  definition of a blastocyst - an embryo that has developed for five to seven days after fertilization and has developed 2 distinct cell types and a central cavity filled with fluid (blastocoel cavity). The cells in a blastocyst have just started to differentiate.  The blastocyst embryo transfer done on day 5 - at a more "natural" time for the embryos to be in the uterus, and very shortly before actual invasion and embryo implantation.

However many embryos that make it to this stage (and these will be the creme de la creme) will be sent off for CGH testing.  This is HUGE news as I will be the first patient from my clinic to have their embryos sent for CGH testing.  This is the testing cutting edge for at the very famous Colorado (CCRM) clinic.  My embryos will be sent to the same lab that CCRM uses.  CGH testing allows for the testing of all 23 chromosomes vs. PGD testing that only tests 9 chromosomes on day 3.  

I'm praying for lots of my embryos to make it to the blastocyst stage.  I figure like any good party the more the merrier.

I headed back to the couch as my pain meds seem to be wearing off now.