Fertilization Report

I went and did an IVIg infusion this morning at 8:15AM. I knew that the RE's office was going to call me to let me know the fertilization report, but I was too nervous to talk to them. By 10AM they still hadn't called so I sent "J" an IM and asked him to call them. I said, "Don't IM me if you talk to them. CALL ME." Nothing could be worse than finding out over IM that your eggs went kaput.

Shortly after I sent that to him, he phoned me. Talk about feeling tense when my phone went off

The first thing out of his mouth was, "It's good news! We got 5!" My heart quickly vacillated between being happy that we had something fertilize and between wondering what happened to the other four.

The breakdown went like this:

• 1 egg was dead on arrival (probably from the follicle that was 24mm two days before transfer)
  
• 1 egg was classified as 3pn (or, three polar nuclei which suggests polyspermy)
  
• 2 hadn't yet fertilized as of this morning but they were holding out hope for them
  
• 5 fertilized naturally

So we retrieved 9 eggs, 8 were "alive" when the sperm went in, six fertilized, and we are left with 5 embryos. 6/8 = 75% fertilization despite the 3pn one being useless. Ouch. This was our worst cycle yet, but we did ICSI on our previous cycles...so they had a bit of help. I like the idea that "nature" did the picking this time, rather than the embryologist.

I'm still holding out hope that the two stragglers will find themselves fertilized when they take a look tomorrow, but Dr. S did say that eggs tend to be fertilized within the first four hours after the sperm go in. So their chances are looking rather dismal.

I wonder if the two that didn't fertilize where just abnormal? Why don't eggs fertilize? Thick zonas? Yeah. But what are other reasons? "J's" sperm seem to be fine...gosh, we got one egg with polyspermy (ie, the 3pn one) so they are efficient little buggers. So it wasn't the sperm. Something was amiss with the eggs themselves.

Tomorrow we'll get another call from the RE's office as to whether they think we'll be doing a 3 or a 5 day transfer. I was under the impression that we were doing a 3 day transfer on Friday since we only have 5 embryos, but the nurse I spoke with today said that they'll assess their quality tomorrow and will make a final determination at that time.

So we're waiting for more news, yet again.

We're always waiting, aren't we?