Two days Old

So the embryos are two days old today and ideally they should be 4 cells by now.

We got the call at 3.30pm when we were with guests so poor hubby had to wait another hour before we could have a discussion. All three have developed and 2 are now 4 cells and 1 is now 5 cells. I was really happy about this until the embryologist explained that they all have fragmentation and are grade -3 which is below average. This left me with mixed feelings because it is great that they have all developed but it is worrying that they are poor quality. After all the supplements I've been taking I'm gutted, I was really hoping we had quality over quantity this time.

I have looked back at the results from our last two IVF cycles at this stage:

IVF #3: We had 4 @4 cell and 2 @3 cell. 2 were grade 2 which is good, and 4 were grade 3 which is average. So slightly better than this current cycle.


IVF #4: One embie managed to divide to the four cell stage but there is lots of fragmentation, and the other tried to divide, managed to but one cell burst it's membrane. They were both graded -3. So slightly worse than this current cycle.

Now although cycle #3 didn't make it to a positive end result, it was a much more positive cycle. We had 6 fertilised embryos and by day 4 we had 3 embryos making it to the compaction stage (which is the stage where they either 'switch on' genetically or don't make it) and 1 embryo had almost finished this stage and the other 2 are a bit behind. This gives me some hope because at least one of the average embryos made it to compaction at least.


IVF #4 was a more negative cycle with only two eggs fertilising and one hardly developed into an embryo and the other stopped developing by Day 3.

So this cycle, IVF #5 seems to be a mix of the two. I'm feeling more positive than negative though which is a good thing! No more information until Friday afternoon now when they next look at them - everything crossed!