Day 5 update

We will be doing the transfer tomorrow -on day 6. My clinic likes to do transfers with expanded blasts which can either happen on day 5 or day 6. The younger the eggs, the more likelihood of a day 5 expanded blast. My embryologist keeps telling me that it doesn't matter in terms of pregnancy rates whether embryos reach expanded blasts on day 5 or day 6.

Of course, I was hoping for a day 5 transfer because that would give me a reason to believe that this cycle would turn out differently than the previous 4. Unfortunately, if we get some evidence of that, it won't be today.

Today's embryo report - in terms of number and growth rate of the embryos - is no better than the cycles with my eggs. In fact, it is worse than 2 of our previous cycles. It is better than one and can't be compared to the other (we did day 3 transfer that cycle). I am disappointed and not very hopeful. Of course, the proof will be whether or not we get pregnant and have a healthy baby. I can imagine that we could still have an egg issue even if my early embryos grew as well as early embryos from a donor.

I am hoping that tomorrows report might still give us some hope. In our previous 3 cycles where we did a day 6 transfer, we have had only one make it to expanded blast each time. Maybe we will have more with Belinda's eggs.

For those who like to obsess - below are our day 5 embryos for each cycle.

1) 1 early blast; 1 compacted (blighted ovum)

2) 1 expanded blast; 3 early blasts; 2 compacted (m/c at 8 weeks)

3) 3 day transfer (BFN)

4) 2 early blasts; 4 compacted; 4 starting to compact (chemical)

5) 2 early blasts; 3 compacted (this cycle)

I will let you know what we transfer and what they looked like as soon as I can tomorrow. Thank you again to everyone for your continued support.