IVF Land on Surrogacy World

Otherwise, called Good News Maybe...... We know the process. We've been there, done that, and won the prize. However, there is no smooth sailing easy ride through this process and every answer leads to more questions. More uncertainty. More doubt about what direction to take and how to proceed. We went into the IVF portion of the process with the goal of getting one good healthy embryo. We sort of got that done. Maybe, Yes/maybe, and no was our embryo report. To begin with we had 6 eggs of which 4 fertilized. Of our four embryos that were chugging along one of them stopped chugging. Now we are down to three little embryos. Embryo #3 had trisomy 13 and this is better to know today than tomorrow. This leaves us with two little embryos. Embryo #2 is a Boy. However, the genetic testing is inconclusive with no results. The embryo quality is 4AA so the odds of it growing and becoming a live baby are 75%. Great odds, but with Embryo #3 have trisomy the genetic te...

On Day 5 we are batting 4 for 4. We have 4 little blastocysts chugging along. One is an expanding blastocyst and the others are just behind growing on schedule. Statistically, only about 25-60% of embryos grow to the day 5 blastocysts stage so once again we are on the high end of the odds line. Without further testing this would give us around a 60% clinical pregnancy rate and a 35% live birth rate per embryo. Having the embryos tested in theory would increase our chances of a live birth by at least 20% and reduce our chance of a miscarriage by about 20%. What do you think that we are going to do? You can call this IVF and Surrogacy by the numbers.

At the end of Day 3 we are another day older and more mature and everyone is still alive and growing. One embryo is a 8 cell grade "A". The other 3 embryos are at 6 cells and a Grade "A". With an A being the highest grade we are growing on pace. Our four little guys are chugging along, healthy, and growing on pace. That is all that we can ask for at this time. The real genetic health test is still a few days away and the next bar that they will need to high jump over. Can they pass their first physical?

Surrogacy at the early stages is about the numbers. How many follicles. How many eggs. How many mature eggs. How many fertilized. How many embryos. How many embryos are healthy. Every stage the numbers go down. Day by Day the numbers get lower and you odds go down with them each step of the way. So much about Surrogacy is managing expectations so that you can stay positive throughout the process. We beat expectations in the number of eggs. We got 6 when we expected to have 5. We now have 4 fertilized embryos. That means we have 4 potential babies. The next stage is to find out how many of them are healthy. Based on our expectations we are still expecting to have 1 that is healthy and viable. We expect to have good answers be the end of this week. Our history with Austin was 6 eggs, 4 mature, 3 fertilized embryos, one healthy child.  Let's hope for a repeat. 

Recently, we were asked if we were going to have another child. Have we thought about doing it again?Have you decided to do it again? My answer was we have not decided how much we are ready to share. This is a tough choice to make because even when it is easy, it's not easy. Every stage has new risks to consider and think about. We went into this knowing that we have a small chance of success and that it may take more than one try to find a healthy embryo to transfer. That's before we even get to the be concerned during the two week wait. Our odds of finding a healthy egg get worse with each month so we need to move quickly if this is going to work. Going into this the first concern is what if you don't have any healthy embryos? How many times do you try? What is an acceptable number of attempts? There are variables and issues to think about on another day. The second concern is what happens if you get a crazy number? What do you do if you have 30 eggs? As of...

Someday we will....Maybe. Someday we will....Maybe. Someday is.....Today. We are walking back into the fire. Attempting Surrogacy Again. This brings our lifeless blog back to life. To share another adventure with you. Ugh. I was going to wait until I was sure that we had healthy embryos and good news and start sharing the story in November, but we are never assured of good news, even after a positive pregnancy test, and would like to share the story now from the start. Surrogacy Made me a Grandma Here are the details. We've been going back and forth with the do we do it again conversation. For the longest time it was 10-20 percent for and 80-90 percent against. We are getting older and our eggs are dust. We have a wonderful healthy child. It is easy to say "let's not do it again." But, the siren call sings, it touches the heart and we move toward it. Unable to resist the call.We resisted for a long time, but our fight ended quickly and quie...