I am relieved that our embryologist did in fact decide to peek on our little acorn this morning. These early morning phone calls have kept me going, kept the hope alive that this is all going to work out. Our clinic changes grading criteria today. Previously they had been looking at growth, symmetry, fragmentation, and cell size. Our little acorn has held on strong at the number 1 grade in these areas. But today they throw those criteria out the window and start looking at how compact the embryo is becoming. I am imagining it in my head like a flower bloom. You want it to open up at first and then close back in. Or like a supernova sci-fi explosion. Bam out into the world and then suck back into place. In this area of grading our acorn has fallen to 4. If they were still grading it the other way Shane said it would still be a 1 as it is now 14 cells and still has absolutely no fragmentation. She expects acorn to be a late stage morula or an early stage blastocyst by transfer. So while I'm disappointed acorn is now graded as a 4 I'm still very happy about the fragmentation part and the fact that it is still growing, still dividing away.
My transfer is bright and early tomorrow morning at 8:00 chattanooga time. I am thrilled to announce that my darling husband has decided to use a little more of his comp time from work so that he can be there for the occasion. I am thrilled. It slightly bothered me to the think that at the moment I technically become pregnant with his child that he would be 4 hours away. I have taught him the slang term PUPO and he is now using it at random to show his excitement.
We have talked about how weird this experience has been so far, how polarising. It is hard to explain the immense levels of excitement we feel that are shadowed so completely on the other end by this crushing fear.
I feel like I'm walking a tightrope. One side is hope and excitement and the other fear and sadness. If I lean too far one way or the other I cannot help but feel that I am doomed. So I'm walking this very thin line borrowing a little bit of each in my hands to keep balanced.
Good luck! Many embryos don't make it to full blast until day 6. In fact our only only "successful" cycle (chemical pregnancy, but the embryo did in fact implant) was an early blast on day 5. I've heard other clinics have found no difference in success rates between day 5 and day 6 blasts. Grow, little acorn, Grow!
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