The much awaited fertilization report

Blastocysts which were frozen on day 6

Growth arrested embryos

This post is going to be easy for me. I will just copy and paste Dr. Sai’s emails.

On day 1, I had 15 embryos. I guess one egg matured in the lab, so there were totally 15 mature eggs out of 19 retrieved, and all were in the 2 PN stage on day 1. This means all ICSIed eggs fertilized, a 100% fertilization rate! This is just awesome and clearly shows the technical expertise of Dr. Sai.

The Day 2 gradings of your embryos are as follows:

2x 5-cell grade A

4x 3-Cell Grade A

6x 2-Cell Grade A

3 Embryos got arrested at 2pn Stage.

There are total 8 Top Quality Embryos on day 3.

Day 3 Grading is as follows:

5 x 8-cell grade A

3x 7-Cell Grade A

1x 6-Cell Grade A

1x 5-cell Grade A

3x 4-Cell Grade A

Day 4 Grading of your Embryos as follows:

3x MORULA

6X 8-CELL Grade A (COMPACTION OF CELLS SEEN)
.

2X 6-CELL Grade A

1X 4-CELL Grade C

Day 5 Grading of your embryos as follows:

1x blastocyst grade 1AA

1X EARLY BLASTOCYST

6X MORULA

2X 8-CELL Grade A 

1X 6-CELL Grade A

1X 4-CELL Grade C

Day 6 (One must keep in mind that, on day 1, fertilization of eggs were done during late evening!)

We are Freezing Total 6 Blastocysts today on day 6.

All morulae Stage Embryos have Become Blastocysts.

Although Exp Blastocyst in image Cap1020 doesn't have great Trophectoderm (the last blastocyst in the above collage) we are freezing it becauze it has got a good Inner Cell Mass.

Altogether I got 7 blastocysts out of 12 cleaving embryos, this means 50% blastocyst formation rate. This is  a great result ! Normally women below 35 years old can expect a blastocyst formation rate of 40%

I am already getting queries regarding how it was possible to get so many eggs. I have no clue too. My AMH was infact low but my AFC count was high. Honestly, I didn’t expect such a good outcome. But, I had lots of faith in Dr. Malpani’s team. Dr. Malpani designed the protocol, Dr. Anjali monitored me very closely and decided when to give the trigger shot, ofcourse, as always, she did a great job during egg retrieval, Dr. Sai was excellent in doing his part of the job and my ovaries cooperated too well! I didn’t take any supplements. Two and a half years ago, when I had my first IVF cycle with Dr. Malpani’s clinic I took DHEA 75mg for 6-7 months and I thought might be DHEA helped me to get many eggs. But this time I took nothing and I do understand now that DHEA might  not have contributed to the improved outcome previous cycle. My first five cycles which I had in Germany were terrible (http://myselfishgenes.blogspot.in/2012/05/my-ivf-journey-timeline.html). I was much younger at that time, had great AMH value, yet, I had only very few eggs to work with.In short, I am very thankful to God and to everyone who helped me to get 7 blastocysts. In the beginning, prognosis of this cycle looked very bleak, but it ended up much pleasant and successful than expected.

There were 6 blasts frozen on day 6. What happened to the remaining one? :) Was it transferred to Rita and what happened thereafter? Keep reading ! :)

Dr. Sai was kind enough to provide the pictures of embryos which got arrested during its development. I have given the pictures of blastocysts frozen on day 6 and the ones which stopped growing in the above collage.