So the good news is that two of the morulas have emerged to be good blastocysts. One is from one of the frozen eggs (the leading blastocyst rated good/very good which is partially emerging/hatching) and the other is from the fresh collection (rated good/good). Two more emerged but have yet to re-inflate so are considered slow growers and perhaps not good for freezing. Two failed to emerge. This means I am going for a transfer today!
When I was speaking to the embryologist this morning she dropped into our conversation something about transferring two. I have been reasonably comfortable with the idea of transferring one. I was a bit surprised that she assumed I would transfer two as my clinic is very much against increasing the risk of multiples and makes a big deal about transferring one. So I am struck with a conundrum. Do I transfer one or two? I can wait until the transfer to decide which is exactly 2 hours away. I texted a good friend of mine who has undergone many many IVF cycles (15?). Her first pregnancy was with twins and it did not end happily. It was a complicated pregnancy (she is tiny) where she delivered prematurely. One of the babies had problems and was in the NICU for months before finally succumbing to his issues. While she's been very aggressive about fertility treatment, she says that she would never suggest to anyone to put back more than one now.
The balance is this - as you get older, your chance of successful live birth go down rapidly due to non-viability issues. If they transfer two, your risk of multiples goes up. Basically you are playing a game with weighing the risk of multiples against increasing your chances for one healthy baby. If you do one at a time, you are looking at financial, time, and emotional costs. If you transfer two, you run the risk of a multiple pregnancy which is higher risk and could result in various complications including increasing your chance of miscarriage. Basically, for women under 38 they only recommend one but as you get older, the viability issue creeps up and up making it balance out to suggest that they are more comfortable with two.
I have the added complication that the leading embryo is not from 41 year old me but from 38 or 39 year old me, so right on the cusp. Maybe if it was two 41 year old embryos, I'd feel differently. But I'm nervous. I do not want twins. I am prepared to raise a single child. I will obviously make due if I get identical twins. But I do not need to do anything to increase my risks of multiples because it would make life incredibly difficult.
So I'm leaning towards the one and freezing the other. The clinic says they have a 90-95% success rate with thawing embryos, so it's very likely that if this one doesn't take I can do a frozen embryo transfer. If that one doesn't take, I can do all of this over again. It's not like I have so many embryos to freeze. We're talking about one frozen embryo transfer before I'd have to start anew if this one doesn't take.
So I think I'm leaning towards transferring the one, but I will definitely talk to the doctor when I'm at the clinic later to make the final decision. I'm not against it if they think it's a very good idea. But I definitely do not want to increase my risk of twins by much at all.
Very excited about the transfer today. Still can't really believe it. Still very nervous that it's just going to be negative results. Trying not to be too hopeful but maintain positivity.
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