Looking good so far!

First of all, after my post yesterday, I want to make sure y'all didn't think I was unhappy with the five normal embies.  I'm very excited about them and SO glad that we have 5 which is really an awesome number!  If we'd started with 9 or 10 eggs I wouldn't have even blinked.  I think it was just a bit of a shock to come down from the high of feeling like we had SO many possibilities the day before and then to hear that such a large majority fertilized abnormally.  I had begun to suspect that an egg quality issue might be our problem -- even with my DH having a borderline HOST and morphology score this last analysis, everything else seemed to be fine or was also "borderline and uncertain" so it was the only thing my limited education on the subject could come up with.  But, no matter how pessimistic I tend to be about things, an optimistic part of my brain has just kept thinking "well, of course I'll respond great and we'll get numbers of eggs and great embies that belie my age and then the transfer will be perfect and the embies will stick and we'll have to deal with the dilemma of what to do with ALL those perfect frozen blasts!"

So, hearing confirmation that this wasn't true sort of shocked my sensibilities.  I started feeling discouraged.  My DH, who is ALWAYS optimistic, felt pessimistic and somewhat downtrodden for the first time.  He deals with statistics (for a living).  The laws of probabilities for each of the next steps made starting with 5 not look so good.  He's seemed a little nervous and "off" ever since.  Which unnerved me a bit.  He's not usually like that.  The night before he'd had a series of e-mail exchanges with a friend of his from college who has a two year old from IVF.  She's 43 or so, now, and, at 40, had 18 eggs retrieved and 18 eggs fertilized normally.  And got pregnant on the first transfer with lots to freeze.  And, she kept saying "Rebecca's only 36!  That's so young!"  She's now struggling to conceive a second -- her next fresh cycle led to lots of eggs but none fertilized and then a miscarriage after another ICSI cycle.  So, I think he was comparing my cycle to her first one.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I've felt a little nervous and "off," too.  (Not at all hormonally related, I'm sure...)

But, yes, I was really happy about the five embies and sending all the hope and love I have to them and appreciate your doing so, too!!

.......

So, the report from the embryologist:

2 4-cell and 1 5-cell all three of which look "really, really good"
1 2-cell which looks "OK and isn't out, yet, may just be slow growing"
1 6-cell which looks "uneven, but it might just be what it was up to when I looked at it"

So, yay!!  At least three are great and two are still possibilities! 

She also said that the abnormal embies are starting to cleave as well (they're in a separate culture dish).  She said that in rare cases, an abnormal embryo can "correct" itself.  And, since we have nine of them, it's possible.  So, they're going to keep an eye on them and see what happens and if any have made it to healthy blasts to possibly freeze.  I'm a little uncertain that I'd want to use them -- it feels like we'd be setting ourselves up for triploidy.  But, if it comes down to it, I'll talk to the docs and try to get a better sense of what those risks are because they obviously know more about that than I do.

As for transfer dates, we're still unsure.  She's going to call me early in the morning tomorrow (day 3).  If only two are still looking stellar (she said we want them to be even and up to 6-9 cells), we'll probably transfer in the afternoon and keep the rest until day 5 or 6 and decide if they're good to freeze.  If more are looking good, then we'll push to a day 5 transfer (Sunday). 

Part of me hopes it's tomorrow so I can start feeling like I'm keeping the embies safe!!  Right now I feel so helpless.  But, I obviously want as many to be looking good as possible, so I'm good with either scenario.

.......

My DH and I are close friends with a group of five siblings he knew in college.  He's been the family's pseudo sixth sibling ever since.  They, their parents and all their spouses and children were at our wedding (which constituted about 40 people of the 130 who were there).  These are the friends who own the cabin in Minnesota that we go to sometimes.  And, one sister is the one who was supposed to stay with us last weekend but (thankfully) rescheduled.

When he updated her on the status of the embies yesterday she said "I know you guys aren't religious, but we've got the entire clan praying.  Mom's lighting a candle and having a ....(wish I knew the Catholic word) said for you guys.  I hope you don't mind."  He said (and so did I when he told me) "We'll take every prayer and positive thought you've got."  This is the most wonderful family -- if anyone's got some clout in the universe, it's them.  We'll take it! :)