21, 20, 14...

Yesterday (Friday) we got some totals from the nurses:  21 eggs were retrieved from the donor, 20 of which were mature.  14 of them fertilized - which is very good.  The number of eggs retrieved is on the high end of all the donor retrievals done in the last couple of years.

With that many fertilized eggs we wait longer (5 days instead of 3) to do the embryo transfer.  Not all fertilized eggs will develop into embryos, and waiting 5 days means more of the "lesser quality" ones will weed themselves out of competition.  By day 5 post-fertilization, the embryos will be 16-cell blastocysts, and the embryologists will be able to define the grade of each one with greater accuracy.  Each one is graded A, B, C, or D.  The A's and B's have a much higher rate of resulting in a pregnancy, so we want more of those.  C's and D's have a much lower rate - but you never know.  Friends of ours had triplets in 2000 - they had 4 embryos put in becuase their quality was so low that the doctors thought the chances of even one impanting was slim.  Needless to say they have 3 healthy daughters who just turned 10.

The nurses are very excited and make comments like "so how many kids do you want?"  But I dont let myself react much.  We had over a dozen grade A embryos of our own with zero success - so I really hope that this time things will be different. 

Today is Nikki's 7th birthday!  We are going to soak up the day with her - she is in charge of our plans - so it looks like we will head to the zoo, miniature golf, then fine dining at the Kiltie for burgers and ice cream!