When we met with our RE in early January, our goal was to plan out our next IVF cycle. We looked at all of the past failures, test results, embryology reports, etc. to figure out what we could do differently this time around to finally bring home baby #2. I flat-out asked our doc what the hell was going wrong in the pipeline.
And that's when he said it, "You have a really high arrest rate." Arrest rate? Surely, I shouldn't have to worry about an arrest rate until these embryos are at least 18 years old, no?
He went on to explain that, although they are able to harvest an abnormally high amount of eggs during my retrievals (thanks, PCOS), a large portion of our fertilized embryos simply stop growing. He went so far as to say they look beautiful up until day 5; then they just arrest.
Safely assuming our embryos aren't out drinking in public, urinating in the subways, and vandalizing cars; what else could possibly cause this high arrest rate? This was our next avenue for exploration.
Let me give you an idea of how high our arrest rate actually is. During our last fresh IVF cycle, we had 35 eggs retrieved, 26 fertilized, and only FOUR made it to day 5. Of those four, none implanted. This is a problem, for sure.
My husband and I opted to undergo genetic testing to see if there's any recessive diseases that we're carrying. If we are carrying something, and likely passing it on to our embryos, we would have the ability to test those embryos for the disease BEFORE going through the transfer process. It would mean a big cost savings and, more importantly, an emotional cost savings as well.
We'll meet with the geneticist on February 1st to get the test results. I'm torn. Part of me wants to be completely normal, especially for the sake of the daughter we do have. I want her to never have to worry about passing a disease onto her child one day. But another, very tiny, part of me wishes that they would find something to explain this mess.
And that's when he said it, "You have a really high arrest rate." Arrest rate? Surely, I shouldn't have to worry about an arrest rate until these embryos are at least 18 years old, no?
He went on to explain that, although they are able to harvest an abnormally high amount of eggs during my retrievals (thanks, PCOS), a large portion of our fertilized embryos simply stop growing. He went so far as to say they look beautiful up until day 5; then they just arrest.
Safely assuming our embryos aren't out drinking in public, urinating in the subways, and vandalizing cars; what else could possibly cause this high arrest rate? This was our next avenue for exploration.
Let me give you an idea of how high our arrest rate actually is. During our last fresh IVF cycle, we had 35 eggs retrieved, 26 fertilized, and only FOUR made it to day 5. Of those four, none implanted. This is a problem, for sure.
My husband and I opted to undergo genetic testing to see if there's any recessive diseases that we're carrying. If we are carrying something, and likely passing it on to our embryos, we would have the ability to test those embryos for the disease BEFORE going through the transfer process. It would mean a big cost savings and, more importantly, an emotional cost savings as well.
We'll meet with the geneticist on February 1st to get the test results. I'm torn. Part of me wants to be completely normal, especially for the sake of the daughter we do have. I want her to never have to worry about passing a disease onto her child one day. But another, very tiny, part of me wishes that they would find something to explain this mess.
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