A really expensive babysitter

July 29, 2011: So, what does one do with twelve mature eggs after aspiration? You fertilize them! That's what! And what do you fertilize them with? Glass blower baby sperm...not sure if he's made his way to the blog yet but he was our choice before Abercrombie baby sperm but was out of stock with our last IUI. But...for our IVF, a fresh load (no pun intended) back on your grocer's shelf! So, our dozen kiddies-to-be will officially meet their donor via petri-dish fertilization. And how does one accomplish such a feat, particularly without a boy and the traditional fertilization? You pay for an embryologist...a guy that gets paid to introduce egg to sperm and then monitor them daily to see if they do a little "brown chicken brown cow" in the petri dish.

After the aspiration, our embryologist, Dr. Clark, left the eggs to "settle down" a little before insperminating them. They had, after all, gone through a heck of a day. They started the morning all cozy in Heidi's ovaries and by 5:30 that night, they had been poked, sucked out, eyeballed under a high powered microscope, left to marinate in a petri dish with special sauce meant to keep them alive. Yea, probably not the day they expected. To accommodate that rough entry, Dr. Clark let them have a few hours of lounging around the petri dish. After the dirty dozen had time to acclimate to their new surroundings, he introduced them to the swimmers...the spermies. Then, he dimmed the lights, put them in the refrigerator with some mood music (probably not that part, but it sounds like it would have been a good idea) and let them "mingle".

Now, I think that we have been ridiculously fortunate in our choice of fertility doctors. We have our nurses cell phone number whenever we have questions. Not only do we have her number, but we've used it and amazingly, she responds! Day or night. Same thing with our embryologist. He gave his cell phone number and told us we can call him every day to check the status of the fertilization. Again, I have to say, I've been going to my primary doctor for over ten years and I have yet to get a cell number...so, yea, we were very fortunate. (And if you know Heidi, every little thing causes concern. Our nurse, Pam, probably had us on speed dial).

So, twenty-four hours after aspiration, we call him to get a status update on the twelve eggs. First report on July 29th, was okay. I mean, we didn't exactly know what to expect so we listened to the doctor and took notes. Let me find that note...oh, here it is: 9 fertilizations, 8 of them normal, one had to be discarded. OK then, so, let's see. That means three didn't fertilize. OK. Manageable. We didn't really want twelve kids anyway. Of the nine that the romantic music worked for, one of those didn't, um, I don't know what verbiage to use here...didn't prosper? Whatever the terminology, we were left with eight. Oddly, that created a little panic in me. Only eight left? Strange, I know, because we never aspired to be Kate Gosselin. We don't want eight children. But OK...let's see how tomorrow goes.

July 30th's phone call netted more information way above my knowledge base. One six cell embryo with no fragmentation (I did learn that fragmentation is bad, we do not want fragmentation). Seven of them were five to six cells with one of them being grade one and one being a grade three because it was fragmenting. That's a lot of information huh? Let me try to explain some of this...the cells divide every day. The more they divide, the better they get graded, as long as there is no fragmentation. What is fragmentation, you ask? Well, give me a little second to google that...embryo fragmentation occurs when cells divide unevenly, creating bits of membrane-bound cytoplasm that have no nucleus. The majority of embryos created during IVF cycles are observed to have some fragmentation, however, the more fragmentation, the less likely an embryo is to develop normally and implant successfully. The extent of fragmentation is an important indicator of embryo quality. So, in short, out of eight, seven were doing super, one was doing a little mediocre.

July 31st netted us a loss. The mediocre embryo was down-graded to a grade 4 and was expected to expire soon. However, the remaining embryos would likely make it to the blastocyst stage. That's what we want! The more division that takes place in each of the cells, the better. [Side note here: Heidi and I are probably one of a handful of people in the universe that actually have a picture of some random blastocyst at their desk to refer to regularly].

August 1st, last and final day before we move the best embryos back to their original home...Heidi's tummy (well, a little to the left, from her ovary to her uterus). The remaining seven embryos continue to thrive and divide but Dr. Clark would like to make sure they make it to the blastocyst stage prior to the transfer. As such, our morning appointment is going to be moved to the afternoon. No big deal, right? This whole year has been nothing but an emotional waiting game, what's a few more hours? Oy vey!

So, what does all of this mean to us? After five days, our little embryos are almost ready to go back home. August 2nd is the big day...let me elaborate, August 2nd in the afternoon is the big moment.

We hope our first babysitter has done a good job. He's been great at keeping us up-to-date and using very big words. Way more than the traditional $10/hour babysitter of traditional families...but, then again, he's actually making our kids for us, not just watching them divide. I guess it's worth the price...as long as it works. Fingers are crossed...tomorrow is the big day!