I’m sorry for the delay in this post, things have been a little insane! So, I heard from the clinic on Sunday where they gave us our Day 6 Blastocyst report. Remember that we still had 5 in play, as of the day of my embryo transfer (which was Day 3).
Of the five embryos, two did not make it to the blastocyst stage. One arrested in its development and thus was not viable to be frozen. The other was of low quality (there was no center mass of cells to indicate that it was a healthy blastocyst). So we have three healthy blastocysts to freeze!
Now, there is a grading scale for blasts called the Gardner grading system. Not all clinics use exactly this method, but ours does! In this system there are three different sources of criteria that they are looking for:
- Blastocyst development stage – expansion and hatching status
- Inner cell mass (ICM) score, or quality – this is what eventually develops into the fetus
- Trophectoderm (TE) score, or quality – this is what will form the placenta
Here is the grading scale – with 6 being considered the best/ideal situation for a blastocyst:
So for example – the grading of these embryos will look like this: 5AA, 4AB, etc – depending on the stage and quality of the ICM, and TE.
So what were ours? Of our three remaining blastocysts that have now been frozen, we have a: 6AA, and 2 4AA’s. The 4’s are even still considered to be great, because the ICM and TE grades are so high. This was wonderful news, and made me feel relieved about our chances. In the event that the first round does not take, we have options from this full cycle of IVF medications.
Let’s chalk up another point in the win column!
Xoxo,
Jen