A question about Day 5 biopsy

Hi all,

I'm currently very tensed . So much to the level that I'm unable to eat or drink.

We just finished doing our IVF for gender selection. My eggs were retrieved, 26 retrieved, 20 normally fertilized with natural fertilization and upto day 3, all 20 were growing normally. On day 5 the embryos were scheduled to be biopsied and frozen and samples sent to lab for performing PGD on them. But to our dismay, by day 5 , only 3 are ready to be biopsied !! I'm so devastated. Only 3 out of darn 20 !! The person from embryology was in a hurry as always and told me that rest of them could catch up by day 6. This left me hanging. i have no clue what that means. He mentioned nothing about how many being normal or not. He just said 3 are perfectly ready for biopsy, and will give you a call tomorrow to update on how many were finally biopsied and frozen.

What does all this mean ? what are the chances the others will catch up by tomorrow ? We have like 17 that are lagging behind. I'm so worried . Please give us some insight. Is this normal to have such differences in rate of their development ? Anybody been through similar experience ?

That's not Gud they didn't give you any indication of what stage the embryos were at? Normally they would hope for a day 5 embryo to be at stage of a blastocyst. So if you have 3 ready then they must be. The others might be early blastocyst or morula/compacting morula. I'm sure with 20 doing fine at day 3 then you will have lots more tomoro.

One thing to check when you call tomoro maybe is at what stage were all the embryos on day 3.
Good luck and let us know how you get on with the results tomoro?

If you are at a clinic that will only biopsy hatching blasts that may be why. Some clinics require your embryos to be hatching. A day 3-5 decline could be related to a sperm issue because that is when it activates.

yeah they dint inform me anything about what stage they are in or if they are looking for hatching embryos etc. My bad I should have researched more and asked them a few questions. The embryology department sucks at answering questions or going into details. They just informed me on Day 3 that all the 20 embryos are developing well.

Also have any of you all heard any stories where only few embryos being ready for biopsy on Day 5 and a few more catching up on Day 6 ? I need some hope right now :worry:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aubree

yeah they dint inform me anything about what stage they are in or if they are looking for hatching embryos etc. My bad I should have researched more and asked them a few questions. The embryology department sucks at answering questions or going into details. They just informed me on Day 3 that all the 20 embryos are developing well.

Also have any of you all heard any stories where only few embryos being ready for biopsy on Day 5 and a few more catching up on Day 6 ? I need some hope right now :worry:

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Are you in the US? Where are you cycling? Yes my clinic does biopsy embryos on Day 5 and Day 6!

Bad news guys. Out of 20 embryos only 3 were good. Just good, not even excellent. Grade 3. One fair and one poor !! This is called original bad luck. These 5 will be shipped tomorrow and PGD done on them. We really have zero hopes that they will find any normal boy embryos from this set and even if they do, I really doubt they will survive thaw and FET. Our journey seems to be ending.

Oh Aubree, please don't give up hope yet. Sorry to hear you arent happy with your clinic x

Thanks hun. I'm astonished what could have been the reason behind so many embryos being failed. My eggs ? or his sperm ? I'm 28 and all our pre testing came back wonderful. This is the first bump in our journey because I stimmed beautifully, had a great follicle number, zero side effects from injections. I jinxed it I believe. Is it common for the nature to let go of so many embryos ? I dont even feel like crying. I'm just silent. Unable to digest.

What was your pretesting like? Curious about possible PCOS and the need for metformin perhaps. At 28, something is off with that kind of decline.

Yes I have polycystic ovaries not syndrome though (no excessive hair etc), I was and still on Metformin.

What meds and dosage? How long on metformin?

Metformin from 2 months even before IVF cycle. 500 mg twice daily.

Menopur, follistimand cetrotide. Menopur (initially 75 IU, 37.5 towards end), Follistim (150IU, next 75 IU). Novarel as trigger shot. I had perfectly growing follicles each time I went for ultrasound and my estrogen levels always impressed my clinic. I triggered on Day 9 and retrieval on Day 11. Around my last ultrasound I had more than 8 follicles that were above 17mm out of 20 follicles (both sides included). My OAR AMH was 6.85 and overall score 16.
My DH also had a good sperm analysis , with passed AR test and good fertilizing ability. I fail to understand where we goofed up.

Oh hon, don't give up on the ones to testing yet. I had 20 eggs retrieved and 3 normals xx

Thanks !! I hope so because of the fact that so many embryos failed makes me doubt these 5 to be normal. And even if they are, we need normal boys. Very tricky.

Ok this is so effed up guys.

My cycle review appointment is on tuesday and my great clinic hasn't told us our PGD results yet ! I'm pretty sure they are in. Considering we have our appointment on tuesday. Reason ? well, incase the results are not favorable, they dont want to lose those 200 bucks that the doctor makes for the appointment, in case we back out. I'm literally shooting mails to all the depts and leaving voicemails and no one cares to answer. The nurse says they are not allowed to speak about this . May be, I understand but how can they be so insensitive to not even inform us if there are any normal male embryos at all ? Given that they are our embryos and the money inviolved is ours ? Such selfish and careless people !!This is the situation of the present day health care world. Let the patient be anxious and all tensed up , let us make some extra buck. Shame.

That's actually your clinic and not the healthcare system in general. In all my years, this is the first time I have ever heard of having to do a follow up that one pays for to get results. Are you certain you pay for it?? Certainly the cost of results is in the cycle cost??

Yeah. Shouldn't have generalized it. But I am pretty bummed at how can someone in such a noble career be so money minded. IVF is in itself a anxious process with so much of stress involved.

Yes I am paying for it since office visits aren't included in cycle cost. But little did I know that we actually have to wait till the appointment to know our PGD results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aubree

Hi all,

I'm currently very tensed . So much to the level that I'm unable to eat or drink.

We just finished doing our IVF for gender selection. My eggs were retrieved, 26 retrieved, 20 normally fertilized with natural fertilization and upto day 3, all 20 were growing normally. On day 5 the embryos were scheduled to be biopsied and frozen and samples sent to lab for performing PGD on them. But to our dismay, by day 5 , only 3 are ready to be biopsied !! I'm so devastated. Only 3 out of darn 20 !! The person from embryology was in a hurry as always and told me that rest of them could catch up by day 6. This left me hanging. i have no clue what that means. He mentioned nothing about how many being normal or not. He just said 3 are perfectly ready for biopsy, and will give you a call tomorrow to update on how many were finally biopsied and frozen.

What does all this mean ? what are the chances the others will catch up by tomorrow ? We have like 17 that are lagging behind. I'm so worried . Please give us some insight. Is this normal to have such differences in rate of their development ? Anybody been through similar experience ?

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It's better for embryos to be cultured until day 5/6, then the hatching blastocyst or expanded blastocyst can do biopsy to check 24 chromosomes.
Shouldn't interrupt the development of embryo (day 2-day4) .
To check 24 chromosomes is better for embryo, because at day 3, the embryo has only 6-8 cells, if we cut 1 cell to do biopsy, we don't know it affects to the baby or not.
Normally, less than 50% of number of embryos on Day 1 will be become to Blastocyst.
In your case, did lab mention any problem about your egg or sperm on Day 1 report?
I think you might get around 6-7 blastocyst on day 5/6.