Beating the Odds

I had tomorrow’s blog written and ready to go. I wrote about how we were still waiting on the results of the genetic testing for our two embryos. 

I shared about my conversation with my IVF nurse who recently asked me if I wanted to jump right in to my next egg retrieval. The thought made me cringe, and my immediate gut reaction was a resounding, “NO!”

I explained my reasoning to her: We knew our odds weren’t good, so we at least wanted to wait until the results came back before deciding to try another cycle or not. 

She encouraged me to remain hopeful and told me she was cheering for our embryos. In case we opted to do another cycle, she advised me to restart birth control. That way, I can jump back in to it when (if) I was ready. So I did.

I had all of that ready to go, and then I got an unexpected call today. It was the fertility clinic. I wasn’t anticipating we’d get results until Wednesday at the earliest and Saturday at the latest.

After confirming my date of birth and that I had a few minutes to chat, the nurse said something completely unexpected: 

“I have great news. Both of your embryos are viable!”

Friends, I was nearly speechless. We beat the odds!

I had prepared myself for the worst, and here I was getting the best news. I could hardly believe it.

The nurse asked if I had any questions, and so I asked about how the embryos were graded and what their genders were. 

We have a 5BB and 6BB. The number refers to whether the embryo is hatching (5) or has hatched (6). The BB refers to the appearance/grade of the inner cell mass (the part that eventually becomes the baby), as well as how the trophectoderm (what eventually becomes the placenta) looks. Learn more about embryo grading.

The nurse said BB is the most common grade, and about 90% of their patients have BB embryos. 

I called Nick at work, and he wasn’t available to take the call. His coworker promised to have him call me as soon as he could. A few minutes later, I sent him an urgent text:

“I know you’re in a chamber right now, and someone’s going to tell you to call me, but I need you to call me as soon as you can. It’s important.”

As usual, Nick had to be the first person I shared the news with. But I felt like I was bursting at the seams wanting to tell our family and friends, too. 

A couple minutes later, he called, and I told him everything I knew about the potential baby Jacksons. Just like me, he was in a little bit of shock. 

And while we know what we have, we won’t be sharing the gender(s) of our embryos. We’ve decided to keep at least one part of this process to ourselves–at least for a while.  

Now that we’re one step closer to parenthood, the thought of doing another egg retrieval doesn’t sound as awful. Sure, it’s not fun, but at least we now know it can work. We beat the odds, and there are genetically normal potential baby Jacksons in the world. 

And that really makes all the difference.

Just for Fun
Last week, while I was in Oregon, I had a little help while writing the “Hope is Hard” blog. My nearly-4-year-old nephew Duncan was coloring at my feet the whole time. Emilee was able to capture a pretty cute pic of the moment: 

It did make writing the blog take a little longer than usual though. I was interrupted every few minutes to erase an errant marker line from the floor with my socked foot.

Cute side note: I didn’t know it was possible to hear my name so many times in only a few short days!