Follow up to RE's odd blast description at ET

seniah_05 · May 2009

So, I had my transfer Wednesday and the RE had given me some mixed feelings regarding my embryos.

Summary from yesterday's post:
At first RE seems kinda pumped - we had 8 eggs, all mature, 6 fertilized and they all became blasts. So yay except he also mentioned that though they were all blasts something about the open space being kind of small so implantation might be an issue...

Had no clue what that might have meant and was asked to post a follow up after talking to RE's office. This is what they had to say though I might be butchering the explanation:

Basically the inner cell mass of a blastocyst is expected to also be of a certain size and when it or the space around it does not meet that size there is the possibility that the embryo or pregnancy will be abnormal. Since part becomes the baby and the rest the sac and placenta it may be that my embryos could implant incorrectly or that one of those three develop abnormally leading to a miscarriage. So we have to wait and see.

They think that this may have been an issue in my previous pregnancies but cannot say for certain - my pathology and genetic results from my D&C came back normal so there is no certainty.

So I kind of have the impression that they are expecting me to get a bfp but to also have another miscarriage. Um, yay? And from what they can tell there is really no way to determine why they are like this since all other testing for DH and I comes back normal. My nurse (who is a dear woman and was cracking me up during this conversation) said, "well someone out there has to be the picture perfect definition of unexplained...right now its you and it totally sucks ass."

yodasmistress · May 2009

As the blastocyst expands, it separates into two layers of cells, the trophoblast, which later becomes the placenta and the "inner cell mass" which later becomes the baby. This is what the double letters mean after the number mean in blast embryo grading - one is for the devleopment of the trophoblast and one is for the inner cell mass.

I know that there blast gets more "space" where the inner cell mass is as it expands. Maybe yours just weren't "expanded" yet? Do you know the full #/letter grading of your embies.

eileenm21 · May 2009

i know a few people have recomended the infertility blog as useful - he did a embryo and blast tutorial in the recent months which is so helpful - I am beyond confused myself facing IVF #1

https://www.infertilityblog.blogspot.com/