Another egg retrieval down. My husband and I arrived bright and early at 7:30 am last Friday for the procedure. As per protocol, I had to give a urine sample. When they buzzed me into the back I saw my favorite anesthesiologist was there and shouted a welcome down the hall. The fact that I’ve been through enough infertility procedures to actually have a “favorite anesthesiologist” I find almost comical. Almost.  But it was great to know that I would be well taken care of, and as always, my RE and the nurses made me laugh and feel comfortable. The retrieval went well. We got 8 eggs, 6 of which were mature and they were going to try to mature the other 2 in the lab. Yep, that’s a thing. My RE was really pleased, and so was I.

That happy post-egg retrieval feeling typically only lasts one day until I get the fertilization report. Unfortunately, my fertilization rate has been really poor since beginning this process this time around. The best we’ve ever gotten was a 50% fertilization rate, which doesn’t leave you with many eggs when you begin with so few. This is a huge difference from my 100% fertilization rate at age 36. When the call came it was the embryologist on the phone. That was a huge surprise. He has never called me over the course of 5 egg retrievals. I paused and expected the worst. Was he calling because none had fertilized and he wanted to give me an explanation?

He told me that 7 ended up being mature…and all 7 fertilized! Wait, what?? I was shocked. I literally couldn’t believe it. He was very pleased and I cried. This means that this batch of eggs is of better quality than what we had been getting. In previous rounds, the eggs had a tendency of immediately dying when the sperm was injected, which is a sure sign of poor egg quality. Now I know we are far from being out of the woods. We still need to get some of these embryos to make it all the was to blastocyst. And since we are doing PGS testing, we will need to see if any come back normal, which is always a nerve wracking prospect since the results are based on a small sample of cells and there could be error. So there are many hurdles yet to pass. But this is a big win and sets us up for a fighting chance.

I am so beyond thankful for this chance. This is truly a synergy of science and miracles at its finest. Did we find the golden egg? We shall see, but I am hopeful. And now another wait begins.