Embryo Quality

Of course I have been googling...in the throes of the crazies of the 2 week wait aaaargh...
Anyway...reading lots about embryo quality and implantation. Our embies would be busy implanting right about now until anytime this weekend...such a strange thought. And it isn't as simple as it sounds.  In fact we were joking on the Fertility Forum about how great it would be if someone would just invent a glue that made embies stick to the endometrium!

Not that easy....It takes a critical dialogue between the embryo and the endometrium before the embryo is attracted to the uterine lining and then adheres before starting to implant. There is so much unknown in this area of IVF and sometimes there is no reason for implantation not to have taken place! 70% of the time, it is due to embryo competence however and often as embryos are transferred on day 3 before reaching blast stage, no-one would know they are not viable. This is why many FS's now wait to see if embryos develop into blasts, as this increases the chance of the embryo being a viable one. They like to select the best looking blasts to transfer as it has been proven to up the odds.

This gets trickier - healthy babies have been born from not that great looking blasts. So while blast quality is a factor it is not always a sure thing. Of course, I wanted to know more about our embryo quality so I emailed our embryologist.  This is what he said in his reply today:

"The embryos were definitely good quality. The expansion of the embryo is described (out of 3, 3 being the best. The inner cell mass (the part that becomes the baby) is described as A, B & C, A being the best.The trophectoderm (the part that becomes the placenta) is described as A, B & C, A being the best.
Your embryos were a 3AB and a 3AB. So they looked great."

I want to relax and just know that a successful implantation will take place. 
That we will get a good strong beta.
That we will have our baby.

How wonderful it would be if it was a sure thing!