As Good A Chance as Any

Although we've already bought into this process, I keep going over the numbers in my head about the likelihood of success. Frozen eggs have about a 75% thaw rate and then a 75% fertilization rate after that (a study reported in Fertility & Sterility). Once they are fertilized they appear to do as well as fresh eggs as far as development and implantation. It's just that right off the bat, you lose quite a few eggies.

We have 15 frozen eggs. My calculations suggest that we could have between 8 and 9 fertilized eggs. Based on my friend's success rate with these eggs, I think that means that we could have between 1 and 4 high quality day-5 blastocysts to work with.

That is exciting. Even one high quality blastocyst would have a good chance. Two would be even better.

My doc said that it all depends on how these guys do. If they are high quality and we're at Day 5, we'll implant those two and freeze the rest. If it's Day 4 and all of them look like crap, we'll put them all in. (I don't think he meant that literally, but we'd put in 4 or so of the best crappy looking ones we had).

I don't think the problem with these eggs is going to be they getting to a good place. I think the donor's history attests to that. I think the issue is going to be how many of these survive the thaw. And that freaks me out. If we get an 75-80% thaw rate, I think we'll do great. If it's more like 50%, I don't think it's going to work. Ok, I'm searching and I've found an estimate of 60% thaw rate and one at 90%. I think the 75% estimate is nicely in the middle.

In any case, it doesn't matter what the number say or what we hope, we have to wait until this actually happens. And I'm ready to just see what happens.

On another note, I do want to talk about disclosure. But I feel like I'm sidling up to it. Did anyone else hear about the new fed standards of taking a DNA sample of everyone arrested by a federal agent? Not convicted, arrested. I think it's going to be sooner rather than later when we all have our DNA on file in the doctor's office. And that could make for some complicated discussions for some folks down the road.