Fert Update and a Question

First off, let me tell you that I am a raging idiot. I slept like total crap on Monday night, waking up every hour. It never dawned on me that, um, perhaps, just maybe, I was a little keyed up about our initial fertilization report. Duh! It wasn't until I read Tam's description of her bad night's sleep until I realized that what was going on with me. Oh well, even though I'm thicker than cement sometimes, at least I smell nice. (Or so I like to think.)

Today's report is good. All 4 embryos are still hanging in there. Transfer is scheduled for 9:15am tomorrow. We need to be there at 8:45am. The crazy thing is that even though the office is only about 30 miles away, we will need to leave around 6:45am due to the outrageous traffic in our area. Oh well, a small price to pay. If it works.

Last cycle, we browbeat the Doctor into transferring 3 embryos. Two were of excellent quality, one was good. Even so, they really didn't want to transfer more than 2. But we persisted, and in the end we won. Not that it mattered anyway.

This is going to sound psycho, but I swear I want them to transfer all 4. Let me state right up front that I do not secretly long for twins. Our *magic number* of children has always been a nice, even 2. Since we have Megan, the basic math leaves us at wanting just 1 more. Now, don't get me wrong at all, we'd be THRILLED with whatever we got -- one, two, three. But if we were given a choice, we'd take 1. We don't doubt our ability to care for multiple babies, but carrying them to term (especially given my age, and my difficult pregnancy with Megan) would be tricky for sure.

Having said that, we all know that my egg quality is crap. I mean, we put back 3 embryos last time, only 1 of them took, and it was abnormal (Trisomy 5). Our RE theorized that perhaps the other embryos just couldn't get out of the tough, leathery shell of my shriveled up eggs, so we are going to do Assisted Hatching this time.

Will AH make a difference? If we put back 3 with AH, will we have better results? What if we can convince them to put back all 4 (which they pretty much never do in this clinic unless they are all poor quality)? I also feel bad because if we transfer 3 of them, then that leaves 1 behind. Everyone agrees that there is no way our embryos would a) make it 6 days to freeze, or b) make it through the thaw to do an FET. So, in essence, we'd be wasting that last embryo. Shouldn't we give it a fighting chance? What about that theory of "No Man Left Behind?"

I don't know whether it helps or hurts, but Kevin is with me 100% on this thinking. He's just as torn about lobbying (begging) to put back 4 so that we don't "waste" an embryo, but also scared of the complications trying to carry high order multiples.

We'll make the decision once we get the report tomorrow -- immediately prior to transfer -- about the embryo quality. But, in the meantime, if you come across this post before we leave in the morning, please weigh in and let me know what you think. Thanks!