Three is a Magic Number
Some exciting embryo updates, fertility meditations, and a special Birthday Bird Fact!
Welcome (or welcome back!) to Good Egg. Thank you for being here, I really appreciate your support 🤗 I hope you or someone you know can get something out of it. P.S. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription in case I get furloughed next week! Haha, not even joking! 🫠 Okay, onto this week’s updates!
I started drafting this post on September 13, and at the time we were still waiting on genetic results. Sometimes I would forget that we were waiting, I would suddenly remember (like cold water was dumped on me), and then start spiraling. Fun! As a reminder from my first issue of Good Egg, here are our numbers from the egg retrieval:
Follicles: 23 on the right and 11 on the left
Eggs retrieved: 22(!)
Mature eggs: 13
Fertilized eggs (via ICSI): 12
Blastocysts (frozen embryos) off for testing: 6
So on September 15, we got a message that we have three euploid (normal) embryos! 🥚🥚🥚 Euploid embryos have 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs, giving us the best chance for a healthy child while reducing the risk of miscarriage.1
What’s next?
We have a follow-up with our doctor in October (more like Doctober!) where she will go into more detail about our genetic testing results and explain what our next steps are. Depending on my cycle, we’ll start prepping for a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET). We don’t know the sexes of the embryos right now, and I’m not sure if we are going to find out before a FET, but we might change our minds! Who knows! All I want is a healthy embryo transfer/pregnancy/baby. It truly doesn’t matter to me, and if the doctor suggests transferring that healthy Day 5 embryo, that’s what we’ll do. I’m just so, so grateful to have at least one normal embryo, let alone three! I’m feeling more hopeful and less anxious about the process.
I also have an acupuncture appointment scheduled for October 6, so I’m looking forward to introducing that into our treatment before and after the FET. I’ll also be sure to include more about that in future issues of Good Egg! Stay tuned :)
Meditations from Circle + Bloom ($)
They have so many programs for different paths, but I have the IVF and IUI Program and gifted the PCOS Fertility Program to a good friend. The meditations focus on mind-body connection, which I truly believe in, but at the very least have helped me with relaxation and sleep. I really enjoy the narration and background music, some meditation apps can be distracting to me if the voice and music aren’t balanced. (Tip: Sign up for their emails to get a coupon code!)
Evoke Fertility Meditations (Free!)
I also wanted to highlight a free meditation app in case paying for the Circle + Bloom program isn’t in your budget right now. A therapist told me about the Evoke app, and for a free program, it’s pretty comprehensive. It was created by Neda Saleh, a San Jose-based licensed acupuncturist and fertility specialist. She also links to several fertility resources on her website: https://evokeacupuncture.com/specialties/fertility/.
These aren’t technically IVF related, but here are some articles that resonated with me (I will always try to provide a paywall-free link when I can!)
Opinion | America Already Knows How to Make Childbirth Safer (NYT Gift Link)
Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison (The New Yorker)
Four Ways to Become a Morning Person (NYT Gift Link)2
Today is my husband Grant’s 36th birthday! He is regrettably an Orioles fan, so today here’s a fun fact about the Baltimore Oriole. I love you honey!
Like many English language words, “oriole” has Latin roots. It comes from aureolus, Latin for “golden.”3
Like my husband, they also have a big sweet tooth. I really want to do this activity with Henry! 🍊
That’s all for this week! Thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing this newsletter. Next issue (out October 4) I will go into our IUI experience and share more IVF/fertility resources.
I always read articles like this and expect some super brilliant secret trick to becoming a morning person. But it turns out it’s just… wake up earlier..? K, thanks!
Congratulations on 3 embryos. Another free meditation app I use is Insight Timer! Also loooove acupuncture 😍