What a weekend. On Friday we transfered 2 positively gorgeous hatching blastocysts! The embryologist said the “couldn’t look any more perfect.” She also thinks that one of them had two cell masses (more on that in a minute). On Saturday I turned 35. I’m praying my birthday present was implantation!
So, here are my beauties with some explanation.
First, most people I’ve shown this to says “It looks like it is dividing!” No, it is actually 100s of cells at this point and if you could see it in 3D it is a fluid-filled sphere. The reason it looks like it is splitting is because it is hatching out of the shell, or zona pellucida – the blurry looking shell around the upper 1/2 of the blastocyst. Once it hatches completely and sheds the zona pellucida it would be spherical again.
The trophoblast cells are the ones that reach out and burrow into the endomemtrium for implantation and eventually create the placenta. The Inner Cell Mass, or embryoblast, will become the baby. These cells are the infamous “stem cells” because they can form any cell in the human body.
Snowflake One
Snowflake Two
Once the trophoblast cells begin to penetrate the uterine lining they produce human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG. HCG tells your body to maintain the corpus luteum (the cyst remaining on the ovary after ovulation) so it will keep pumping out progesterone and thereby stop menstruation. I am taking nightly injections of progesterone since my cycle was not timed with my ovulation. However, hCG will still be produced because it is also immunosupressive and stops a woman’s body from rejecting the foreign body that is the embryo. HCG is what pregnancy test look for in the blood or urine.
Today I am 3 weeks pregnant as measured from my LMP (last menstrual period). I am 4dp5dt (four days past five day transfer) or 9dpo (nine days past ovulation). The absolute earliest BFP (big fat positive) I’ve seen on a 5dt is 5dp5dt. I’d really like to hold out on POAS (peeing on a stick) until Friday. My Beta (blood hCG test) isn’t until 8/12.
I actually have no hpt in the house! Can you believe it? I had a stock for TEN YEARS and now not one! I know if I buy any I’ll pee on them all by the end of the day so I’m trying to restrain myself. Last time I used the dollar general ones and got a faint line then went a tad nuts and bought every test on the market to verify.
I hope my babies are snuggling in for 9 months!
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