Microarray Results

After a five week and four day wait, we got the big call from Denver yesterday afternoon. We have one viable embryo from the batch of three that were biopsied. We're unbelievably happy and relieved. Our normal embryo's grade is 4BB. The 4BA and 3BB embryos were abnormal and, in my happy fog, I forgot to ask what errors they contained. I’ll get this information - I find it very interesting indeed.

Now we have two normal embryos waiting for us in icy isolation, one 4AB and one 4BB.

To get to this point has taken almost exactly one year of IVF treatments, 146 shots, 51 eggs retrieved, 3 trips to Denver adding up to almost a month spent there, a total of just under 14 weeks of waiting for microarray results and untold expense (if the number's not written down, perhaps it simply didn't happen). There are still no guarantees, but this is certainly the closest we’ve come to potential success.

Shortly after the major attack of gluttony documented in my last, embarrassingly long-ago post, I went back to my life in black and white. No sugar, wheat, dairy, caffeine, lots of Chinese herbs and other supplements and no running or other strenuous exercising, in case we had no normals in this batch and had to do yet another cycle. The call came in while we were out and we made an immediate detour to buy a bottle of lovely Italian prosecco to celebrate. I used to think it was better not to celebrate anything in case we jinxed it, but have learned that good news is so rare on this journey, each victory must be celebrated along the way. And so we did.

Having walked around for many weeks with my cell phone practically strapped to my body lest I miss their call, CCRM called just as we’d sat down in the attorney’s office to sign the papers for our mortgage refinance. I’d forgotten to turn the phone off and made the huge mistake of looking at the caller ID as it was ringing. Of course I had to let it go to voicemail. As a result, it’s quite likely that we’ve bought an entirely different house, will have a payment twice what we expected or otherwise messed up, since anything we did after seeing the caller ID is a blur. It fleetingly crossed my mind that it would be very wise not to reveal to J the Elder (sorry, honey, I meant J the Studly) who’d just called so that he could concentrate on the papers, but my brain/mouth coordination failed as I whispered the information to him. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough whether we’re still the rightful owners of our own house, either when our mortgage statement comes in or when we’re served with eviction papers. Whichever comes first.

No sooner had we stumbled out of the closing did I call the nurses’ line back. Luckily our nurse then called within about thirty seconds of the message I left to put us out of our misery.

The next step is putting a frozen embryo transfer (FET) calendar in place. I’ll need to call my nurse when my next cycle starts this week and we’ll put a tentative calendar together. My doctor’s not allowing birth control pills due to my Protein S deficiency (blood clotting) and BCPs help with the timing of everything since you can stay on them for a planned set of days. Without them, we’ll have to rely on a natural cycle so we won’t be able to set an exact date for the transfer for another three or four weeks. However, if my body co-operates and does what it usually does, I expect it will be around April 21st. Then the serious nail-biting starts again.