The Egg Retrieval

BR, our egg donor had her retrieval yesterday, October 16, Saturday. It was a surprise to all of us when Eileen called on Saturday afternoon to confirm that they were able to retrieve 30 eggs from BR. That's a huge number. We'd been told all week that she had stimulated 16 follicles, but no one was expecting 30 eggs.

The eggs were fertilized Saturday afternoon, using an invitro fertilization technique called ICSI. It's where the egg is injected with the spermatozoa to increase the chances of fertilization. Out of the 30 eggs retrieved 20 were mature enough for the fertilization procedure. Out of the remaining 10, those that remained viable were allowed to mature further.

I received a call this morning from Fertility Partners, and the embryologist who confirmed that 14 of the 20 eggs fertilized successfully. Out of those 14, 6 were frozen for future use in case the procedure later this week doesn't work out. The remaining eight will continue to mature for use in the transfer. Out of the 10 that weren't mature enough, only two matured enough for the ICSI procedure, which they will undergo today.

So for Tuesday's transfer, we'll have a minimum of 8 fertilized eggs to choose from, with a maximum of 10. On Tuesday, they'll look at all the eggs and decide which ones are the best candidates for transfer. At that time we'll make the final decision, along with the doctor about which ones get transferred and how many.