When a fertilized oocyte completes the week in the Petri dish and hasn’t combusted, it means its reached blastocyst stage and is a viable embryo.

When I saw the word blastocyst in my email, I immediate thought, “We have blast off.”

There are 6 that reached this stage.

Let’s review:

I had 32 follicles. Dr. Shapiro retrieved 15 eggs. 11 fertilized when they united with the swimmers. 6 survived the week.

Now, they are undergoing an extra step of testing, called PGS testing, before crypto-preservation (freezing).

Why the testing?

Most couples who do this testing, the female is over 38, they are worried about a family history, this is not their first IVF attempt, or they wanted to choose the gender of their baby (we REALLY don’t want that.)

We fall under zero of those categories but the chazzband felt strongly that it was a small price to pay to make certain that this sci-fi adventure would birth a child with the best possible chance at a healthy start in the world.

As my rabbi bffl pointed out when I said the test pinpoints abnormalities, “You guys are really abnormal, so you know what that test will say!” Ha. Ha. Ha.

We will have PGS testing results in the next week and I’ll report back in.

An embryo for each day of creation… a beautiful sign. For all the work that led up to this Shabbat news, we take a sigh, pause, reflect, and give thanks.

Shavua Tov