Blast off!! Blastocyst Embryo's

To keep ourselves occupied, we have downloaded pictures of our Embryos, the first one is of 3 that were transferred to our surrogate on the 17th Feb and the other picture is of 3 Blastocyst embryo's that were frozen, and two that were too small and underdeveloped at that stage. We have a weekend of waiting to come, which wont be fun at all but Monday is soon here! If you don't know what a blastocyst is, I'll try and explain in a roundabout way......Are you seated comfortably??? :)

During normal conception the embryo doesn't normally reach the uterus until day four or five after fertilisation, and by delaying transfer, the blastocyst can be placed into the uterus at the same stage that it would arrive naturally. Usually only 30-50 percent of embryos grow to blastocyst stage, so by doing this process you are giving the embryos the best chance of development and also stop the chance of implanting embryos that would not have developed naturally. Still with us???

Hope that makes sense and you can work out what the pictures actually are. In the three that were transferred, the thinner layer around the outside eventually turns into the umbilical cord and the small group of cells becomes the baby! (everything crossed!) We'll update on Monday x