Is there a reason why some people choose to not genetically test their blastocystes ? I have recently joined the community and i read that some don’t test them and wanted to know if it is for a specific reason
We started with 49 follicules.
43 mature
5 immature
1 damaged during extraction.
Out of those , 38 fertilized.
Today i received yesterday’s day five info. But in spanish so i have no way to compare.
6 blastocystes (medios), 3 blastocystes (tempranos). 12 morulas.
We are waiting for day 6 info, today or tommorow. What does this all mean? Are these good numbers or can things still go downward at any point? I wish to not spiral, i also want to stay realistic, my husband wants to stay hopeful.
I have to add we did ivf due to a genetic recessive mutation we both have. And my husband having little sperm motility. I have PCOM recently diagnosed so that is why we started high on follicles. We are 31. Have never tried naturally.
I’m 31 years old. When I was 18, a doctor found multiple follicles in my ovaries and suggested that I start taking birth control to help prevent cysts from forming and to lower my risk of uterine cancer, but I was never officially given a PCOS diagnosis because I didn’t have any other symptoms.
Back in November of 2025, I asked my gynecologist how far in advance I needed to start prepping for pregnancy if I was considering trying next October 2026 (meaning October of this year, now). My husband and I had not started trying yet, and I was still on the pill. He said, “Now,” in case I needed to go through any procedures beforehand, so we started.
The first thing they did was ultrasounds, blood work, and genetic testing. Based on my ultrasound, it looked like I had an excess amount of follicles, which was no surprise. Still, they said they could not confirm PCOS because the only way to know was by evaluating androgen levels, and those were being effectively controlled by my birth control. They explained that once we were ready to conceive and I was no longer taking birth control, they would be able to diagnose me with PCOS if and when my androgen levels went up, but that it was likely because I had developed severe acne in my mid 20s and my hair was pretty thin.
Anyway, the genetic test came back showing that I was a potential carrier for a recessive mutation that could potentially affect 1 in every 4 children, but only if my husband was also a potential carrier for the same mutation. So they tested him, and it turns out he was also a carrier. They recommended that we speak with a geneticist and a fertility specialist about possible IVF in order to test the embryos, determine which were healthy, which were carriers, and which were affected.
We live in Los Angeles, and the prices here are way over our means. Heck, IVF in the USA is out of our means. So we contacted a friend of mine back home in Colombia to guide us, since she is a gynecologist.
It turns out she was doing her fellowship at a reproductive fertility clinic that is well known in Colombia. The doctor they assigned us studied in Colombia, did his residency in Canada, and completed his fellowship at Johns Hopkins in the USA, as well as learning his surgical techniques in Paris, so we felt like he was our guy. They let us know that all lab tests, including genetic and sperm testing, are sent out to the USA, but the actual treatments would be done in Colombia.
They tested my husband’s sperm, and it turned out that he had low motility levels (if it should be 40 to 80, his was 19) and that the quantity was normal but on the low side of normal, possibly due to traveling on planes every week. They also said the morphology was unusual, but that this was very common in men. So even without the genetic mutation concerns, the possibility of conceiving naturally was going to be unlikely or low because of the motility issue. Not a problem, though, because they said they do ICSI instead of IVF.
They also tested our parents because their geneticist emailed them saying there was a 75% likelihood that the possible mutations mentioned earlier could be in genetic duplicates and not in the original genes. So far, we are waiting for those results, and we are guessing that will influence how many embryos we end up with.
The doctor also said I might not have PCOS but PCOM, because I don’t fit many of the criteria for the new classification of PCOS, now known as PMOS.
I started stimulation 12 days ago, and it went super well. They used really low doses for me because of how many follicles I had, and they wanted to avoid any OHSS complication. I also know they had me on other meds as part of the protocol.
I hardly felt any symptoms and stayed resting most days. I stayed at my parents’ house in Colombia, and they fed me pure Colombian food (basically really natural food, although I splurged on mini Coca-Colas every day) and they made me feel calm and safe. My husband had to travel in order to pay for our treatment, so I was mostly just overly exposed to love by my parents. I dedicated myself to good movies to let myself have a few good cries. In general, it was a good experience, but I have been told that I am generally known for being optimistic and positive during difficult times, so I think my mind was where it needed to be for me to feel good along the way.
Today, I had my eggs extracted. 49 removed!!!
43 were mature. 6 were immature. And of those 6 immature ones, one was damaged. I do feel very sore, but other than that I feel good. They sent me even more shots and other meds to avoid the after effects of my procedures and to avoid complications.
My husband’s spermatozoids are currently frozen. Despite the results we were originally given, they were able to freeze three samples. We don’t know how many spermatozoids each sample has; we didn’t ask. But they seem optimistic by how the email was written. We will know more in the next few days.
My husband and I have listed a long list of worries and what ifs, but overall have stuck to trying to stay calm, and we have. But now, my main concern is the fact that my clinic never spoke to us about IVF attrition during our one-hour educational class. Or maybe they did in the consent forms and we read through it. I found out about it officially through Reddit once we had already started stimulation. So even though 43 matured, just the thought of the rest of the attrition snowball scares me.