In Vitro Fertilization Treatment Option (IVF): Wondering About? Let’s Glance “Inside” It!
Infertility is exhausting physically, emotionally, and mentally. Infertility brings so many things with itself when it enters your life. And all of them are confusing, embarrassing, and frustrating. It disrupts your life. It turns you into the bundle of nerves. It completely changes you. It curls your amusing smile into confusing one. It turns your glittering eyes into tearful. It makes your wonderful fingertips trembling and your accurate warm wrists cold. It isn’t just that you can’t get pregnant. It brings you more tears than you ever thought you could shed. Because of it, you lay on your bathroom floor in complete emptiness after countless negative pregnancy tests time and time again you had to endure shots, bruises, and all kinds of medications because when you are infertile, and you seek Treatment for help, that is what you are in for.
Infertility always disrupts your reality. It involves you in a new world. The world of the deepest frustrations and inspiring moments. The world where Scientific Touch and Pharmaceutical Chemistry really Do Wonders! The world where you have not just some envisioned dreams, but gorgeous miracles which happen in your life!
Myriad of fingertips are Googling the most updated information about the Treatment Options every tiny moment… Millions of sparkling eyes are glancing through billions of articles and thousands of the websites… The Universe of thoughts is designing a myriad of Sparkling dreams… But sometimes the Sparkling dreams are not as sparkling as the emotional tension, anxiety, anger, and frustration interfere with the dreaming–reality… Intervene with everything that you envisioned in your dream–reality and entailing the depression because all the Options are so Sparkling but you are not sure if this one option chosen exclusively for you will work…
What are your thoughts about IVF? Any ideas? You may consider that it is something magical. It is something mysterious. It is something Impossible to Understand Completely. It is something that Does the Wonders. IVF Treatment cycle literally involves you in the other reality. And this New Reality is designed for your Tiny Embryo Creation! There are so many Amusing Facts about IVF Treatment that you may find your mind lost. Therefore, we have chosen top 10 facts which will surprise you or remind you something essential.
1. What is an ‘EMBRYO’?
The assembly of a new life first depends on the union between a spermatozoon and an oocyte culminating in fertilization. If the fertilization occurs, the embryo appears. Fertilization is a mysterious phenomenon that turns two cells into a tiny embryo–dude or a tiny embryo–lady, or if two oocytes are fertilized than…two tiny embryo–dudes! Or two tiny embryo–ladies! Or if three oocytes are fertilized than three tiny embryo–babies: two tiny Handsome embryo–dudes and one tiny sparkling embryo–lady! The miracles start here… The tiny sparkles are here… Many versions can be inserted here…
2. How does the tiny sparkling embryo appear in a natural way?
Wondering how does Fertilization happen? Usually, a spermatozoon and an oocyte ‘meet’ in one of the two Fallopian tubes that connect the ovaries to the womb (uterus). Wondering how does the embryo–baby normally ‘appears’ and implants in the uterus? The tiny embryo–dude or the tiny embryo–lady (fertilized oocyte) then moves down the Fallopian tube by being wafted by fine hairs inside the tubes until it reaches the womb (uterus) two, three or four days later. Once there, this tiny embryo–bundle wonders where it should cuddle up itself in this new place. And it implants, attaching itself to the womb lining and that is where it usually continues to grow and develop.
The ability of the Fallopian tube to transfer the early embryo into the uterus is an excessive modality for a successful pregnancy. Apparently, structural abnormalities and functional abnormalities of the Fallopian tube will interfere with the Embryo Transfer process that can lead to tubal pregnancy.
3. How does the embryo appear in case if it is IVF Treatment cycle?
In Vitro Fertilization Treatment cycle is designed to create the tiny sparkling embryos in the laboratory and after that to transfer them to the mother’s uterus. In other words, fertilization [or EMBRYO ‘CREATION’] happens in the laboratory.
The tiny perfect embryos are made exclusively [‘DESIGNED’] for you
Fertilization (making the embryos from your oocytes and your husband’s sperm) is possible even in difficult cases. Not always the standard Insemination can be used for the Oocyte Fertilization.
Embryologists will ‘design’ your tiny sparkling embryo–ladies and handsome embryo–dudes in the laboratory. They will take the retrieved oocytes and toss them in a Petri dish with your husband’s sperm and let them do their thing [YAY!]... Another option is called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), where the Embryologists manually fertilize the oocytes with the sperm individually, but it is for extreme cases only. The ICSI procedure is done with the aid of a microscope and fine instruments, one single sperm is taken and injected directly into every mature oocyte.
Indications for ICSI include such cases as the previous Semen Analysis demonstrating significant abnormalities, in situations where surgical aspiration of sperm from the vas deferens or testicle, or a previous IVF cycle with poor fertilization. You will know the next morning how many of your oocytes have been fertilized correctly. After that, you'll have to wait 3 days, or a bit more.
On day 3, you get a Day 3 growth report, and it’s the scariest and the most exciting phone call of your life. The phone call from your Embryologist. The embryologist will tell you how many embryos Fair, Good, and Excellent quality are. Can you imagine that? Those tiny embryos were designed especially for you. All of them are perfect. And all of them are anticipating the time when they will be with you.
4. Mock Embryo Transfer increases the chances that your tiny embryo will be accurately placed Inside
Embryo Transfer is a blind procedure and some difficulties can unexpectedly arise. Therefore, many IVF programs perform a ‘mock’ Embryo Transfer. It is done prior to the Treatment cycle to determine the most suitable catheter and technique for actual Embryo Transfer.
In the middle of your cycle, your doctor will do a mock Embryo Transfer. It is a trial of the actual Embryo Transfer. The actual Embryo Transfer requires taking the embryos into a catheter and then transferring them to the uterus via the cervix. This procedure is more complicated than it appears. It’s not enough to just drop those tiny embryos anywhere inside the uterus. There is an ideal area in your uterus where they should be accurately placed.
5. Mock Embryo Transfer is the Pre–Embryo–Transfer procedure, and the actual Embryo Transfer occurs in this way…The miracle for your tiny sparkling embryo (or More Than One tiny sparkle…) Starts from being taken out from the petri dish and placed in the private, premium–level “Shuttle” (Catheter)! Three, two, one… Go! Imagine! Drive through! Launch!
The embryo will appear inside your uterus via the catheter. Your tiny scared embryo–lady or embryo–dude is taken out of the Petri–dish and waits for a ‘BIG TRANSFER’. If it is the time to replace this small embryo–bundle from the tube inside your uterus, it is placed inside a flexible catheter. The procedure of Embryo Transfer takes only several minutes. It takes all of three minutes to insert a weird kind of catheter, get it to where it needs to be, accurately place your little embryo inside your uterus, and that is all. YES, and it has to ‘LEARN’ so many things inside. It wonders: ‘Where am I?’ ‘What has happened?’ ‘Everything is pulsating around me…’ ‘Should I curl up here or there?’ ‘Oh, it is better on the left side?’ ‘I am scared. I will just cuddle up to that warm place and sleep there.’
6. If you have at least one perfect embryo, don’t burst into tears! This one tiny embryo loves you and is waiting for you!
Most of the embryos may stop their development... Yes, this may happen… And you will feel anger, anxiety, confusion, or even despair. You will feel like a bundle of nerves. You will burst into tears. And you shouldn’t feel this way. If you have at least ONE perfect embryo, don’t burst into tears! This ONE Tiny Sparkling Embryo Loves you and is waiting for you!
Even if 6 of your oocytes were fertilized correctly, you know the odds of all 6 of them making it to day 5, may slim to none. If you are lucky, you will have one, and if you are super lucky, you will end up with 2 or 3 of them. Two or three perfect embryos would have meant the chance that maybe; just maybe, one of them would grow to full term. The responsible Embryologist closely monitors the development of the tiny embryos. If the embryos continue their development, then the Embryo Transfer may be prescheduled. But there is still one but… If you will be too nervous, the Embryo Transfer may be cancelled. Give this tiny one embryo the chance. Do not play the scenario ‘It took so long’.
7. Chromosome abnormalities are excluded!
The great challenge for Reproductive Endocrinologists is to correctly identify the most viable embryos and prioritize them for further transfer to the uterus. Especially it should be done in cases when it is vital to exclude the embryos with chromosome abnormalities. And there is a great option for this.
Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS) is currently applied to evaluate the presence of aneuploidies in embryos of couples at risk of occurrence the chromosome abnormalities, for example, advanced maternal age, recurrent miscarriage, recurrent IVF failure or severe male factor.
If your doctor insists on this procedure, do not say ‘NO’. First glance through two next lines. Embryos are prone to chromosomal abnormalities. The consequences of chromosomal abnormalities could cause miscarriage (early pregnancy loss) or severe chromosomal diseases. Have they changed your mind about Preimplantation Genetic Screening?
8. You Will Decide How Many Embryos Should Be Transferred and What Should Be Done with Those That Are Left
Surely this decision will be based on your doctor’s recommendations. Before the time of the actual Embryo Transfer, your doctor will review the fertilization results and the development of the embryos. A decision will be made regarding the number of embryos that will be transferred. You will have to sign the papers before the Embryo Transfer. The questions in these papers vary from clinic to clinic, but there are three most important which remain the same. How many embryos should be transferred? What should be done with those embryos that left? Will you undergo the embryo reduction procedure in case of multiple pregnancy? Or will you try to save all those tiny ones?
You can ask to transfer two, three or even more embryos. But you should understand the risks which will follow your decision. Increasing the number of embryos transferred will increase the chances of pregnancy. But it will also increase the risk of a multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets, etc.). Remaining embryos that are not transferred will be accurately examined. If they are of suitable quality, they may be frozen, stored and transferred in the future. Alternatively, these ‘extra’ embryos can be discarded.
9. Sexual Differentiation Occurs Before Fertilization!
Thrilled by this news? Yes, the gender is predetermined. Inspired and nervous? Yes, it can be even chosen. During the embryo development, sexual differentiation occurs before fertilization. It is determined by the genetic material contributed by the sperm of the baby’s father.
The father’s genes are responsible for the baby’s gender. Sperm cells [spermatozoa] carry either X or Y sex chromosomes. Every spermatozoon [every father’s sperm cell] carries either X or Y sex chromosome. Given that mother’s cells [oocytes] always have an X sex chromosome, two chromosome variations are possible:
If the father’s spermatozoon carries an X–chromosome the embryo–baby will be ‘XX’ –– an embryo–lady [a girl].
If the father’s spermatozoon carries a Y–chromosome the embryo–baby will be ‘XY’ –– an embryo–dude [a boy].
10. Gender Selection is possible! You may choose ‘an embryo–girl’, ‘an embryo–boy’, two embryos (‘an embryo–girl and an embryo–boy’, or two ‘embryo–girls’, two ‘embryo–boys’): Your Dreams Come True!
Wondering is it possible to have the embryo–baby with the desired gender? Yes, it is possible! If you would love to choose the gender of your future baby or babies, you have this option. These embryo–babies will be exclusively ‘designed’ for you! If you do want to have ‘an embryo–girl’, ‘an embryo–boy’, two embryos (‘an embryo–girl and an embryo–boy’, or two ‘embryo–girls’, two ‘embryo–boys’, or three ‘embryo–girls’, or two ‘embryo–girls’ and one ‘embryo–boy’, it is possible!
Amused by these facts? What may be done by the reproductive specialists to ‘DESIGN’ the embryo–baby’s gender? They must know which chromosomes prevail in the sperm. If the sperm sample will contain mostly ‘X’ chromosome spermatozoa, a tiny gorgeous embryo–lady will be waiting for you. If the sperm sample will contain mostly ‘Y’ chromosome spermatozoa, a tiny handsome embryo–dude will be warmly welcomed. And if you want more tiny embryos with the desired gender…They will be cute and beautiful, just make a wish–list ‘WHO’ they should be. Caught the hidden idea?
And if the ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) technique is chosen for fertilization, that means that the one single spermatozoon will be injected inside the oocyte. So…They just need the utter accuracy to choose that one spermatozoon and to inject it inside the oocyte. And the divine ‘embryo–[insert your version]’ anticipates the ‘romantic date’ with you!
Or… the other intimidating option – to produce the embryos and to ‘glance inside’ their Genetic Code to find the one which suits your desires. The technique which is used is called PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). They screen the entire genomes of the embryos for the desired characteristics.
11. Multiples Are So Common (Getting Pregnant with Twins, Triplets, or Even More Tiny Bundles is so Common)! Dreaming About Having Twins? Wondering About Tiny Sparkling Triplets? It IS Possible!
Twins, triplets, or YAY…That also may happen, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, octuplets… Fetuses of all shapes and sizes are everywhere! At present, multifetal pregnancies are closely associated with Infertility Treatment. And (IVF) is responsible for multifetal pregnancies and adverse neonatal outcomes. IVF Treatment cycle is designed to stimulate excess follicles and transfer excess embryos to achieve pregnancy. So?
If two or more perfect tiny embryos were transferred into your uterus, you may expect the multiple. But sometimes spontaneous twinning/tripling occurs from fertilization of two separate oocytes [dizygotic twinning] or from a single fertilized oocyte that subsequently divides into two identical structures [monozygotic twinning]. So… it may happen! If there are no limitations according to your doctor’s recommendations and you are dreaming about Two Tiny Sparkling Bundles, surely, you will hold them in your hands soon! A little bit patience here!
12. Extra–embryos or extra–fetuses may vanish…
Worrying about having triplet after IVF? Multiple embryo implantation can’t guarantee that absolutely all embryos would develop normally into fetuses. On the contrary, discovering more than one gestational sac before the eighth week should not be considered as definitive because vanishing embryo phenomenon may occur.
Interested and nervous? You shouldn’t feel this way because spontaneous vanishing mainly occurs between 8 and 9 weeks of gestation. Vanishing embryo is a phenomenon, which occurs before the ninth gestational week. The intricacy of this phenomenon can be shown through the percentage: between 10% and 20% of viable twin fetuses disappear. And not only twins are in danger. Embryo vanishing phenomenon was defined as the spontaneous loss of one or more embryos after identifying their heart activity via external ultrasound.
Where do the embryos vanish? The scientists don’t know yet. They just have some tips what to do. Accurate early ultrasound monitoring is highly recommended to precisely identify the occurrence of a vanished embryo and the time when the vanishing occurred. We do hope that in the nearest future they will reveal this Vanishing mystery.
13. If There is the Mosaic Embryo: should you give this little one the chance?
Many preimplantation embryos designed during IVF Treatment cycles contain two or more cytogenetically distinct cell lines. This phenomenon, known as chromosomal mosaicism, can involve the presence of cells with different types of abnormality [aneuploidy], the absence of any normal embryonic cells or a mixture of normal [euploid] and abnormal [aneuploid] embryonic cells.
Recent studies have represented that among tiny mosaic embryo–dudes and embryo–ladies, or embryos with a mix of normal (euploid) and abnormal (aneuploid) cells, many still have the potential to implant in the womb and develop into chromosomally healthy newborns.
What does the Mosaic Embryo look like inside?
Metaphorically saying, have you ever seen the pearl rondelle beads accurately covered ‘curled up’ in translucent package or envelope? If you have never even envisioned that, Google the rondelle pearl beads ‘curled up’ in translucent package or envelope. This is how your handsome embryo–dude or gorgeous embryo–lady looks like inside. If we are talking about normal [healthy] embryo, this pearl content is accurately shaped, ivory–colored and has no ‘dark–blue’ [abnormal] pearls.
The mosaic embryo is a phenomenon. This tiny bundle can be envisioned as mixed pearls: ivory and dark–blue pears in the same line accurately covered ‘curled up’ in translucent package or envelope. It doesn’t have the pure chromosomal content. It has the affected [or even mixed] chromosomal content. But this affected content has its own categories as, in future, if the mosaic embryo corrects itself, the affected mosaic cells can be ‘TRANSFERRED’ to the placenta and won’t affect the tiny fetus, or, in the other case, they can turn the tiny embryo in ‘MOSAIC FETUS’ with many abnormalities. And the hardest question is should you give this little one the chance?
The interpretation of mosaicism among preimplantation embryos is complicated thing both for doctors and couples. Doctors should identify those mosaic embryos that won’t have the developmental abnormalities. Couples should make the serious decision concerning the Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS) testing that reveals the abnormalities in the genetic content. And this decision should be made only after the counselling.
The mosaic embryo is a phenomenon as it contains both normal and abnormal embryonic cells. And it is difficult to say, which embryonic cells will prevail. This mystery hides either miracle or frustration. Therefore, prior to transfer the tiny mosaic embryo, it should be accurately validated.
Genetic Counselling is exclusively designed for giving the couples the most transparent and inclusive information about whether or not to pursue PGS. The pre–test (pre–PGS) counseling should include a discussion about the frequency of mosaic results, the challenges associated with the interpretation of these results, the possibility of a false positive diagnosis of embryonic mosaicism, and the limited predictive data available. The Genetic Counsellor should also say that the priority for Embryo Transfer should be given to mosaic embryos with low mosaicism level.
14. If you can see those tiny heartbeats on the ultrasound screen, your tiny embryo or fetus is alive
You will go through many things before this unique moment. Your doctor will perform the first external ultrasound to determine how does your little one spend its time inside. It’ll be painful and uncomfortable and terrifying, but you will keep your focus on the black and white screen by your side. And if you can see those tiny heartbeats (that glittering red spot) on the ultrasound screen, your tiny embryo or fetus is with you. Amused? Just curl a smile!
IVF is a new world! The world of Hope... The world of Miracles... The world of wonders! Never give up! Even the tiny chance may be your chance!
Surely you have already envisioned in your mind the first ‘DATE’ with your small bundle of joy as the moment of cordial connection. But have you ever envisioned how your future baby may look like? Have you ever mentally ‘glanced’ at your future baby’s gorgeous eyes? Have you ever thought that those intriguing gorgeously–shaped dark–golden curls fall around your future baby–girl’s back and shoulders? The gorgeous baby–girl with the cascade of dark–golden curls down to her waist, so intriguingly curled, so glittering, so gorgeous, so tempting… And you are captured by the divine beauty of her curls… Your girl is basically so attractive, that even you wonder if she is for real. She is impeccably charming. Or if you have a tiny dude, have you ever envisioned him with so impeccably charming? With so sparkling dark eyes? With so cute tiny curls? Dreaming? Wondering if that possible? Be sure, everything is possible! The advanced and sophisticated Options will turn your dream into reality!
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