what does 8 cell or 4 cell mean?

[keddie]

this is my first time doing IVF and I haven't heard some of the terminology like 8 cell, or I saw some people were talking about mature embyros but how do they know if they are fertilized.

Sorry for sounding so dumb! There is so much to learn!

[JADE0199]

Kelly - You mean mature eggs. Not all eggs retrieved will be mature and not all follies contain eggs. Once an egg gets fertilized, it will divide into cells. Typically 2 cells, then 3-4 cells, then eventually to 8 cells by day 3. Some aren't 8 cells by day 3 and that's okay too. I've heard women transferring 5, 6, 7 or 8 cell embies on Day 3 and have success!!!

Hope this helps! Lots of luck and babydust!
Cathy

[tricias2007]

Kelly - I've done 2 IVF's and I still don't know half of this terminology. However, here's what I know. When they do the egg retreival (ER) those are oocytes. Personally, I had 10 oocytes retreived. The next day I got a call and was told that out of the 10 8 were mature. Usually if the oocyte is not mature they do not use it.

The next day they give you your fertilization results. Out of my 8 mature oocytes 1 fertilized. They also grew out my 2 immature ones. On the day of transfer (ET) I had the 1 mature one which fertilized which had now grown to 8 cells and the 1 immature one that was still at 4 cell.

The immature one was at 4 cell because it was a day behind the other one. Also some people transfer the embryos (once they are fertilized they are called embryos) back either 3 days after retreival or 5 days it depends on the protocol.

I hoped I helped a little...let me know if anything is confusing.
Trish

[keddie]

Cathy and Trish,

Thank you so much for explaining. I'm still overwhelmed hearing all this. I kind of wish my doctors office would have explained some of that. I knew the part about the follicles and that the eggs were within them because my dr. told us with all our other treatments that my follicles were mature and that I should have been pregnant. But they did say there was no way of knowing for sure if they contained eggs.

I am supposed to have the egg retrieval done next week sometimes. I had a scan and bw done wed. and my estrogen was at 200 so I go back in the morning for another one.

I am praying this works this time because my dh and I are only doing this once, we can't afford anymore treatments after this

If we are able to get frozen embryos then we will try with that though.

Thanks again for explaining!

[tricias2007]

Kelly - Best of Luck. Keep us posted. And remember no question is every silly!!