Peeps On Board

Meet the Peeps!

These two great looking day-5 blastocysts, which are already "hatching" (breaking out of the zona pellucida, the "shell" surrounding the zygote) are now in my uterus - hopefully settling in for a nice, long stay.

According to what I read here, I'm pretty sure that the smaller "blob" that looks like it's coming out of the one on the right is actually the zona being left behind.

The more concentrated clumps of cells that you can see inside each (at the top of the one on the right and at the bottom left of the one on the left) are the inner cell masses - the cells that will actually become the fetus(es).

(Other cells of the blastocyst will develop into the placenta and associated support structures.)

Their three chromosomally normal brothers/sisters (including the slacker that I mentioned before) will continue to be cultured for another couple of days, and hopefully one or more will be in good enough shape to freeze for later use, in case things don't work out this time.

(They will be the Peepsicles.)

I'm sorry the image quality on the photo isn't so great. My scanner isn't working, so I asked the lab to email us a copy as well, but that's not arrived yet, so I just took a photo of the hard copy. I will forward the good image when we get it. (And I'll call tomorrow to remind them!)

In the meantime, I'm just hanging out on the couch with my feet up, thinking implantational thoughts :-)

Thanks to everybody for your support, good vibes, warm thoughts, prayers, sticky-Peep mojo, etc.

It really helps to know that so many people are cheering for us.