Batting 1.000

Hooray!

Our Clomid-only IVF egg retrieval from last week resulted in a Blastocyst!

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Our patient is still relatively young (i.e. not yet 40) and , even though Hanabusa IVF is a new center in San Diego, our mother center Hanabusa Women’s Clinic is the second largest center in Japan performing over 8,000 IVF cycles per year. Between my embryologist from our mother center in Kobe and myself (and my work at New Hope Fertility Center), we have thousands of cases of experience between the two us. Still, it’s always uncertain and exciting.

The critics out there may grumble, “It’s only 1 blastocyst” , but my response is that …

1. since it was already Day 7 of the cycle, most centers would have skipped the cycle
2. we only used Clomid tablets (no injections or expensive medications)
3. the egg retrieval was performed under local anesthesia so there was no General Anesthesia expense or risk
4. the egg retrieval was performed using a 21 gauge catheter so there was minimal risk of trauma and complications
5. you only need 1 embryo to create a healthy baby.

It may not have been a home run, but it was a clean single and we froze the embryo.

Why did we do that?

Even though she is having difficulty having one child, her dream is to have two. Unfortunately, she is at an age where I am confident that she will have one child, but I am not so confident, after 9 months of pregnancy and another 6-9 months of recovery and a poor ovarian reserve, that she will be able to produce good quality eggs for a second child. By banking embryos now, we optimize her chance of having baby #1, at same time hedge for baby #2. It’s more work and more money, but our patient feels it will be worth it if it will optimize her opportunity for having a second child.

It is Spring Training in baseball and my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates (although I have been in Manhattan the past 25 years, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania), after 20 miserable years at the bottom, are finally World Series contenders! With patience and perseverance, I believe our patient will be successful as well.