Apples don't always equal apples

Apples come in different sizes, different shapes, different colors, and different tastes. Additionally, you may look at two apples and, although you can't tell just by looking at them, one may be much older and have traveled a more difficult path than the other.

As most of you know, out of our 5 eggs, only 2 fertilized. We are very fortunate that both lived to transfer and were put into me yesterday. And, while I have been struggling greatly the last few days, I have so appreciated all of the positive and supportive comments from everyone, bot here and in other parts of my life. The encouragement I've been getting and continue to receive is truly overwhelming. So, I don't want it to sound too negative when I say that apples don't always equal apples. I know that I have two embryos in me. I know that it only takes one. I have every bit of hope that the one that I need is in me now.

But, my two just don't give me great odds, and I know that. 6 cycles ago they might have, but, they don't now. I'm just being realistic. When 3 extremely respected RE's all tell you, independent of one another, that they would put SIX embryos back into you if you had them, just to give you better odds, well, how can you not extrapolate from that the reduced odds of 2?

I in no way blame Clinic C because nobody promised us anything, and I really have no idea what would have happened if we hadn't been there with them, however, it really saddens me that all of the reasons we decided to cycle with Clinic C, in spite of the added cost and inconvenience, didn't pan out for us.

• Estrogen Priming Protocol - this was designed for people with ovarian reserve issues and people have had great success with it, except me, who only produced 1 damn follicle on the protocol
• Co-culture - if we couldn't produce more eggs, at least the co-culture was supposed to help improve the quality of the resulting embryos. Well, we ended up with 20-25% fragmentation in both of them, exactly the same as I had with Clinic A without co-culture
• World renowned lab - not that this was ever a problem for us before, but, it was nice to know they had it. Well, their world renowned lab had 5 "mature and beautiful" eggs (per the RE) to work with and, with ICSI, could only get 2 to fertilize. For others this isn't surprising, but, in my previous cycles, every mature egg I got fertilized, so, this was another huge disappointment

Anyway, as I said, I have hope, realistic hope, that one of these babies is THE one, and I will continue to have that hope as long as there's still a reason to. I'm struggling to keep myself focused on that because, if I allow myself to start thinking about the what if's, well, we don't want to go there just yet because it won't be pretty.....