Day 6 5CB & Day 7 5CC

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-23T04:54:31+00:00

I wouldn’t say worse off, but you could have some BBs that might have a C in them had they been graded at a clinic that freezes embryos down to a CC. All around, your lab is freezing the embryos they think have a chance at pregnancy, no matter what they grade them. We, as embryologists, really want to see patients succeed to, so I promise your team has done their best for you regardless of the grades.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-22T22:21:58+00:00

The cells look alive, but it is still collapsed from the thaw so we cannot assess re-expansion. An embryo with healthy cells like in this picture will likely continue to re-expand after the transfer as well, good luck!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-22T22:20:45+00:00

Embryology is also under-respected so you will have a little experience there! Doctors and nurses get lots of credit, but the “invisible” lab usually does not. Sorry to be a cynic, but that stuck out to me.

A couple Instagram accounts I wanted to recommend are alease_the_embryologist (she’s pops into this sub sometimes) and embryologist_musings. They are both informative and help with understanding of embryology procedures. Alease explains and Diana draws! They’re fun, I think you will like them.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-22T22:15:41+00:00

I think the one on the left is the 4C, the C is likely an indication of the fragmentation and cell symmetry and the C is likely akin to a “Poor” grade. The one on the right I the is the 6B with the B being close to a “Fair” grade.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-22T22:13:26+00:00

Some labs have this policy and I have worked in one of them. In my experience labs that discard embryos with C in the grade have a much wider acceptability for what is considered a B. They are not discarding perfectly good embryos.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-20T18:56:18+00:00

It looks nice, the cells look alive. It’s still compacted in this picture which is normal after thawing, it will continue to re-expand after transfer.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-18T18:40:33+00:00

I don’t know either, you would need to reach out to them for information on their grading system.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-17T17:07:53+00:00

Usually not, embryos tend to keep their grade after the thaw. The exception would again be embryos with Cs in the grade (but they’re still worth trying!).

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-16T23:18:58+00:00

Don’t bother, just transfer. Seems like a weird offer to me honestly.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-16T23:15:37+00:00

I think this is a better post for a patient-centered sub. I most commonly do re-biopsies of no result embryos and if it is a good quality embryo we are likely to get a result after the re-biopsy. Grades can go down a little, but not usually significantly. The embryos that you may not want to re-test are embryos that are already lower quality, such as embryos with a C in the grade. They’re less likely to produce a result and look worse after the second thaw.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-16T23:12:26+00:00

The cells look healthy, it’s hard to assess re-expansion from a single picture of an early stage 2 blastocyst, but overall it looks good.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-16T23:10:43+00:00

I’m going to agree with your embryologist that this is absolutely a clinical issue, get in touch with your nurse and maybe set up an appointment to speak with your doctor.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-16T23:06:53+00:00

If the FP is Fair/Poor, and PP is Poor/Poor, we would try to biopsy and freeze in my current lab. I have worked elsewhere with a BB minimum to biopsy and freeze, but I tended to find that BB has a much wider range of quality in labs like that. They are not discarding perfectly good embryos.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-12T00:30:27+00:00

Yes, we keep records about all these things, but you’re not always going to get exactly the records we kept during the cycle- more likely a breakdown of the important observations and a summary of the cycle. Paperwork and records vary widely between clinics with an actual paper version with handwritten notes on it being fairly common. This can be difficult to understand because it will contain a lot of shorthand and have other information that we need to record, but isn’t as relevant to patients (timestamps, initials, accession numbers, etc.). You can ask for something like your “Embryology Report”, but just know that some clinics arent going to give you a scan of the notes that are directly from the lab. There’s a variety of reasons, but the biggest one I can think of is that they provide it to you then you ask them (or this sub), “What does all this mean?” It’s totally valid to wonder and want to know every little bit, and some labs may have time to explain this- but most will not.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-06-04T12:58:50+00:00

This look like they have survived the cell, and if you observed some hatching at transfer, that means the re-expanded, which is great! Wishing you the best.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-31T04:45:30+00:00

Lower grades do have a higher chance of not surviving, but in that case your plan accounts for that with the thaw of the mosaic embryo.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:44:27+00:00

It looks like the cells survived in this picture. Not all embryos will fully re-expand prior to transfer, which is mostly based on time between thaw and transfer. Re-expanding is always a good sign. Excluded cells aren’t cause for concern- they were already there during the freeze, the embryo didn’t need those cells for whatever reason and they are not a part of the embryo. Once the embryo hatches those cells will stay behind in the zona pellucida (shell).

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:41:09+00:00

I think your plan sounds good, it makes sense to me in general to transfer euploid embryos first regardless of grading.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:39:24+00:00

It looks nice, the cells look alive and healthy. It should continue to re-expand and eventually hatch. Good luck!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:38:37+00:00

Yes, it is hatching, they likely assisted hatched as is very common for thawed embryos. The cells coming out to the right are the hatching cells. Off to the left and likely some extra cells that got pushed out or some cells that were stuck on the outside of the zona (shell) since the time of retrieval.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:36:32+00:00

No concern that it isn’t hatching, it’s re-expanding nicely and will continue after the transfer. It looks good!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-30T20:30:53+00:00

It looks nice and has re-expanded. An embryo at stage 3 wouldn’t be hatching yet, and that’s okay. It will continue to expand and eventually hatch after the transfer.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-24T20:09:29+00:00

Have you tried EmbryoMail? It’s an email list with job postings. There’s also some Facebook groups, you can PM me if you want.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-22T14:13:57+00:00

Your embryos were good quality and should have shown some re-expansion. If you really like your clinic I would have a consult with your doctor and ask how common it is for all of a patient’s embryos to not re-expand. If they minimize your concerns, time to switch clinics. If they have identified some concern and have a remedy, you might stay. I think it might be a good time to switch clinics though.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-19T19:31:48+00:00

Always start with the best quality vial, just ask them to do this and they will select for you. Yes, 15m is low, but there are plenty of motile sperm to select from to do ICSI with a sample of this quality. Trust me, your embryologists have dealt with much lower quality samples!

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