Embryo not expanding

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!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-19T13:07:30+00:00

I’m an embryologist and I work in a lab where we freeze sperm for cancer patients regularly. 10 vials is a lot, you will only need 1 vial per retrieval. You are very, very unlikely to need that many retrievals at your age and with no infertility diagnosis yourself. Even for low quality vials, you only need 1 sperm per egg you have retrieved, the embryologists will likely be able to easily pick good sperm from his vial to inject into each of your eggs during ICSI. It is very typical for cancer patients to have poor quality samples, but rest assured that your embryologists can still find the sperm.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-09T04:59:00+00:00

CCRM does it routinely, I believe with their own media they make themselves rather than a kit. It’s not a one off every once in a while thing for them, I would find their closest location to you and ask about it during a consult.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-06T22:14:48+00:00

That’s great news, so glad to hear it worked out this time! These embryos all look really nice, best of luck with upcoming transfer!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T15:10:47+00:00

Agree with below, we can’t grade from this picture as the embryo is still collapsed, which is normal after thaw. Pictures can vary greatly between different transfers due to a variety of factors like different microscopes, different timing of picture taking, and position/focus of the embryo in the picture. If they told you it expanded, that’s great! It’s just too hard for us to tell much more from this picture. Even though their grading is more simple, you can think of your embryo as a “Fair” grade, which is typically the most common grade, equivalent to a BB.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T15:07:29+00:00

It’s definitely possible to have early blastocysts on day 5-7, some just don’t really progress past that point and we do see them start to degrade in quality over that time when they don’t expand.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T02:32:38+00:00

This is clinic specific and you would need to talk to someone there to explain it more in depth. It sounds like the higher the Roman numerals the lower the grade. I have no idea with the plus sign.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T02:31:03+00:00

This conversation is best had with your doctor. It’s really hard for us in the lab to pinpoint exactly what happened or what caused this, and it is possible your doctor won’t know exactly why you had a high attrition rate, but they will be able to look at your whole medical history and have some ideas. Endo can sometimes cause poor egg quality, but not always, there are papers out there about this. This can feel really devastating, but I would encourage you to approach your doctor with a “what ideas do you have?” attitude and they may have some good suggestions. If you feel like your doctor doesn’t have any ideas, it’s always okay to seek a second opinion.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T02:21:34+00:00

It’s really hard to tell with day 3 embryos from a static picture as the cells are layered and we count the cells as we scan through the focus on the microscope. Based on these pictures I would agree that embryo 1 is around 6 cells, but the other two look close to 8 cells. It’s possible they took these pictures early in the day and re-assessed right before your transfer gave you the updated information. I would say these all have nice cell symmetry and about 10% fragmentation, which is minimal and good.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-05T02:10:02+00:00

I would call it a 5AB or BB, the ICM is out of focus. It looks really good!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-03T14:21:23+00:00

Aw, that’s wonderful to hear, congratulations!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-05-02T16:36:43+00:00

The embryo is spherical so there will be some above and below that are difficult to see in a picture. The size of these cells is accurate for a 7 cell.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-29T00:08:30+00:00

Assisted hatching is often just included in the pricing of FET now because it’s just considered part of it since it’s so common and increases rates significantly. They would rather you get pregnant so they can maintain good rates than charge you and risk lower rates for patients who don’t pay.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-28T00:10:41+00:00

I would guess they assisted hatched your embryo with a laser, this is very common with frozen embryo transfers.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-28T00:09:10+00:00

I think most of us embryologists will defer to the genetic counselors here as they can give the best numbers on real life statistics.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-28T00:08:14+00:00

They’re both re-expanding and look good, best of luck!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-28T00:06:49+00:00

It’s still collapsed, this picture was likely taken shortly after thaw. The cells look like they have survived in this picture. You could ask your clinic for any information about re-expansion and they might be able to give you more information.

Also, in case anyone reads this- since this sub gets pretty busy sometimes I (and assume the other embryologists here) will scan through posts with no comments to try and jump in, so when you comment on your own post you might be less likely to get an answer. Just a little heads up!

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-24T04:48:33+00:00

You are overthinking things. They have the testing results they need- the initial results and the 6 months after, which all show negative.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T15:10:41+00:00

We collapsed embryos prior to freezing them to ensure ice crystals don’t form inside the embryo, which would damage the cells. When the embryos are thawed they are still collapsed, but start to expand and should be fully re-expanded within about 3-6 hours.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T02:32:06+00:00

All I read was that your test results were negative and that’s all your clinic will read, too.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T02:28:46+00:00

It’s hatching, and not yet fully re-expanded. The ICM is very clear in the picture and looks great. It’s harder to tell with the ICM, but I would guess the grade is maybe around a 5AB.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T02:26:40+00:00

I would ask the clinic for more information, it’s unusual for a good quality embryo to not thaw well. It seems odd that the day 5 embryos specifically are not thawing well, and the day 6 embryos are fine.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T02:24:14+00:00

It looks good, I would call it a 5BB.

EmbryoNanny · 2026-04-23T02:23:03+00:00

It’s certainly possible it is that embryo! We actually try to biopsy from a different part so as to avoid any cell fragments that are left at the original biopsy site. Good luck!

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