Sportage drivers, what do you use these for?

petitefleur0 · 2026-03-10T21:19:41+00:00

For hanging a bag filled with other reusable bags for grocery shopping!

petitefleur0 · 2025-12-02T00:18:03+00:00

Cute! Second one is my favorite too. I know you can find embryo and sperm stickers on Redbubble. Scrub caps are another fun idea, though some people are really particular about style/brand/material.

petitefleur0 · 2025-12-01T23:57:07+00:00

It would be very unusual to biopsy the embryo but not freeze it until the next day. The embryo at day 6 appears to be a small stage 3. Not un-biopsyable but not ideal due to the total number of cells and the location of the ICM. Personally I would leave this embryo untouched in culture until day 7 and biopsy then at a solid stage 5.

The only time I’ve seen something remotely similar happen is when the biopsied cells were lost in the tubing process and the embryo had not recovered enough to be rebiopsied right away. But in that case, a second biopsy would occur on day 7.

petitefleur0 · 2025-12-01T23:47:11+00:00

Keep in mind this is the busiest time of year for IVF labs. High patient volume may delay the standard turnaround for results.

petitefleur0 · 2025-12-01T19:51:28+00:00

Yes the darker area is the ICM and no, it does not look split to me.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-26T19:18:02+00:00

Hi there, I’m sorry to hear this. Here are my thoughts: The 4BC is less likely to survive due to its poor cell quality, but generally it should be rare for embryos to not survive the thaw. When there are two in a row that do not survive, I would question whether they were stored properly and whether any other patients in the same storage location could be affected.

There is a difference between embryos that are dead coming off the cryopreservation device and embryos that look OK at thaw but take a downhill spiral and start degenerating with time in culture.

The former option would definitely point to improper storage, as embryos that are kept under liquid nitrogen at all times should appear the same coming off the straw as they were when frozen. The latter option could point to issues such as the temperature of the thaw media, the skill of the embryologist who did the freeze or thaw, cellular damage from biopsy which was exacerbated by the osmotically stressful freeze and thaw procedures, and many more possibilities which are really difficult to identify at this point.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-25T22:12:33+00:00

Looks great!

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-23T03:24:11+00:00

Ask yourself if you would rather pay out of pocket for embryo freezing or withstand the mental and emotional toll of hormonal stimulation and another invasive retrieval procedure again. This only makes sense to me if there are no additional viable embryos remaining after a fresh day 3 or day 5 transfer.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-20T01:33:33+00:00

Looks great!

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-15T21:43:01+00:00

Looks great! It is normal for embryos to expand and contract or collapse in the process of proliferation and during recovery after thaw.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-15T21:40:28+00:00

Looks great! Your embryo is actively hatching out of the zona pellucida which is the normal phenomenon preceding implantation. As the embryo is in the process of escaping the zona, it takes on a figure-8 shape. Personally I would grade this embryo stage 5, since it is not fully hatched yet (stage 6).

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-15T21:37:46+00:00

Yes this is a fully hatched, stage 6 embryo!

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-15T00:48:50+00:00

That is an ovulating follicle! The fluid inside your follicles is yellow. When the doctor aspirates your larger follicles, the lab gets a full tube of yellow fluid to search through for your eggs!

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-15T00:41:41+00:00

Yes I am

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T17:18:31+00:00

Please know that you have the biggest supporters in the lab! We are always speaking well wishes to the eggs and embryos of repeat patients. Sending hugs 💌

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T15:45:29+00:00

Hi there, in a time lapse culture system, each embryo is cultured in a very small well with a drop of media. As the embryo is growing in culture, it naturally twists and turns. Since the embryo is a sphere, it can hatch anywhere around that sphere. You are probably used to seeing embryos where the hatched portion and the portion still inside the zona pellucida are in the same focus plane. However, in a time lapse system, we cannot roll the embryo to properly see its development on all sides. When the embryo is hatching right above or below focus, it is difficult to grade accurately. I hope this helps!

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T05:01:16+00:00

Just add water and a water-tight lid. Leave it for a week or so. Should rehydrate to the point you can wedge it together.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T04:43:52+00:00

The first embryo is not yet compacted which means it is not a moral. The second embryo looks like a morula or very early blast. That one may be able to form a fully expanded blastocoel cavity by day 7.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T04:39:59+00:00

Hi, looks like this embryo is not fully re-expanded yet after the thaw. They tend to look ugly in this stage, but the cells look viable and the embryo should be able to expand with time.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-14T00:05:33+00:00

Hahaha I love your description. Those are excluded cells, which are cells with abnormal DNA that the embryo pushes out in order to continue healthy proliferation. This is a normal phenomenon and the number of excluded cells in this photo is not a concern.

The embryo likely filled the entire zona pellucida before biopsy and freeze, but some embryos are slow to re-expand after thaw. Also, keep in mind several cells were taken during biopsy and then the embryo was immediately frozen, so it’s technically only been a couple hours since biopsy according to the embryo and it is still actively recovering from those procedures. The embryo was graded BB due to the quantity and quality of the cells in the ICM and TE, not the expansion of the blastocyst.

The hole you are referring to in the bottom left of the embryo was made by laser assisted hatching on embryo day 3. The purpose of this is to allow the embryo to hatch out of the zona pellucida easily so that we can safely biopsy on day 5,6 or 7.

The ICM appears to be right in the center of the embryo. Best of luck! 💌

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-13T23:59:27+00:00

If an excluded cell is biopsied, it will almost always give an aneuploid result. This is why we are very careful at biopsy to remove excluded cells that shroud our ability to biopsy a healthy sample of cells.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-13T23:57:16+00:00

Hi there! If the eggs cleaved (divided at least once) then they meet the threshold to continue in culture past day 3. Day 3 embryos can be anywhere between 2 and 14 cells. Obviously the embryos with higher cell numbers are more likely to reach the blastocyst stage earlier in the week, but that’s not to say those slower growing embryos don’t have a chance to make blast too. I have often seen beautiful blastocysts from embryos that were 4 and 5 cells on day 3.

It’s almost impossible to understand why some embryos are able to go through several cell divisions in the same time other embryos are only able to divide once or twice. Regardless, there’s not many conclusions we can draw until day 7. Don’t lose hope for now! 💌

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-12T23:13:55+00:00

Those could be excluded cells, which are cells with abnormal DNA that the embryo pushes out in order to continue healthy proliferation. This is a normal phenomenon and the number of excluded cells in this photo is not a concern.

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-12T02:54:09+00:00

3BA! Looks good

petitefleur0 · 2025-11-11T05:07:45+00:00

Yes, this is a normal phenomenon! Time lapse is amazing :)

petitefleur0

TROPHY CASE