A Point of Reference

Last night, as I was lying in bed, I realized that after posting the picture of my 3 lovely embryos that I didn't post a picture of a non-fragmented embryo to give any of my non-infertile (IF) friends a point of reference.

So tonight, I went on the Google in search of a picture of a blastocyst to post here to give everyone a point of reference. What I found out was that I am definitely not an embryologist. As I looked at these pictures, they looked absolutely NOTHING like my dear sweet embryos. In a very un-Carli like manner, I calmly navigated through several more pages of images looking for something that looked remotely similar to our embryos but with less bubbles. I could have sworn that I have seen an image like this in the past, but alas, I could not find one.

In my search, I did find some interesting articles about fragmentation and thought I would share:

What are the factors thought to affect embryo quality?

• Age of egg provider
• Method of ovarian stimulation
• Timing of ovulation trigger
• Length of ovarian resting time since last IVF cycle
• Quality of Sperm (DNA fragmentation, etc)
• Embryology Laboratory protocols and expertise (including culturing environment)
• Smoking
• Weight
• Polycyctic Ovarian Syndrome

What is fragmentation? Embryo fragmentation occurs when cells divide unevenly, creating bits of membrane-bound cytoplasm that have no nucleus. The majority of embryos created during IVF cycles are observed to have some fragmentation, however, the more fragmentation, the less likely an embryo is to develop normally and implant successfully. The extent of fragmentation is an important indicator of embryo quality. Some research has also shown that the size of fragments also has an effect on embryo viability.

This was found on the website: http://www.miracleswaiting.org

For my Non IF friends, the answers to some of your burning questions may be found here...