From before S and L's birth I've been thinking about Baby Number Four. I think I've mentioned before why I don't want to stop at three kids and truly don't yet feel 'done', though I think four will bring me to that point. Shortly after bringing the babies home I even asked my husband if he had a gender preference for the baby that will hopefully complete our family, expecting him to say that it didn't matter to him. I was very surprised for him to answer that he would like another girl (for balance, of course, though I see how adoringly he holds our little mouse L). We have five embryos frozen from our fresh cycle, two of which were bonus blastocysts that developed out of a group of embryos so poor that they were expected to simply arrest.
In an effort to ensure that we've got about a 50% chance of another girl, I've been doing some research. You see, I'm contemplating transferring only a single embryo for a FET that I'm hoping will happen early next summer. Blastocysts have reportedly produced more boys (58%) than girls, as the blasts selected for transfer tend to be faster-growing. So while the overall pregnancy rate is better with blasts, I had thought we might use our day-3 embryos first (as they produce a gender mix equivalent to that of the general population: 51% boys to 49% girls). I found a study, however, that showed that the increased number of boys born from blastocysts holds true only for those transferred on a fresh cycle; for frozen-thawed blasts, the sex ratio is more balanced (again reflecting the general population). Our blasts are also not day-5 blasts, but day-6 blasts -- somewhat slower-growing, begging the question of whether these could be females. So the question of which embryos to use remains. A curious factor in all of this is the fact that we would like to donate any remaining embryos to a couple wanting to adopt them under the condition that we retain something of a open adoption relationship, so that should they have a baby from our embryos, that child will always have access to information about its biological family. Where I'm going with this is that if we have a third boy and the adoptive couple has a girl, I'll certainly always question the decision I made for which embryos to use. Of course, all of this is contingent upon a whole lot of unknowns and optimistic speculation. Maybe we'll use up our frozen embryos without success, right?
For now, we've got a consult booked with our RE in January to make a plan and to get any re-testing out of the way. It's kind of like going back to the amusement park and waiting in line for the roller coaster, isn't it?
Labels: FET 1