Quality over Quantity...Embryo Grading

I decided to do some research on how the grading of embryo quality is determined. I did a little research and found this site with a great explanation here. But for fun, here our my own illustrations and explanation.

So, after retrieval the eggs are combined with your man's (or donor's) spermy guys. Once the eggs are good and fertilized they will grow for about 5 days to reach the blastocyst stage. Now, I imagine that for those who do a fresh embryo transfer some of your embryos won't make it to some of these stages before the transfer, however for the freezing process, hopefully many of them will.

The scoring system that fertility clinics use to grade their embryos was created by Dr.David Gardner in the late '90s. A blastocyst consist of 3 distinct parts, the embryo cavity, the inner cell mass (your baby), and the layer that will be the placenta (trophectoderm).

So, the embryo consists of the 2 cell types, the cavity space that does expand due to the dividing of the cells, and the shell around the embryo (zona pellucida). My illustrations aren't going to be the best, but will give you an idea, and you can certainly refer to my link that includes some microscope pictures. You also have to remember that these images are 2-demensional so you have to image that it's really a sphere with cells dividing.

The following are some illustrations of examples of the different grades applied to the embryo in the blastocyst stage (~5days). Remember though that the embryos do all grow differently, hence the grading system.

Ideally you'll want the embryos to be of good quality and grading, as well as good chromosomal quality, but that is a different testing process on top of this grading system.

We are currently waiting for our chromosomal testing, and then based on the testing they will choose the one that "looks" the best, grade wise.

I'm not an expert on grading, these are my own interpretation and understanding from my own research. I highly recommend going to this link if you have more questions.

Best,

Natasha