Part of me wanted today to get here quickly so that I could know the answer. The other part of me wanted today to never get here — so that I could live in the “They retrieved 12!” bubble forever. In reality, I knew the number could be no greater than 4 since a phone call last week let me know that only 4 of our 12 fertilized properly. Nevertheless, the number 4 kept circulating through my head as the number that I’d love to hear the embryologist say come Monday.
The call came this morning while I was in the library, printing off handouts for my Intro to Korean class. I was trying to whisper due to the setting, which I’m pretty sure made the embryologist on the other end of the line think that I was waiting with bated breath for what she was going to relay to me.
“Yes, this is Dannielle.”
“Hi, this is _____ from the embryology lab, calling with your Day 5 report.”
At this point, in my head I kept thinking “please, please, puh-lease let us have a bunch to work with.”
“We were able to grow one Day 5 3BB blastocyst, which we are going to freeze for you since you wanted us to skip chromosomal testing if there were only 1 or 2.”
“…….oh………”
“I’m sure that Dr. ________ will be calling you in the next few days to discuss specifics.”
“…….oh………..um, okay. Well, thank you for the phone call.”
One.
Only One.