Manic Monday!

Hi again,
Somebody asked me if I could maybe post about my job...Yes, people really read my blog!!

Well, this may not be the best day for that, but here goes...I posted a picture below of a human blastocyst. (scroll down to the bottom of the page) It has no zona (outer edge) because it is hatched out. This is a good thing. This is what happens to an embryo just prior to the time of implantation.

Today it seemed as though we had a million of these little microscopic things to look at and a very limited time frame to do it in. We also had to thaw a few and then we had to freeze a bunch...On top of that a few women were ready to pop so we had to retrieve their follicular fluid, find the oocytes within said fluid, and then use their husband's sperm to do a procedure called ICSI to inseminate the oocytes that we retrieved from them. We did make sure we got the right sperm with the right eggs...ICSI is a specialized procedure where we pick up one sperm and inject it into one egg. This is repeated until they are all done, This happens when the sperm is of poor quality and or the couple has had previous poor fertilization.

At some point in there we had a few women that had embryos at that beautiful blast stage shown below and so we transferred their embryos back into their uterus and now they will come back in about 10 days to see if they are with child. I hope so...If not they will begin the process again. It is stressful. It is rewarding. It can make for days like today where we are lucky to get a chance to eat and if a co worker had not jumped in we might still be there...Hence...Manic Monday...

Then I met my lovely daughter at the doctors office because she is afraid of needles and she had to have a two second ppd test...I am telling you it took longer to walk over to the office than it did to stick her...the man in the office waiting for his appointment was laughing...

Once home, I took part in a conference call for my other job...Komen Advocates in Science...somehow during that call I became the co chair of the Opportunities Matching Working Group! Yikes (actually I volunteered)...LOL ...What a Monday!

So that was my day, how was yours?

Stay Pink!