Are you ready to start building a family? Whether you’re a same-sex couple, single woman or a couple who cannot conceive naturally, having your own baby is a big part of your dream for the future. Here at Western Fertility Institute, we make sure that dream comes to life. From your prenatal consultation to conception and throughout the pregnancy process, we’re here to guide and support you until you’re holding your child in your arms.
Whether you choose IVF or decide to go with a surrogate, the treatment process will involve fertilization and embryo implantation. To make sure you and your partner or your surrogate have the best chance of an embryo attaching and developing into a healthy baby, we evaluate the embryo quality of each fertilized egg before implanting. Looking to learn more about the process and what it means for your chances of pregnancy? Here’s what you need to know about embryo grading.
What Prospective Parents Should Know About Embryo Grading
If you’re just beginning treatment or looking into fertility options, you’re probably wondering what’s involved in the evaluation of a human embryo. Whether we’re working with your and your partner’s own eggs and sperm or using donors, we use the genetic materials to fertilize, monitor and transfer embryos for implantation. Because our goal is to make sure one round of extraction and fertilization is sufficient — and successful for conception — we need to select the best quality embryos.
When we transfer embryos with the highest quality, they are more likely to implant in the uterine wall and continue through a successful pregnancy — which significantly reduces your chances of needing more than one treatment. Also, knowing the quality and possible success rate of each embryo allows us to implant fewer embryos, reducing the possibility of becoming pregnant with more than one baby.
Embryo Quality Evaluation — The Process
In both IVF and surrogate pregnancies, we begin the process of fertilization by extracting the genetic material — either from you or your donor. When we’ve collected the eggs and sperm, we incubate each egg in preparation and fertilize them with the male sperm. After fertilization, we keep the eggs in a carefully maintained, incubated environment and monitor them for five to six days while they grow.
Once an egg is fertilized successfully and becomes a zygote, its cells will begin to divide and multiply each day, progressing through various stages to become a healthy embryo. When we’re sure the embryos have developed properly, we evaluate each one based on its the quality of its three regions, which we assign a letter grade. The better the overall grade, the more likely the embryo will result in conception. We then transfer the healthiest embryos to implant for pregnancy.
Trust Western Fertility Institute
Here at Western Fertility Institute, our goal is to guide you through the steps to starting a family of your own. That’s why we carefully monitor and evaluate embryo quality, work with you through the transfer and conception processes and stay by your side until your baby is in your arms. Call 888-261-4574 or contact us online today for more information on our fertility treatments.