Today's blog post was written by Lindsey B., our newest Case Manager! Click here to read more about Lindsey B.

Many donors and intended parents may be wondering exactly what happens to their eggs in the lab once they have been retrieved! During the egg retrieval, tubes of follicular fluid are aspirated and passed to the embryologist in the lab, who will search under a microscope and collect any eggs floating in the fluid. The eggs are usually very easy to see, since the protective cumulus cells surrounding them are white and the fluid is often bloody or pink in color.
Once all the eggs have been collected, they must be transferred to a special media to incubate. After a small amount of time has passed (usually about an hour or two), the embryologist will strip the protective cumulus cells from the eggs and check their maturity! Eggs are mature when a small polar body can be visualized at the top- these are in the metaphase M2 stage of division.
At this point, the mature eggs can either be frozen, or injected with sperm to create embryos! The process of injecting sperm is called ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection). The sperm is immobilized to allow the embryologist to capture it in a needle and inject each egg individually. Once the eggs have been injected, they will be placed back in the incubator overnight and checked in the morning for fertilization!
Some labs have differing protocols, but most will move the fertilized eggs to a fresh dish of media and then leave them undisturbed in the incubator until day 5. At this point, they should be starting to form blastocysts! Embryos that are in the blastocyst stage are given grades based on their quality, and can be biopsied for genetic testing and frozen. Some embryos may need a bit more time than others to grow, so the embryologist will continue check on them every day until day 7!
After day 7, your embryo creation cycle is complete! All that remains now is to wait for genetic testing results, or begin preparing for a transfer!
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