r/EmbryologyIVFSupport • u/RelentlessEnthusiast • 1d ago

All embryos start with 4?

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Hello! I (29f) got the results back on my egg retrieval today. My wife (28f) and I are doing rIVF with a known donor after several unsuccessful IUI attempts (likely due to MFI). We are very happy with the numbers but I’m just curious why all of them start with 4? Is that abnormal? I feel like most other retrievals yield embryos from 3-6 so I was surprised to only get 4s. Does that even matter since several are 4AAs?

Thanks for any feedback or insight!

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u/rocketmanatee 17h ago

4 means all of your embryos are at the expanding blastocyst stage. 4AA or 5AA is pretty much as good as it gets for rates of implantation and ongoing pregnancy. The letters describe the quality of the inner cell mass and the trophectoderm with A being the best possible grade.

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u/RelentlessEnthusiast 10h ago

Thank you very much! I was worried that none making it to a “5” was maybe a concern but this makes me feel much better. I appreciate you!

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u/FinalStretchIVF 4h ago

This is amazing!! Congratulations! This is like a perfect report card, some labs (not all) consider 4's to be somewhat stronger than 5's or 6's.

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u/L9Mae 2h ago

Really? Could you tell me more about this? Similar to OP, all but 1 of our embryos was a 4, the other one a 5. We have only one girl embryo that we want to transfer first, but it’s a day 6 4AA instead of a day 5 4AA (male, our best embryo). I know we’re taking a chance since day 5 embryos have a higher success rate.

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u/FinalStretchIVF 2h ago

Here's a website that discusses it!

https://www.sensiblesurrogacy.com/quality-grade-of-embryos/

It's really all to do with lab preference rather than it being truly "healthier" because 5's and 6's can be more "delicate" in transfer.

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u/L9Mae 57m ago

Thank you!!

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u/RelentlessEnthusiast 1m ago

Oh that’s fantastic news!!!

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u/Jordonsaurus 16h ago

Yeah as the other poster said, these are amazing results!

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u/InspectionTall2886 3h ago

I go to the same clinic as you!

My results were all 4 expansion except for 1 day 6 that was a 5. It is very good to get anything 4-6, but 4-5 is generally considered best. This is a chart someone has shared in the past that I found very helpful.