Two dads and a dream

Little fact about us this week:

We’ve already called shotgun on the names we want to call our children. Whether it be a boy or girl, we’ve got the names ready. Though, we can never remember what the middle names are, or what order they’re in.

Our photo:

Our actual embryo…. 😉 We said we’d bring you along for the journey right?

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Slowly…not always surely

So here we are: the famous, infamous, slightly torturous two-week wait. We’ve been told this is the hardest part of the whole process, and honestly… they weren’t lying or we just don’t know. Time has slowed to the speed of a buffering Teams call, especially when they lag out and leave behind a warped facial expression that is most of the time screenshot worthy – except this is less funny. Each day feels like it’s 72 hours long. You find yourself narrating every little twinge, every mood swing, as if it’s a sign from the embryo gods.

Our last week hasn’t been as easy or as promising as we hoped. I last left you with the detail that we had managed to successfully thaw out 8 eggs (well at least the lab did). Through the magic of science they were fertilised and we then held our breath as we let ‘nature’ take its guiding hand in the creation of what we had hoped would be some generous transferable embryos.

And this is, I guess, where you can’t control nature or what ‘fate’ has intended. In short, out of our 8 fertilised embryos:

• 7 made it to day 2
• 6 made it to day 3
• 1 made it to day 4… and just barely

Obviously, a bit of devastation that our success rate was so low. Anecdotally, quite a rare occurrence that so many didn’t make it to day 4 or day 5. And even then, our 1 embryo that did make it to day 4 only made it on our transfer day (so it should’ve technically been a day 5 embryo/blastocyte).

That number, “1”, carries a lot of weight. It is both everything and almost nothing at all. It represents possibility, but it also shines a light on fragility. This is the embryo we’ve pinned our hopes on, the single thread connecting our dream to reality.

How we got here

Well, we transferred anyway. Strangely enough, our one, wasn’t really growing the way any of us had hoped. By us, I mean the lab, our surrogates, and of course us. However, it is what it is, right?

We got the call on day 4 (Thursday) that our embryos weren’t doing so well. We were also told that depending on how the rest of the 6 went overnight, there was a chance we wouldn’t be able to do a transfer at all. However, they would keep an eye on them and let us know day 5 (Friday) in the morning of how it was all going. If we got a call, it was unlikely. If we didn’t get a call then it was full steam ahead.

Funnily enough, we actually did get a call and for both circumstances. Earlier in the morning, we received report that none of the embryos were really thriving. Most had stopped growing entirely and they were pretty confident that it was unlikely to continue development even if given more time. The chosen one however, was still showing some signs of growth, albeit slow, and they were in discussions with Professor Sacks (our fertility specialist) about what the next step was.

Naturally, we also discussed this offline with our surrogates several times by this stage and it was eager that if able, we would go ahead, even if there was a small chance. Well, that chance happened, because the Professor also agreed that we should give it a go. After all, we had ‘nothing to lose’.

“But Gary, didn’t you have a guarantee that your embryos would make it to a certain stage?”

Why yes avid reader, yes we did. But that was at day 3 and we didn’t purchase a day 5 guarantee. So unfortunately, since our embryos had reached day 3, there was really no going back. Had the Professor not agreed to do a transfer, or thought our chances were non-existent, it would’ve been back to the drawing board for Sam and I.

Science

Well, naturally after hearing the news on Thursday, I went searching for answers as I tend to do so.

Our embryo comes with its own backstory. It reached the morula stage on Day 4, not quite the textbook Day 5 blastocyst we had quietly hoped for. Day 5 embryos often boast higher implantation rates because they’ve shown their ability to thrive longer in culture. A Day 4 embryo isn’t a failure; it’s simply earlier in its journey. But it adds a layer of uncertainty that seeps into our already tender hearts. Especially since our Day 4 embryo was a day behind in it’s development.

The science tells us that Day 5 blastocysts usually edge ahead in the statistics. Some studies put live birth rates around 65% for Day 5 versus just over 50% for Day 4. Other research suggests the difference is less pronounced when conditions are right: a receptive uterus, good embryo quality, a healthy donor egg.

In Australia, the average live birth rate per embryo transfer sits around 30%. Not bad, but not the kind of number that quiets racing minds at 2 a.m. In some studies, embryos like ours, transferred a little earlier, graded as good quality, have gone on to thrive.

Numbers, after all, are never promises. They are probabilities dressed up as certainty.

Faith

In the middle of all this research, I found myself drawn to the stories of others. One couple I read about transferred a single Day 4 embryo (the “runt” of their cohort) and now have a toddler who insists on carrying around a toy stethoscope like it’s a family heirloom. Another couple had five embryos reach Day 5, transferred the “best-looking” one, and it didn’t work… but the scrappy, lower-grade embryo from the second round is now thriving as a cheeky six-year-old.

These stories remind us that embryos don’t read textbooks. They don’t care about grading scales or lab reports. Sometimes the one you least expect is the one who surprises everyone. We hold on to that.

So we’re now straddling both worlds. One side of our happy village dives headfirst into the data, charting and learning about evidence-based percentages vs anecdotal experiences, reading journal articles, lining up facts like dominoes. The other leans toward faith and imagination by picturing nursery playlists, whispering encouragement to “Peanut Butter,” believing that sheer love might nudge the odds in our favour. Two different coping styles, but really two sides of the same coin that this little embryo finds its way.

And then there are the superstitions. IVF is built on the most precise science available, yet it leaves plenty of space for rituals that science can’t explain. We’ve been manifesting and shifting our energies to positively geared thoughts and emotions because of all of us are connected on some wavelength or another. Our surrogate’s making the environment as soft and as welcome as possible as if setting the stage for a VIP guest. We’ve hopped on board with vitamins and massages, and other things that peer-reviewed medicine might think is over-the-top but nothing hurts to try. Maybe none of it matters. But maybe all of it matters, if only because it gives us something to do in the waiting.

Emotion

The emotional terrain is rougher to navigate. With just one embryo, the stakes feel higher than ever. There is fear that if this doesn’t work, we’ll have to start again, with new eggs, new cycles, new rounds of waiting. There’s grief in watching the number dwindle from eight to one, even while holding on to gratitude that we have one at all. And there’s guilt, too: guilt for hoping so hard, guilt for moments when hope falters, guilt for envying those whose paths to parenthood have been smoother. It’s messy, this in-between place.

But pride finds its way in, too. Pride in having made it this far – navigating egg imports, finding the right donor, supporting our surrogate and her family, surviving the endless logistics. Pride in the science that allows two men to create the possibility of a family. Pride in the love that has carried us, unshaken, through every appointment, injection, and awkward fruit smoothie conversation.

And so we sit with it. We hold the tension between fact and faith, between science and superstition, and balancing all that with our day-to-day. We count days, we whisper encouragement, we laugh at ourselves for believing the universe can change biology if we wish it hard enough. And beneath it all, we wait. Wait for the blood test, the ultrasound, the heartbeat we hope to one day hear.

One of the hardest but most freeing things we’ve done is admit to ourselves that this may not work. It’s a brutal thought, but it’s also necessary. If this embryo doesn’t stick, it won’t mean we’ve failed, it will just mean the journey takes another turn. We’ll grieve, of course, but we’ll also regroup. We’ll look at new egg batches, new timelines, new plans. There’s a strange strength in acknowledging that heartbreak may come, because it means we’re preparing for resilience, not just disappointment.

But if it does work (and since we’re manifesting – then this will work), where this one little morula decides to stay, then our whole world shifts. Suddenly “maybe one day” becomes “sometime soon.” The nursery playlists won’t just be a daydream. The colour-coded spreadsheets will transform into shopping lists and doctor appointments. We’ll start saying “when” instead of “if.” Of course there’s so much more to pregnancy than making it past a blood test, the positivity we radiate here is that we’ve managed to get pregnant at all. There’s still getting past the 10 weeks, then the 28 weeks, then making it to our elective c-section like we’ve always planned at 39 weeks +. But, it’s a start.

To be able to hold all these possibilities at once – loss and joy, grief and excitement – is perhaps the truest description of this stage. It’s living in limbo, but it’s also living with hope.

So, for now, our story is a single embryo, a Day 4 morula with a name and a chance. It is enough to keep us awake at night and dreaming by day. It is enough to make us cross fingers, toes, and beg the universe hard enough that it might just listen. It is enough to keep us moving forward one day at a time.

Signing off with crossed fingers, warm socks (apparently it’s meant to also mean a warm uterus – whatever that means), and a generous universe…

Love,

Gary and Sam 🤞❤️👨‍👨‍👦 (manifesting hard – we’re gonna have a babyyyy!!)