For your daily dose of nerd, here's a 1993 study in Human Reproduction that looked at embryo hcg production in vitro. They found that the embryos started to secrete hcg after a certain minimum time (160 hours post-insemination, which is 6.7 days), even when in vitro. Amazingly hcg peaked around day 10. I like reading this, as I'm 6dpo with zero symptoms today. Which is explained by the fact that hcg production doesn't start until, at minimum, 7 days from fertilization!
I've always wondered exactly how you can test positive when a chemical pregnancy occurs, since so many popular sources say that hcg isn't produced until implantation occurs, and implantation seems to be my issue. Another 1991 study suggests an answer that question. This study found that embryos could remain viable in a petri dish up to day 14, with maximum hcg of 51 at day 10. Some of the studied embryos even adhered to the medium in the petri dish. I guess my crappy lining is about equivalent to a petri dish, given the number of day 10 bfps I've gotten that have turned into chemical pregnancies. This study also didn't find hcg production until 8 days out.
While I'm as profoundly pro-choice as it gets, I find myself sad when I think of those embryos in petri dishes, trying to grow somewhere that was never going to be hospitable. I'm not sure that's a rational feeling, as the thought of a woman making a choice to end a pregnancy doesn't make me sad in the same way. Maybe it's an empathy thing: I see the struggle my own embryos have faced in what those in the petri dishes went through. Maybe it's the fact that to me, being pro-choice means valuing a woman's autonomy, whereas the situation the embryos faced was never a decision between maternal autonomy and embryonic potential. This study was from the early 90's, before the days of embryo adoption, as far as I know. I don't fault the parents of the embryos, I just feel sad for them in their petri dishes.
Here's hoping if I've got embryo(s) still growing that they find a safer, healthier home!
It makes sense that hCG is being produced prior to implantation. May your hCG levels being rapidly rising!
ReplyDeleteI had a strange relationship with the four petri dish embryos I had that dwindled over five days before it was concluded that they were a bit freakish (no middle in one of them, or something). I weakly attempted to give them names and see them as potential children but I just couldn't - maybe I don't have enough imagination. I felt bad that I could barely cheer on my embryos but I kind of knew they would let me down: they felt like an extension of my battered and inflamed insides, rather than separate beings. I do feel a bit like that when thinking about abortion; I could never equate the life of the woman with the life of the unborn baby in any of its early forms, as they do here in ROI: my staunch pro-choiceness has a lot to do with this, I suppose, as well as valuing autonomy of course. Thanks for listening.
ReplyDeleteI so get what you're saying here. Love to you...
DeleteThat's fascinating - I guess I assumed that HCG was produced pre-implantation because how else is a chemical detected.
ReplyDeleteThis is so fascinating about the HCG production in growing embryos. I guess maybe that's why my clinic worried about numbers less than 50, given that benchmark. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI am also pro choice, and pretty much tithe to Planned Parenthood, but I struggled with the embryos in the dish and in the freezer, too. I think that for me, I saw the embryo that was accidental or unwanted differently than the very, very, VERY wanted embryos that I couldn't give a home to, or that I unwittingly destroyed inside my body. At the end of our fertility part of our journey, I would lie there at transfer and see the embryos swoosh in the pipette into my uterus, and I would ACTUALLY SAY "Bye guys, sorry I'm probably going to kill you, best of luck!" I think that was when I knew I wasn't in a healthy space anymore. :) I get the thinking though, and that image of an embryo desperately trying to attach to the side of a petri dish made me real sad, too. I hope that your embryos are doing what they need to be doing right now! May the HCG be with you!
I'm laughing that really painful laugh that you only laugh when you know exactly what someone means because you've been there. The first thought I had - directed to the embryo - with my third BFP was "Hey there, sorry about this, but as much as I love you already, I'm probably going to kill you. Try to hang on." I guess this means I've never been in a healthy head space, but my DH would definitely tell you that's true! :)
DeleteInteresting. I always found the biological details of conception/HCG etc etc fascinating, even though the reason I knew them (when all my friends/family didn't need to learn these things) was so hard. Fingers crossed for you.
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