Amy Schumer’s IVF cycle resulted in one viable embryo even though 35 eggs were retrieved after simulation, she revealed via an Instagram post on Saturday. The comedienne is upbeat and feels lucky to have one good embryo but also realizes the steep drop from the number of eggs.
She is right though—you need only one good quality embryo for a successful pregnancy but having more embryos means you will have more chances and better odds of succeeding.
35 eggs to 1 embryo
The 38-year-old comedian, who already has one child with husband, Chris Fischer, shared the news on her Instagram handle.
“Hey! So ivf went like this for us. They retrieved 35 eggs from me. Not bad for the old gal right? Then 26 fertilized! Whoah right?” Schumer wrote. “For all of those we got 1 normal embryo from that and 2 low level mosaic (mosaic means there are some abnormal cells but can still lead to a healthy baby) So we feel lucky we got 1! But what a drop off right?”
At 38 years, it is quite remarkable to have collected 35 eggs, 26 of which fertilized. However, a lot of patients mistake the number of eggs to be a deciding factor for success in IVF. It is not the count but the quality of gametes that matters, and infact, poor egg quality is one of the main reasons for failure of IVF.
Infact, some of our clients had only 2-3 eggs in a cycle but they resulted in successful pregnancies because the quality was good enough to result in healthy embryos.
There could be other reasons for such a “drop off,” including the quality of sperm or her condition of endometriosis, which Schumer had earlier talked about.
Genetic screening of embryos
It is quite clear that Amy Schumer had several embryos that were sent to an outside lab for pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS), which revealed that two of them were mosaic and only one was completely normal in terms of chromosome numbers and genes, thus having the best chance of resulting in a healthy pregnancy.
If you have a healthy uterine lining and other health factors conducive for a pregnancy, even one good embryo will give you a good chance at conceiving.
Schumer seems to know that as she expresses gratitude for that one good embryo. She is also grateful to all the women who shared their IVF stories that lend hope to others going through the same.
“Anyway I have so appreciated everyone sharing their Ivf stories with me. They made me feel empowered and supported. So I wanted to tell you how mine went down,” she wrote the below post.
“So many women go through many rounds of ivf which is painful and mentally grueling. I heard from hundreds of women about my their miscarriages and struggles and also many hopeful stories about how after rounds and rounds of ivf it worked!! It has been really encouraging. Thank you.”
Grateful to have the resources
IVF is expensive and most people feel the financial burn quite significantly. Amy Schumer’s IVF may not be so difficult financially for her, but she doesn’t disregard the fact that she is in a privileged position.
The actor acknowledges the availability of resources for her to be able to go through this treatment. She also went to the extent of sharing her number for people to send her personal stories.
“Anyway I am so grateful for our son and that we have the resources to get help in this way. I just wanted to share and send love and strength to all of the warrior women who go through this process. my number is in my bio if you are open to text me your experience or whatever you feel like. I read them when I can’t sleep or have time.”
Amy Schumer’s IVF news had first come out in January, when she disclosed it over Social Media, writing that she and her husband were trying to have a sibling for their son.
Endometriosis and difficult delivery
Amy Schumer and Chris Fischer’s son, Gene was born in May 2019 at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York, after what she describes as a “brutal” pregnancy and “really scary” baby delivery.
“I was throwing up through the whole first hour of my C-section,” Schumer had said in an interview on Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy podcast. “It’s supposed to take about an hour and a half or something but mine took over three hours because of my endometriosis.”
Endometriosis is a painful condition, which is sometimes suppressed because of birth control pills or hormones that one takes. The symptoms of endometriosis are also improved during pregnancy.
“I have since found out that I have endometriosis and adenomyosis, so being off birth control was really tough on my body, and so I was in pain, I was in a lot of pain,” she said.
“And I just was emotionally depressed for probably a couple weeks, and I was just taking it out on my husband. [Chris] was great, I mean, with how awful my pregnancy was he was basically my home attendant and had to keep me alive. And he handled it really well.”
The couple also sought therapy with a psychologist, who was “incredibly helpful,” Schumer said.
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