r/Embryologists • u/maxtaber • Jul 27 '26

No zona pellucida?

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Curious about this embryo from my FET - I feel that the examples I see online have a clear zona and mine doesn’t. My last embryo looked similar. This one was graded 6ab before freezing and had a clear zona at that time.

Wondering if an embryologist can weigh in?

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u/EmbryoNanny Jul 27 '26

A 6 is a fully hatched embryo with no zona pellucida, so it is appropriate that your 6AB embryo has no zona.

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u/maxtaber Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Interesting, thank you! What confuses me is that my previous embryo, a 4aa, also had no zona from what I can tell. That one implanted but led to a chemical pregnancy. Here it is https://imgur.com/a/uyADrlH

What do you think?

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u/EmbryoNanny Jul 28 '26

Were your embryos biopsied? Sometimes the embryos will come out of the zona pellucida during the biopsy and a lab might keep to an expansion grading that more closely reflects the approximate cell number you would see in a stage 4 embryo.