That’s right… I am saying that. Yes…the same girl who told her husband that is OK to live apart from each other right after marriage because she didn’t want to leave my parents/house/friends to move to the other coast with him…. is now embracing change.
Change of clinics that is. After 4 unsuccessful transfers in the same clinic, we have decided to consult/cycle with the big guns. Our next cycle will be with the infamous out-of-state clinic – CCRM. They charge almost twice as much as what a cycle locally would cost — heck add the travel/stay expenses and it adds up to more than 2x. But, if that means the best lab in the country for our eggs and embies, the best chances for them to grow, access to the well trained and most respectable docs in the industry, and not to mention, the best chance for us to bring home our biological child, it alllll seems worth it.
CCRM has been in the back of my mind since the failure of IVF#3. But we decided to give our local clinic one more shot. And when that blew up on us, even our local RE (love that man!!), suggested that we get a second opinion. And off we went to Dr SC.
Our phone consult w/ Doc SC was quite disappointing to say the least. After reviewing our previous cycles, he told us our chances of having a successful IVF after 4 failures is very slim. He suggested donor eggs! I flipped! Seriously??? I am 28, my FSH is low, AMH is high, good AFC, and you are telling me that my eggs are old?? You must obviously not be the best of the best! Well… I didn’t quite say that but that was what was running through my head. He went on to say that my AMH can’t be that high (mine was 5.4). “There must be obviously some error in the tests. Most patients have an AMH between 1 and 3.” So he suggested I get their one day workup (ODW) done so he can retest all those levels and then come up with a recommendation. Disappointed with the phone call, I decided to put off the ODW until Jan (the phone consult was in mid Nov), and one thing led to another and we finally had our ODW on Apr 1st.
We were given a packed schedule for our ODW – Doppler u/s + AFC count + blood flow check, hysteroscopy + mock transfer w/ Dr SC, SA collection for DH, Regroup w/ Dr, Regroup w/ nurse, blood draw, meeting w/ lab coordinator, and finally meeting w/ the billing folks. Whew! Boy… let me tell you.. these guys have brought the whole process down to a science. Have you seen those car commercials where the car gets assembled moving from one station to another – each step doing something unique… that’s how we felt. We were just shipped from one room to another and each person(in the room) knew exactly what we were there for. They functioned like a well-oiled machine. We could tell that they do this often. Now that said, everyone was really nice to us. Made us felt like they cared for us. (We are paying them a heck of a lot of money so they better care for us… but that’s besides the point).
Oh.. and the meeting with the doc was… interesting. He was pretty much like “You have good bloodflow, the u/s looks good, your AFC is 18-20, your age is not a concern, everything looks good. You shouldn’t be here.” Now THAT made me feel good. That is right… I shouldn’t be here paying for a baby! So he is optimistic… which makes me VERY optimistic! Hope he doesn’t change his mind once he sees our embies. Fingers crossed!
What is he going to do that is different? Good question. He wants to put me on a lupron protocol (haven’t decided between long lupron vs. micro-dose lupron) with comprehensive chromosome screening (CCS) of our embies (where all 23 chromosomes are tested as opposed to PGD which only tests a handful of the chromosomes). He recommeded I get a couple of other tests: Beta integrin testing and CD3 BW – both of which can be done locally.
The biopsy for the beta integrin testing is scheduled for tomorrow and once I get AF, I can do the CD3 blood draw and start my BCPs for #5. Can’t wait!
Our results from the ODW blood draw came back all normal except for my TSH which was high. My endocrinologist is now aware of that and has upped my thyroid dose. Everything else looks good. And get this… my AMH came back high too. So things are looking good. :)
Sorry abt the long post… but now, you are all caught up!
