Tuesday, August 5, 2008

A good RE

The signs that your RE is good, and has your best interests at heart:

1) He looks and feels sorry for all that you have had to go through
2) He has been thinking of you "a couple days ago" and thinking of what tests he can have you do
3) He has no "ego" and says it may be nice to have a "fresh pair of eyes look at your records"

We had our appointment with our RE today. He says that he feels it is "good" that my last pregnancy was ectopic, as compared to a normal miscarriage, since that still leaves us with hope that a) embryo / egg quality is fine, b) it is not necessarily my uterus or my body that is killing my embryos. With that, he does not think we should stop trying. And he is not saying that from the perspective of making money either, and I'll come to that. 

He said if our next IVF attempt would be our last attempt at building a family - entirely, then he would tell us to NOT do IVF, but to proceed with adoption. If we would be open to discussing adoption even if our next IVF fails, he thinks we should do the IVF. 

He does not think my egg quality is an issue (although on a structural level inside the egg, there may be an issue - which would be extremely hard to find out). In fact, I have a decent number of eggs at each IVF, and our fertilization rate is pretty high as well. 

Our known issue is DH's chromosome translocation, and with that, our % of abnormal embryos is extremely high (about 90% abnormal). For that we use PGD. 

He doesn't think there is additional testing required right now, but he said he had been thinking of us a couple days ago, and he thought of one immunity test that I have not had done. He wants me to do that when I go in for my next HcG test this Friday. Of course I have forgotten the name of the test!! 

Dr M wants us to have a "fresh pair of eyes" look at our case and he suggested CCRM in Denver. He knows Dr Schoolcraft pretty well and thinks that another pair of eyes could sometimes see things differently. He said he would not mind if we chose to do our last IVF with CCRM. In fact, for us, he would be happy to monitor us during the stimulation phase right here. That way we don't need to spend a month in Denver, and we can go there only during the week of retrieval and transfer. He said he would do that for us as our friend, and because he knows us as likes us. Awwwww!!!! 

That's what I mean by him not wanting our last IVF to bring him some more money. 

We are talking about next steps. I now have a lot more research to do, and my research analyst brain is already listing out to-do's. 

I have a couple of months while my body gets rid of the methotrexate, but I have things to do. Over the next 2 months we need to figure out a concrete plan for ourselves!

4 comments:

Lisa said...

I'm so glad your appointment went well. I hope you all the best.

P.S. CCRM must be a happening place since, it seems, a lot of people are referred there!

Anonymous said...

This is fantastic, Nikki!
I feel really good for you and the great outcome of your apt! I feel the same way about my RE too, he sounds very similar to yours!
It's comforting to know that the PGD worked and it was the fact that it was ectopic that was the issue. That means that your chances to get pg next time are good. Maybe they can transfer more embryos to be sure it works.
I'm toying with the idea of have 3 transferred but with my IC, I don't think it's a good idea.
Best of luck sweetie, keep us posted.
Kaila

heavenlytini said...

your RE sounds great!!! i'm so glad he's taking time with you and trying to do everything he can to get you to a successful pregnancy!!!

Miss Tori said...

Hey Nikki,

I thought I'd comment here rather than post on WebMD the list of insurance carriers that CCRM accepts:

*Anthem BCBS PPO
*Anthem BS Prim PPO (includes federal BS)
*Cigna HMO (in state only and express referral is needed)
*Cigna PPO
*Cofinity/Sloans Lake PPO
*Pacificare HMO (a referral is required for any diagnosis)
*Pacificare PPO (they do not have a contract but will bill as a courtesy for their patients)
*Rocky Moutnain HMO
*United Health Care

Tori