Colorado, here we come!

"I will do 3-4 IUIs and if that doesnt work, I'll be done"

“Yep, I heard that before. Once you get started, its hard not to stop escalating until it works.”

“Not me,” I said, “I don’t like shots.”

That was my conversation with my doctor at UCSF in May 2010. Four IUIs and two failed IVFs later, we are now considering something I would have thought even crazier 10 months ago – flying to Colorado to get treatment at the illustrious Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM). IVF aint cheap to begin with and CCRM takes it to a whole new level. Throw in the travel costs and we’ll be well close to $30k for a cycle.

So what is it about CCRM that makes it so coveted? Since a college friend and RE mentioned it to me, I’ve been obsessed with finding out. According to sart.org, my chance of success at my clinic is roughly 50% per cycle but at CCRM, its nearly 70% per cycle!! During the 2ww, I scheduled a just in case consultation with Dr. Eric Surrey. Perhaps I jinxed myself because I was so excited after the call, I almost wanted the chance to go there for treatment.

Unlike UCSF, Dr. Surrey recommended that a comprehensive chromosomal analysis on all of our fertilized eggs. What that means, each embryo that made it to Day 5 (5 days after fertilization) would be frozen and then analyzed cell by cell for any abnormalities. Translation: all those insidious abnormalities that either lead to miscarriage or cause embryos not to implant wouldn’t not be chosen. Instead of an immediate embryo transfer either 3 or 5 days after the retrieval, we would do a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) with only “clean” embryos! Sounds great but the risk is that we might not even get any of those clean embryos.

Still, far better than more of the same, especially when UCSF didn’t even want to risk pushing my embryos to Day 5. Their philosophy is embryos do better in their natural environment of the uterus. But there really is nothing natural about IVF and for the record on Day 3 after fertilization, the embryo isn’t even in the uterus yet, its still in the tubes. But then again, I am no expert! It obviously works for a lot of people!

So there you have it. We fly out to Denver next week for our one day work up. Looking forward to experience their expertise!