The bad news. I got my period or AF in girl speak. My hopes at a natural miracle gone, its time to get the next IVF started. But given that its me and I can leave no stone left unturned, I went to talk to Dr. Rosen one more time in the hopes that he might be able to convince me that CCRM wasn’t my best option.
I will say he came close. During our 45 minute chat (eons in doctor time), I truly felt that he would do everything in his power to get me pregnant and was confident that I would have another child. And I wanted it to be him. He begged me to put all of my stress on him so that I could relax more and enjoy my life. He even instructed me to drink coffee and a couple glasses of wine a week Wouldn’t that be nice? Dr. Surrey, by comparision, spent a short 15 minutes with me and confident as he was in my chances, I didn’t see him taking that kind of time to get so personally involved in my case. And I know wine and coffee are absolutely taboo at CCRM.
I left UCSF with a plan. We’d take off the month so I could celebrate my birthday. Drink, run, gorge on chocolate and forget about trying to have a baby. We’d start in May and do a frozen embryo transfer in June. No chromosomal testing like we have planned at CCRM.
Then I remembered why I chose CCRM in the first place. I knew it was a factory, the doctors prescribed protocols but showed up only at retrievals and transfers and that I would have to be pushy to get the best care. On top of that its not convenient, its more expensive but there is a reason women from all over the world who have had multiple failed IVFs and are at the end of their ropes go there. The lab.
Only three clinics in the country offer the same degree of chromosomal testing and while we might not “need” it, it will certainly improve our odds. It doesn’t matter how much I like Dr. Rosen. What matters is that I want a baby, another child for my husband and a sibling for my son. And CCRM, bedside manner aside, is our best option.
I struggled with the same decision. We have a really nice Dr. at home who could perform IVF, or we could go to CCRM. Our interactions with CCRM have not been that pleasant, but they do have a good reputation.
ReplyDeleteWhen we went to CCRM for our initial testing, I was really unimpressed with the clinic. Not only did I feel like I was being read a script in each of my appointments, but I was also concerned about their lack of attention to detail. They kept misspelling our name. At one point, they gave my husband an entirely new name (a combination of my maiden name and his name), on the labels they were making. This worried me since it reminded me of cases where the lab has accidentally switched the embryos and implanted the wrong one.
Like you, they also insisted that they hadn't received paperwork from our Dr.'s office, making me send and resend it, despite the secretary's protests that she had sent it already.
Despite the lack of personal attention, and these mix-ups, for some reason we decided to go with Dr. Schoolcraft over our local Dr, anyway. I think that the conveyer belt approach of CCRM was somewhat reassuring to me, making me feel that they had done it so many times, they must have the benefit of lots of experience.
We have been confused about whether or not to do the chromosomal testing and do a frozen transfer or go with the fresh transfer. Although I would like to know that the embryo they transfer is chromosomally normal, I worry about manipulating the embryo more than necessary. I read one study that hinted that one reason ICSI has higher birth defect rates than normal IVF is that it involves more manipulation of the embryo. Taking a biopsy of the embryo to perform chromosomal testing seems like it would be very invasive to me. I also feel like it is hard to get a straight answer from them. I know that they are involved in doing a study of the chromosomal testing, and I don't know how much their desire to increase the number involved in the study is impacting their recommendations.
Have you found any information, one way or the other, about which route is better. We could either do the fresh transfer, or do the chromosomal testing and do a frozen transfer. I'd love to know your opinion! Good luck!