My 2nd opinion

And all I can say is WOW. Just WOW. This doctor was WONDERFUL. He sat and talked with me for almost 1 1/2 hours. He never once said a bad thing about my current RE, which I respect him for, but he was very firm in telling me what would be different if I went with him:

1. No more Bravelle or Menopur. He said that he actually uses Bravelle to slow down women who are stimming too quickly. He said I would be using Gonal F, Follistim, &/or Repronex. He is going to be rather aggressive with my stimming, which, going on round #3 (fresh) and #4 total, I'm perfectly fine with this. He would like me to have about 20 good eggs at retrieval time, with about 15 fertilizing, if all things go smoothly.

2. He would be doing an u/s guided transfer, which is not done at my current clinic.

3. While the clinic is up in Akron, OH, all of my monitoring appointments would be done at their new office near me. So, this means I don't have to go back to my old clinic to have u/s and b/w. This makes me happy. I will have to go north for the ER and ET, but I'm fine with that.

4. He told me that even though there are four doctor's in the practice, he will be the one doing my ER and my ET. I was happy with that, as you never knew who you had at my other clinic until they walked in the door.

5. He wants to do assisted hatching. He was thrilled with my first IVF cycle and on paper said that it looks like it should have worked. He thinks that assisted hatching will give me the "oomph" needed.

6. As I am paying OOP and this is our third fresh cycle, he and his staff are going to do everything they can to keep our costs low and they are going to work their tails off (the nurses words, not mine) to find us as much medicine as they can.

7. Lastly, he doesn't think the idea of a surrogate is that bad. It is something I am still trying to wrap my brain around completely. I guess if it comes down to us cycling at the beginning of the year with a BETTER chance at having a child through a surrogate than on our own, then that is the route I am ready to travel.

We have another "2nd opinion" in Cleveland at the Cleveland Clinic at the end of the month, but John has suggested I cancel that appointment as we are happy with what we had today. Plus I feel that a round of anything at the Cleveland Clinic will 1) be really expensive and 2) make me feel even more like I'm a number, not a patient.

So that's it! :-) Guess John and I have a lot of talking to do!