Second consultation and a decision??????

Well, this morning John and I met with Dr. G at the Cleveland Clinic. What a nice, informative man he was. He basically told us that if we were to cycle with him he would up my current medication dosage a bit, or perhaps change it just slightly by using Follistim rather than the Bravelle and Menopur I've used for two cycles. He did say that all patients are out for the retrieval, they do assisted hatching on all embryos, and all transfers are ultrasound guided. We brought up the idea of using a surrogate, and he was all for it. In fact, he thought it was a great idea.

We left CC and headed to Akron. As AF (my period) had started on Saturday, I needed to get the cycle day three blood work done for them. Instead of going to a LabCorp up here, the called on Sunday and asked if I wouldn't mind going to them to have the draw. I was excited to see where the office was located and to meet some of the staff. John came in with me and stood there while EIGHT vials of blood were drawn. (I was more worried about him fainting than me!)

After Akron we went to get lunch and talk things over. While CC has a great track record...they ARE "The Clinic" after all, I just didn't feel the connection with the staff and doctor at CC as I felt with Akron. So...I think we are going to cycle with Akron! :-) I still have *think* in the above sentence because I want John to meet Dr. Mooney first and make sure he likes him too, but that is DEFINITELY where I am leaning right now.

Another thing I should add...we are 100% sure we are going to use a gestational surrogate! If money were no issue, then I would 100% move forward with a third IVF try. In my heart I want to believe that cycle #3 would work for us, but if it didn't, then that would be yet another almost $10,000 gone for nothing. So to go the "safer" route, we are going to seek the use of a surrogate. We are still in the beginning stages, and thankfully I've been introduced to some great girls who have gone the surrogacy route, so they have been WONDERFUL, answering all of my zillion questions. As we are in said "early stage", there is still a lot of time and learning left to be had before we can forge forward.

So now we are going to just take it one day at a time. That is all we CAN do. We have a meeting in mid-January to talk with Dr. M and get the results of my blood work. From there, we will decide when will be the right time to move forward and how.

I hope we've made the right decision! I guess only time will tell!