So Technical - How We Chose Our Clinic

I said a little while ago that I'd start writing more technical posts about IVF and the process so far. I'm incredibly lazy so I haven't gotten around to it, but I'm biting the bullet and writing it today. Here goes..

First I'll tell you how I narrowed down our clinic of choice:

I searched through pages and pages of the Czech Mates posts on the Inspire forums. This is how I first came to hear about IVF abroad. I'd never realized that this was an option. Most of these women go to a clinic in Zlin, Czech Republic for Donor Egg IVF. This didn't apply to me, so I kept Zlin in mind but continued my search. I also noticed some women referencing Fertility Friends and their forums about IVF abroad as well. I read through all of the information I could get my hands on. On FF, I saw more women doing Own Egg IVF and starting snooping around to see which clinics they went to.

Finally, I made a spreadsheet of all potential IVF clinics in Czech. I sorted them by city, success rates, price, services provided, and anything extra that they might do. I narrowed it down to 4 clinics: Reprogenesis, Reprofit, Zlin's Center for Reproductive Medicine, and Gennett. I emailed all of them. (I actually emailed about 10 different clinics, but I'll focus on these 4).

Zlin's replies were fairly quick, but I had a difficult time communicating with coordinator. English was obviously not her first language and, as I like to ask about 1 billion questions, I thought that communication should be key. I also didn't love that Zlin was in the middle of nowhere (think rolling hillside country). If we wanted to do any day trips and get out of our hotel room, we'd have to hop on a bus, taxi, or train and drive about an hour.

Gennet's responses were good, but ended up being quite a bit more expensive than the others. See, all of the clinics asked for basic blood work - FSH, LH, Estradiol, Prolactin, TSH, and sometimes AMH. But Gennett wanted me to have an EKG done and a bunch of other blood work (in preparation for the anesthesia) that would have undoubtedly cost an arm and a leg. Plus, I didn't want to look for a doctor to do all these tests and have to explain why I needed them. Even though they were in Prague and it would've been awesome to stay in that city, it would've been too expensive, so they were out.

Reprofit responded quickly and their replies were easy to understand. I sent them my information (past blood work, IUI results, HSG tests, sperm analysis, etc) and started down the path with them. But I didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from their coordinator, and the doctor I was emailing kept missing several questions I would ask. So I put them on the shelf for a bit.

Then there was Reprogenesis. From the get go, they were wonderful. Every single question I asked would be answered the next morning in complete detail. I sent them my information as well and we had a Skype consultation with their doctor. He was great and we had a very good feeling about them.

We narrowed it down to Reprogenesis and Reprofit - they were identically priced with ReproG being slightly more expensive. This was because ReproG used the Embryoscope which added about $800 extra. I did some research and came to the conclusion that the Embryoscope was mainly beneficial for women who had low quality eggs (generally over 35 or DOR) and that didn't apply to me.

So having shaved off that $800 from the cost, we realized that we really preferred ReproG after all. And that's how we chose our clinic.  :)

IVF, Europe, and just because.

Where to start?  I've been an absentee blogger as of recent, not for lack of events in my life, but more like a lot of distractions. We visited my husband's family for his youngest sister's high school graduation last weekend. It was wonderful to see everyone but it was an incredibly rushed trip. We pretty much drove all night Friday, saw her graduate on Saturday, and left on Sunday. Got back at 5 in the morning. Fun stuff.

And then there was a puppy picture.

I spent a majority of last week recovering from that and working on school stuff. Oh, I started a psychology course! It's awesome! I love it. I know I'm about 10 years behind everyone else who took this stuff when they were 19, but I'm at a point in my life when I can really enjoy it. I feel like if I had gone to college in my late teens, I'd have used that time to hang out with friends and be rambunctious.  So in a way, I'm blessed to have the opportunity to learn now.. when I know how valuable education is. Having worked that much harder to compete with all the college grads in my life wasn't easy. But whatever, I'm taking one class. Whoopdeedoo.

I posted my blog to pinterest for the first time the other day. I got a bunch of hits from it. I like knowing that people are reading my story. It is a little unnerving tho... Knowing that friends and strangers are peeking into the window of my life.  But I've always been somewhat of an open book. Now that infertility has all but taken over, it's even more so. I've noticed that I'm much more... vocal about things that I probably would not have been pre-IF. But that's the way life is - you grow and change. Sometimes it's for the better and sometimes it's just because. I'm probably somewhere in the land of "just because" at the moment.

Okay onto the important stuff: IVF. Yes, we're really doing it. I had a sneaking suspicion when we started this journey that we'd end up doing IVF. I'm surprisingly at peace with it. We're looking at IVF in the Czech Republic. Now before you go, "huh??" I'll tell you that it's a completely legitimate idea. There are plenty of couples who travel overseas for fertility treatment. It's hella cheaper (think $2,500 for IVF - less meds - to $11,000 - less meds in the US) and the facilities are very modern and on the cutting edge of new technologies. I'm so excited. AND I get to go to Europe!!! Win, win for me!

Of course, DH will be coming with me.. Just, later. I'll have to be there for about 21 days for injections and monitoring and then DH will get there a week later and do his businesses. We're starting to plan for it now. I'm waiting to hear back from the clinic to start the process. We're thinking it'll probably happen sometime between October and January.. depending on when DH can get time off of work and how expensive flights are.

In the mean time, I feel normal. I'm not spending every waking moment wondering if we'll be pregnant this month. I'm at peace with the fact that there's only a 1% chance that we will. And that's fine. It's not great. It's not good. But it's fine.