Dr. Peters - Round 3!

yesterday, we went to the office in bedminster, new jersey.  it took a little over and hour to get there, but it really wasn't too bad, just a straight shot up 78!  anyway, it was great again... until the end.  first we met with kristine who is a nurse there.  she explained all the meds and additional tests that we had to do.  she was so nice and answered all our questions without hesitation.  then i went to get blood taken for that extra thyroid test, which was an extra $400, but worth getting done in case there actually is a problem.  our final stop was to meet with brenda, the financial lady.  long story short, she gave us the cost of the ivf, which was manageable, and then said that our meds would run about $5000!  totally unexpected... we're not made of money.  BUT thanks to kristine and the pharmacy folks, we were able to figure out that our meds plus the anesthesia at retrieval will come to about $2000, which again is manageable!

moving on... i have a confession to make, even though no one reads this.... if there is someone who eventually decides to read this from the beginning.... we decided back in november to use only andrea's eggs.  are you shocked??  :)  we initially were going to lie about it and say that we used one egg from each of us, because we didn't want our families and friends to get all wrapped up in who the biological mother is.  we wanted to make sure that everyone saw this as OUR baby without getting into the technical stuff.  but after thinking about it, that just didn't feel right.  why lie about it?  we should be confident in our decision about this!  because it's a good decision!  it's a way to make the baby a part of both of us... it's the perfect way to make it OUR baby.  I will be the birth mother and andrea will be the biological mother.  she's going to miss out on carrying, delivering, and breast feeding, so by using her eggs, she is able to play a much larger role in this pregnancy.  how great is that!?  i'm so thankful that we are able to conceive this way.  sometimes, we get all wrapped up in the failed iui's, the money that we put out with no results, and just plain old negative thinking, but i'm starting to realize how lucky we are to be able to do the ivf this way.  :)

another bonus in using andrea's eggs and my uterus is that we will be able to skip the second parent adoption process, which can cost about $3000.  for under a thousand dollars, we will be able to get a lawyer to help us get a court order so that both names go on the birth certificate right away.  we will be able to prove to the judge that both of us have a strong biological connection to the baby.  whereas if we had gotten pregnant through iui, andrea would have had no biological connection.

today, we got our calendars that list the meds that we will have to take.  i don't really have the energy to list all the meds right now for both of us, but let's just say that some days andrea has 4 injections!  yikes!  well that's all for now, we'll update soon!  :)

Dr. Peters - Round 2

So our second appointment with Dr. Peters was this past Monday, the 19th.  It went well!  He said that Andrea's eggs are good to use.  He couldn't tell us the exact FSH level because he thinks she did the test at the wrong time.  But with no cycle, it's hard to predict when blood work should be done.  But based on the results, he could tell she was towards the end of a cycle (her FSH was low and her Prog. was high).  So she went to get blood work done again on Tues.

Our next step is to meet with the financial people and the nurses to discuss money and meds.  Our appointment is on Dec 28th.  We also will be getting a few blood tests done for me related to my thyroid.

And we're on the schedule for a February cycle if all goes well!!  Now that it's getting closer, I'm getting even more excited than before.  However, I need to get back on track with the diet and other fertility boosting things.  I've been a bit of a slacker with that because of the holidays.  BUT, now Andrea gets to do all that fun stuff too!  She's so excited!  haha