"Besides having a healthy baby, is there anything else I can help you with?"

That was how Dr. Tur-Kaspa introduced himself at our first official IVF phone consultation today :) (the last consultation with Dana was for the PGD portion). He was nice to talk to and pretty funny. He's one of those doctors that "tells it like it is" and obviously enjoys what he does. Let me think...no, I think a healthy baby is just what we're looking for right now! It's funny, my husband, on the same call with me, got a totally different impression of him and didn't really like him. He thought he was too pushy. I think it's because he told him he had to quit smoking, and kind of babied him about it! haha :) I hope at least my hubby really quits for good now.

It looks like we probably will do the chromosome testing now though. The doctor says that even though our chance of birthing a baby with a chromosome problem is low, 20-30% of our embryos will probably carry a chromosomal abnormality. If one of these is transferred, then it probably won't implant or will miscarry very soon. So, we probably want to do the full chromosome analysis, too, to make sure we get pregnant that cycle! So, that's an extra $2,000 that will probably be an out-of-pocket expense. Sigh. Well, I feel better about doing that testing anyway. Then we'll know all of the genders so we can choose one of each to transfer :) .

Some bad news is, I was hoping to do that long list of tests during the cycle right before our PGD cycle, however, that won't be soon enough. We have to do it two cycles before, at least. The doctor said my hormone levels should be completely normal after just two cycles after my miscarriage and that I shouldn't worry about waiting so long afterwards, but I still want to be really safe. I don't want to move our testing cycle any earlier, so I guess that means the PGD will be delayed one more cycle :( . Sigh. Waiting and waiting... It will be the end of March - beginning of April now. Well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it really.

We asked about freezing leftover embryos, and he said that we should definitely do it. Even if we just have one good embryo left, it's so easy to do an embryo transfer when you don't have to do the whole ovary stimulation and egg process that we should definitely save it. It would probably give us the same chance or maybe slightly better than if we had tried naturally that cycle, and we will already know that it's free of IP and any chromosome problems, so it's definitely worth saving. He said it costs $600/year for storage after the first year. I didn't ask how much the process costs initially or for the first year since our insurance pays for the first year of storage. I think we will probably do this then. I still have to discuss it with the husband though.

We didn't have too many questions for him since we had just talked with Dana. I'll have to take birth control pills the cycle before our PGD cycle :( , and my husband has to stop smoking :) . We've been assigned an IVF coordinator: Mary. I haven't talked with her yet though. I'm going to call her and see if I can get a direct number and fax for her for sending the tests I've already had.