A nice follow-up with the RE

We had our follow up meeting with our RE a few days ago and it went much better than expected. I am usually a bit keyed up for these "WTF meetings" after a failed IVF but this time I was actually nervous. My first instinct, when I saw Dr. R coming into the waiting room to collect us, was to hide under the table, shut my eyes, cover my ears and shout, "I'm not ready! I'm not ready!"

This would be the meeting when we seriously explore options for donor eggs (DE).

I started the meeting not feeling very good about our options. We had a known donor who we were (and still are) feeling really good about. However, if she doesn't work out or changes her mind, we didn't feel very good about the backup plan.

I would prefer to stay with my current clinic for a number of reasons - an established (and good, I think) relationship with the RE and staff, good rates, and lower cost than other options. The very big downside is that they have a small donor pool, they match you to one donor rather than offering a choice, and I had a very bad experience speaking with one of the people involved in the donor egg program. In fact, one of the people involved with matching me to an egg donor.

I honestly felt that, while I had been well cared for in the past, if I wanted to use donor eggs at my clinic, I was pretty much on my own. Fortunately, I do feel much better about my clinic's program after talking to Dr. R. He promised to get personally involved. That just feels much better since I didn't hit it off with one of the people doing the matching and Dr. R seems to know me pretty well. We didn't get into why they do it the way they do. If it was our main plan I probably would have, but it feels pretty good as a backup plan right now.

The rest of the time we talked about what a donor cycle will be like for me (just a few days of monitoring to check uterine lining) and the possibility of me cycling along with the donor. I came away with a lot to think about. I hope it all works out in the end.