Soon to be DTC

This morning, I brought all of the paperwork for our dossier, to our agency.  It was such a relief to not only have it all finished, but also out of my hands.  With Chinese New Year being soon, we will have to wait a bit longer than usual for our LID, but we will be DTC on Friday.  It has been a tough eight months to get to this point.  We have had several bumps in the road with our paperwork, but it is finished!!!  Now I have to get an email sent to the person who runs the waiting child program, at our agency.  She needs some information from us, so that she knows what we are comfortable with, so she can match us with a child whom we feel that we will be able to parent successfully.  I am so looking forward to sending her the email, and being in future contact with her.  This is such an exciting time, to know that our child is out there, and it is just a matter of time before we find him.  I have had butterflies since last Friday, when all of our paperwork came back from the consulate.  I couldn't wait until I dropped it off with the agency.  I kept having worrisome thoughts that something would happen to it....something would spill on it, it would catch of fire, I would lose it, I even had a dream that my husband shredded the whole packet of paperwork.  So leaving it at the agency this morning was such a great feeling.  We are officially "paper pregnant," "expectant parents," and "in the waiting stage." I have been walking on cloud nine all day!

Third One's the Charm!

Today was our long awaited appointment with our new fertility doctor (the third doctor that we have been to.)  I had done my research, and before deciding on this doctor, I had narrowed it down to a few...all out of state.  So we would have to travel to do IVF, but all of the doctors that I had narrowed it down to, were some of the best in the world.  I kept looking at the doctors in our area, and just didn't see any doctors that had the expertise to deal with the complex case that we seem to be...so I looked elsewhere...and had it narrowed down to 4.  One thing that played a major part in choosing the ones that we narrowed it down to, was that we have family, or work near 3 out of the 4 doctors that were on the list...meaning that the cost to travel for a cycle was drastically decreased.  All were reasonably priced with the exception of the one that we know no one near...they are just that great, so they stayed on the list.  Anyway...So we narrowed it down to 4.  Once we were in the final stages of choosing one of the four, I got an email, saying that one of the four doctors was moving not only to our state, but to an office only a half hour away.  He is one of the best doctors in the world...and has made great advances in the world of IVF.  Well...I have to say, that made the choice for us!  I mean, one of the best doctors moves into an office so close, there was no question about it.  So we set up our free consultation...which we had today.  I wrote out detailed information about our medical history, and past IVFs.  We met with this doctor for about a half hour...but really he could pretty much tell me to jump and I would say how high.  I highly respect him, and without having met him, totally trust him.  I have been researching him like crazy and there is no doubt in my mind that if anyone will be able to get us pregnant...it will be him!  Basically, I have resigned myself to that if it doesn't work with him, it just isn't going to work for us. 

We got to the office this morning, a little early to get paperwork in order.  As we sat in the waiting room, the doctor walks in.  He says hello, and we do also.  I notice that he is wearing a nice white shiny shirt...like really, it was shiny!  He has this presence about him, that I just get a kick out of.  He isn't arrogant, although he knows that he is one of the best in the world.  We didn't feel like we were in a high pressure sales pitch, but again, I think it is because he isn't hurting for patients...he states the facts and you can take it or leave it.  I have to say, I do feel like I was a bit star struck after having read so much about this doctor, and how great he is...and then not only finally getting to meet him, but now I get to be a patient! 

So anyway, the doctor walks in for our consult and after reading the detailed information that I wrote out, told me that he could tell me what our problem has been thus far, and he knows how to fix it.  He explained some tests that he wanted to run..some of which I could not convince our last doctor to run...and then stated that he feels that we are AN EASY CASE!!!!!  Us....easy!  WOW!  He feels that with proper treatment we can be pregnant within a couple of cycles...and yeah he said realistically it could take a few cycles...but if we stick with him, we have a 90% chance that he could get me pregnant!!!  Those are some odds that are in our favor...I like those odds!!!  Well...then I burst his bubble..and told him that we are adopting.  He pretty much said that he doesn't see it as necessary in our case.  I mentioned that some people don't do it out of necessity, they really just want to!  So I did then let him know that we are not willing to transfer embryos while we are in the process, but we are not closed to the idea of banking some embryos.  So he jumped on that, and started talking April. 

We got our paperwork in order, and had blood drawn, and set things up to do our next cycle in April!  Ahhhhh!!!!  Crazy to be jumping on this roller coaster again, but I do feel emotionally ready.  Plus we aren't transferring any embryos, so I won't have the devastation, if it fails. 

So a summary of what we learned today:  he thinks that the bulk of our problems have been immunological, and improper stimulation.  He thinks that the tests that he ran today will answer the immunological questions, and he thinks that we can make some pretty embryos.  He said that with the amount of eggs that I produce, I shouldn't have quality issues, and should still be able to make a comparable amount of embryos, and have several to freeze! 

I am super excited but yet so scared at the same time.  I feel like it is worth the shot with this doctor, but at the same time, if it doesn't work, I don't think that it ever will. 

As for our adoption, we are almost one step closer.  We have our birth certificates ready to go.  All we have to do is wait for our documents to come back from the consulate and then I can bring them to the agency to be shipped off to China.  I am really hoping that we will be DTC by the end of the month.  So excited.  We should be LID before the list comes out in February.  I know it isn't likely that we will be matched the first month, but it will be so nice to have that be a possibility.  I am so super excited!