One Day Work Up in CCRM

Who says you have to be on Day 5 to go for the 1 day work-up? The center website says so… the center documents says so and then the people scheduling it say so too.

But guess what? My period did not actually come in time for the 1 day work-up. (For someone like me who has her period once every 3-6 months, I expected that my period was not going to cooperate. Indeed… the 10 days of provera (supposedly on time for the 1 day work-up) was not enough to push it.  It took about 7 days of Prometrium (after the 1 day work-up) to coax it out of me.) But I still went through the 1 day work-up.

My conclusion? You really don’t have to be on Day 5… they just need you to get there so as to establish you as a patient. (Some of the doctors are not licensed in your state and thus, they have to see you face to face first before they can claim you as a patient and start your formal medical care and prescribing meds to buy and take.)

Here goes my recollection of the 1 day work-up we had at the yearend last year:
New Patient Consult - Dr Sch was out the whole week so Dr Gus was the one who saw us. Pleasant, smiling guy. Talked about not a lot of data on frozen eggs yet.

Hysteroscopy - All clear! Dr Gus performed this.

Semen Analysis and ASAB - Count and motility were excellent. Morphology still was low. ICSI is unavoidable. $2800 ka-ching!!! BTW, although the center was beautiful, going down to the batcave….uurrmm basement … to submit the samples was a bit eerie and cold. I guess our precious eggs, sperms and embryos need a cooler, darker place to stay???

Baseline Ultrasound and Doppler - Some regrowth of my dermoid cysts on both ovaries. Good blood flow! Linda, the nice sonologist, did this.

Nurse Consultation - The big book is given. Rhonda was thorough in going through what information we could find there. I got a free 600 IU Follistim!

Genetic Counselling - DH and I were not yet on the same page on whether to do CGH on the egg or the embryo when we talked to Danielle. (We have since then resolved that we are going to go for egg CGH.) New thing I learned from Danielle is that the Day 5 embryo biopsy done by CCRM for the CGH samples are multi-cell, not just a single cell sample. I think that multi-cell decreases the error vs single cell sample. Danielle mentioned also that there is 1 lady who is opting for egg CGH (Polly, I think she must have meant you!) so we could at least have a data point before we do it.

Rhonda later called in mid-January to say that the lady who was doing the egg CGH changed her mind. And what that meant was that I would be their first patient (guinea pig) to do the egg CGH. Yay! (Polly, you better hurry up… you go first! Aww… I just checked your blog and I am indeed going to be the first guinea pig with you coming in later this month)

As for all the rest of those genetic testings? We declined them all.

FLC Consent Review - Won’t mention names but she might have just as well left us with the forms for us to read and sign. Bummer that because of my age and my “infectious” disease results (nurses say that it is not contagious) that I cannot be an embryo donor!

Not that I will have many egg/embryo to donate or that we would want to be (DH is not comfy with that… yet), but it just doesn’t seem right that if we are willing and there is a willing couple that their criteria precludes us from having that option.

Also because of the “infectious” disease, any embryo (or egg) that needs long term storage will have to be sent out to a special storage. Talk about stressing the egg/embryo further!

How many times do I need to bring out my card for payment???
This is the only thing that sort of odd in this place. You have to draw out your card a couple of times to pay for the semen analysis, the consult, the hysteroscopy  and of course the deposit.  And they do this in 3 areas of the center. Can they just please swipe the card once and in 1 place? I know that CCRM and FLC are 2 different entities but do they really have to a ping-pong on us from 1 receptionist to the other???

All in all though, it was an efficient day. We were able to go home that night. I was just glad it was over so that we could move forward in this saga of becoming fruitful.