The Ivory Tower of Fertility

We had our consult at Cornell last week. It is the ferrari to my clinic's toyota. Their was no comparison. For one, we saw the dr. at the scheduled time! (It is my belief that dr.'s offices are run by air traffic controllers and airline personnel.) I was shocked and nearly sold just on that. The waiting room also had the air of a well-appointed hotel lobby with a delightfully inviting bathroom. We found the dr to be both competent and personable. He was also very thorough. Thorough is reoccurring theme with Cornell - during the exam, he even listened to my breathing and gave me a breast exam. That marks the first time my breasts have been felt during this entire process. I wasn't quite prepared for that- buy a girl dinner first. The minute he walked into the room, I started sliding down the table and assuming the position. This has become a sort of Pavlovian response for me. Whenever someone in a white coat walks in, my legs go up. I am little nervous for my upcoming dentist appt!

Back to the consult: the dr. seemed confident that a low dose protocol would be right for me. I am reluctantly willing to do what ever it takes, but would only like to do the minimum of that. With that in mind, he also said he would be willing to put only two embryos in and possibly even one which I wholeheartedly and maybe somewhat naively support.

So far, so good. After the consult, we met with the IVF coordinator who gave us an overview of Cornell's process. She also scheduled us for a IVF class. (they offer a class - talk about thorough.)We then met with the billing dept who went over the costs and gave us info on how to work with our insurance. It was like a well-oiled, baby-making assembly line. Impressive.

So the moment of truth was upon us. I had an appt on Monday morning to start the IVF process at my current clinic, and until Friday afternoon, I had every intention of keeping it. But there I was, making an appt to have b/w and to take Cornell's ivf class on Tuesday. Did it make sense to pass up the opportunity to go to one of the best clinics in the country? Did I need a ferrari when a toyota could get me where I needed to go and would be less of a financial burden? We are fortunate enough to have the resources to cycle at Cornell so I didn't want to get too caught up with the cost comparisons. I labored over the decision the entire weekend. I knew we would end-up with Cornell but I still left a sense of loyalty to my dr. and was starting to feel like an infertile sell-out. I was trading my mom and pop for the brand name. Sure it was a big decision, but my talent for over thinking was at its zenith.

Monday morning I slept in. Tuesday morning I sold out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mom Jeans

My belly has the beginnings of a swell, and I am starting to over-extert the rubber band that keeps my pants comfortably together. I have already had to break out my fat pants, so I finally decided it was time to start the search for maternity clothes. I quickly realized that unless I want to pay $200 for jeans, I might need to search a little harder or settle for those awful unisex looking things. And really how do you know what is the right size anyway? I have no idea if my ass will get huge or if the weight will (mercifully) be centralized in a cute little bump - with my luck it will be door number 1 with a large helping of lumpy bump. In any care the pregnancy hormones must be effecting my taste in clothes, because the other night I was in a cab that was stopped at a light and across the street was what must have been the Manhattan's flagship Dress Barn because it took up half of the block. Normally the phrase "flagship Dress Barn" would send me running to the nearest...
Read more

Candy-cane Stirrups

I finally worked up the courage to get my medical file. I have made an appointment to consult with a dr from Cornell, and I can't shake the feeling that I am two-timing my dr. I have this strange sense of loyalty to him. I think part of it is that seeing another dr makes me feel like I might have been wasting my time with K. Cornell is regarded as one of the top clinics in the country so I do feel a little daft for not going there first. My ob/gyn recommended K, and it was geographically far more desirable then Cornell and they take my insurance. But if we are going to be doing IVF, I don't want to play around. So back to the medical records. I made the call trying not to feel too traitor joe and the receptionists were sooo nice to me. They are not the friendliest bunch, not rude, but the type that got by in charm school with a solid C+. Since it was large, I opted to go pick it up rather than having it mailed. I stopped in and again with kindness all around. On the train I sta...
Read more

Fancy Fetus

When we last left off, I was sitting on some important news, but because I know there is at least one person out there who still reads this, I kept it to myself until I could tell her in person. So now that she knows, here is the big scoop. At my dr's appt at my 17 week check up, I talked my dr into telling me the gender despite the fact that my husband couldn't be there and my dr's insistence that people from Brooklyn always want to be surprised. He asked me if I had a preference to which I of course replied: "I just want a healthy baby", and then told me it was a girl. I then squealed: "well I really wanted a girl." He advised me not to decorate the nursery until my 20 week anatomy scan, but he was pretty certain it was a girl. Fast forward 4 weeks later for the full anatomy scan (which was creepy awesome by the way), and I was slightly nervous that the ultrasound would reveal a developmental problem, but I was really nervous that they would be lik...
Read more