First Appointment: New Doctor

Monday's appointment was everything that we needed it to be. We arrive at a small satellite office, which opens two days each week in a co-op space that the practice shares with other doctors. Walking through the door, there is an immediate difference. The office is smaller, less lavish, more practical. The staff is knowledgable, friendly, down to earth. The doctor spends over an hour with us reviewing our history and potential next steps.

By chance, timing is actually good for my first round of tests. The nurse starts blood work for both me and my wife. The doctor performs an ultrasound to count how many eggs I could potentially have. This is always the fun part... where they say things like "good for your age" to remind you that time is ticking. After we laugh, the doctor adds... "good for anyone's age, really." Promising. We schedule a follow up two weeks from now to review results and make a plan.

Four new tidbits of information came out of this appointment.
1) I still have a good number of eggs! Yay!
2) It turns out that having a friend as your donor (which we were considering as a new option) is more expensive and takes longer than using a bank.
3) Since we are switching to ivf, my CMV factor is no longer an issue.
4) We've been encouraged to look at all blood types for donor selection.

What does all of this mean anyway?

CMV: I tested negative for CMV. This is a virus that affects a high percentage of the population. Once positive, you stay positive. For most, it is not really a big deal; however, if you contract it while pregnant, it can cause all kinds of problems and birth defects (think Zika). I tested negative, which means I would not want my donor to be positive. Since we are doing ivf and not actually sending the little swimmers into my body, I can use CMV positive sperm in the petri dish without risking an infection.

Blood type: It turns out that I am part of the very small population that has B negative blood. So what? If I choose a donor with a positive blood type, then the baby will likely be positive. If this happens, I can actually have an allergic reaction to the baby in womb and it can cause all kinds of problems. The remedy is easy, I am told. It just requires extras shots during pregnancy. Additionally, we were previously encouraged to consider a donor that matched Heather's blood type. This would allow us to both be able to be blood or organ donors to our child, should he or she ever need it.

Given these factors, the choices of donors are very slim. Our new doctor encouraged us to explore all options. The choices went from a handful of options to hundreds.

As you can imagine, we spent Monday night googling egg counts, reading blogs on ivf, and surfing through all of the donor photos that we've hidden over the last five years. Welcome to the pool ... now accepting applications!