Sorry for the delay....

We arrived home late Saturday night and my parents were in town for the weekend so we spent most of Sunday with them.
It was quite a 48 hours! I'll start at the beginning. We dropped the dog off at the kennel and headed to the airport at 3pm on Thursday afternoon. Sean was on a conference call while we waited for the plane and I started my book. CCRM called and asked if we could be there at 8:30 instead and we happily agreed. It was a rough ride, but we made it to Minneapolis on schedule. We grabbed some bad airport food and headed to the gate only to find out our flight was delayed. We sat on the tarmac for a half hour as lightening flashed all around. We finally got under way and it was a bumpy ride. The flight attendants were ordered to sit down for most of it. We landed in Denver at 1am mountain time and picked up our rental. We checked into our room at 2am (4am est) and set our alarms for and early next day.

We arrived at CCRM at 8:30 and receptionist could not have been nicer. She gave us lots of recommendations for dinner that night while we waited to get started. We met with the business office first and signed all the paperwork to be treated as a patient there. We also went through the cost of IVF. Next we met with a representative from the embryology lab and she we went through the costs, their processes and signed off on all the legal paperwork. Luckily we had been through this with Shady Grove so their was no real discussion about the future of our embryos if we die or get divorced.

We then met with Dr. Gustofson. He is 12 - well looks like he is 12. He is very nice and he knew alot about DC because he was at NIH for a few years. He also is familiar with the Shady Grove and some of the doctors. We discussed the tests we would be performing throughout the day and went through some of our questions.

We started with the U/S and Doppler. It was wild. The Doppler looks just like the weather Doppler and you hear lots of swishing. We also saw the follicle that was developing for this cycle. Everything in my uterus was perfect and I had 8 resting follicles. Not particularly stellar, but not bad for my age. They expect that will produce 8 eggs for our IVF cycle.

Next it was Sean's turn and I went back to reading my book. He returned with no problems. We will have to wait to get the results of that test back.

We then met with our nurse, Ellie. She is very straight forward. She reviewed the policies and contact information and we talked about cycle dates. She told us late August would be completely out because the Democratic convention is in town and there are no hotel rooms. We told her that we were hoping we could get in by July. So we went through the calendar and figured out approximate dates. It is really going to be a sprint with lots of work in between, but it looks like the ER date would be around July 17.

We also reviewed how long we would have to be there and the logistics of trying to do IVF there. Dr G. has decided on the microdose lupron protocol. I wasn't surprised because talked about that on the phone. We reviewed all the drugs and had a quick injections review.

Next we went to the hysteroscopy test. This involves blowing hydrogen into the uterus to see if there are any polyps and to get the exact shape. Dr G. performed this test which gave us a chance to ask more questions. He said all is perfect again in my uterus so we shouldn't have any problems.

We asked about the statistics for us. He said that based on age and the results he had so far from the day, he would give us between 40-50% chance. Their statistics are 53% for our age, but they are more conservative when it actually comes down to giving couples their chances.

There are a few tests left that will determine probably whether that number is closer to 40 or 50. That includes the day 3 FSH blood test that I will take in two weeks and the AMH test that they ran on Friday. My highest FSH was 11.9 so if it stays there we are looking closer to 50%. If it has increased (which is likely since I am a year older), it pulls back down to 40%. If it is over 18, we will not do the IVF as it is scheduled now and will probably have to consider alternatives such as going to Cornell in NY or a donor egg.

Lastly we did our blood tests, including an antibodies test. The purpose of this test is essentially to see if I kill Sean's sperm before they can fertilize. It is funny because it is probably true. It doesn't matter for IVF, they just handle the fertilization process a little different, but it would have been nice to know a year ago because we would have skipped the IUI's and gone straight to IVF. We will find out those results in a few weeks.

We picked up our box to ship back the blood test that I have to take on cycle day 3, paid our bill and headed out for a much needed lunch with tons of paperwork to review. We ended up going back to the hotel after lunch and took a much needed 2 hour nap. We went into downtown Denver for dinner and had a nice time.

On Saturday, it just so happens that the rugby nationals were in Denver so we spent the morning at the pitch watching a few games. It was nice because I was crampy from the day before so I wasn't really up to site seeing. The weather was gorgeous and I picked up a little bit of color. We arrived home Saturday night at 10:30 completely exhausted.

So what's next -- we have to go through all the paperwork and decide how and where we are going to do all of our b/w and u/s here. We also have to make a decision about how we want to pay for it all. And lastly, we have to make a decision if 40-50% chance is worth the extra cost of doing IVF in Denver.