Friday was my consultation with Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, or CCRM. If you guys are familiar with Giuliana Rancic then you may have heard of CCRM and Dr. Schoolcraft. This is the same clinic where she and her husband Bill sought treatment for the infertility and were ultimately told, due to her breast cancer diagnosis, that she would be best using a gestational carrier (which she did and she ended up with the cutest boy, Duke).
After I posted about our WTF consultation with Dr. LdM and the fact that he thought we needed to move forward with donor eggs, many people suggested looking into CCRM. At first I really just brushed it off thinking, there is no way in hell that we would be able to consider doing a treatment out of state. After doing some research of my own I realized that at least the free phone consultation was probably worth it. Just to at least hear an opinion from a doctor that practices at the number one fertility center in the country was enough for me to make an appointment.
I knew that I probably wasn't going to want to wait for an appointment with Dr. Schoolcraft because I believe he is probably the most sought-after fertility specialist in this country so I decided that I would just take the next available appointment that fit into my schedule. I had my appointment with Dr. Laxmi Kondapalli and she was amazing! First off, she called me 15 minutes early which I think is practically unheard of in the world of medicine. She was so sweet right off the bat and wanted to walk through all of my cycles first.
After reviewing everything together she told me she didn't really feel much of a concern about my egg quality, especially based on the fact that I ended up with 7 day-5 blastocysts. She said that is actually a pretty good indication that my quality is probably OK because if it weren't I wouldn't have nearly as many, if any, day-5 blastocysts. This really made me feel a lot better and kind of confirmed what I was already thinking on my own. She said that I can certainly continue the supplements that I am on.
She also suggested that if we were to do a fresh cycle with them (or if we wanted to have our frosties transferred to their clinic) that she highly recommends Comprehensive Chromosome Screening or CCS testing, similar to PGS testing. I told her that I was very adamant about wanting that testing done no matter where we would do another fresh cycle and she agreed that should be at the top of my list of wants.
She was definitely eager to get us out there as soon as possible, but we are going to continue with our frozen transfer at this time which she understands. Her nurse has already called and given me the information about what we would need to do if we did decided to pursue treatment with them. It would be a full day of labs in Colorado which would include an ultrasound, hysteroscopy, AMH testing, semen analysis and DNA fragmentation test, infectious disease tests, resting follicle test and more. We would then have to have testing done back at home and the labs would be shipped to them. They do all of their lab work in their own labs including the CCS testing.
I should be hearing from their business center soon about the costs and what insurance will cover since they are out of state. I'm not sure that this will ever be an option for us, but I am really happy that I decided to consult with them. We all hope that our next frozen cycle will work and we won't need to pursue further treatment, but I am glad that we are taking the necessary steps in the right direction to move forward if we need to.
I should be hearing from their business center soon about the costs and what insurance will cover since they are out of state. I'm not sure that this will ever be an option for us, but I am really happy that I decided to consult with them. We all hope that our next frozen cycle will work and we won't need to pursue further treatment, but I am glad that we are taking the necessary steps in the right direction to move forward if we need to.