Questions for Our RE

We've been talking a lot about finances lately since so much is changing with the new job. We' sat down, added things up, and think that as long as everything goes smoothly with getting this job this month, we should be able to start trying IVF as early as January 2018. 

This means we're going to try to get a consult with the infertility doctor that also did my surgery last year. He knows my case and said I was a good candidate. We have a million questions we need answered so we can officially start a target date.  Such as:

That doctor told us that diagnostics were roughly half of the $15,000 cost of IVF per cycle. He said we obviously don't need any diagnostics since our problem is clear, which means he should be able to give us a quote of what is needed and hopefully, it'll be much, much less than 15k. Then we'll have to figure out how much the meds alone are so we can subtract that from the total, as our new insurance covers infertility meds. I'm hoping this means that each cycle of IVF will only be 5-8k instead of 15k. Big difference! Plus, anything over $5,500  (this includes travel expenses, hotel stays if needed, and all IVF related items) can be written off on taxes and gotten back.

Another question we have is how expensive is it to just do a FET transfer if we do end up with a fertilized egg or two left over. That would be no diagnostic, no two week meds, no surgery, just the implantation. 

I want to find out what my meds would be like as well. I only have one ovary to stimulate instead of two, so do I get a lower dosage? Seeing what the meds do to women, I'd love if that were the case. 

I need to know the exact plan he would have for my case as well. I know a lot of IVF women have a month of meds to stop a cycle, then do a hyper cycle, then remove the eggs and confuse the body and then, if they get pregnant, have to do progesterone pills until 15 weeks. I don't know if my case would be different or not. 

I also need to know if he'd be willing to do a two egg implant. We only can do up to two cycles, depending on the total cost. We'd like to take the chance of two eggs to raise our chances and we're fine if it would happen to result in twins. But some RE doctors only do one egg for under 34 year old women. 

It's exciting and comforting to finally be so close to IVF and to have a date in mind. I can't figure out when I'd want to do it more. My original rule was I wanted to not be pregnant in January at all, because I have such a bad track record with January. However, that means I can only get pregnant in February and March. But I don't want to do March because that would be another December baby, and one December birthday next to Christmas is enough. A February baby would be October/November, which means another winter baby, which is rough. I want a Spring baby, but that means pushing IVF off until half of 2018 is over and I don't know if I want to do that. So the month aspect is something I haven't figured out yet. 

It's also strangely comforting to know that where we capped it at. We agreed to try two cycles. If it doesn't happen in two cycles, then we let it go and move on. Two cycles mean we gave it a good shot and put all we could into it. I think if we didn't cap it now, it would be stressful and upsetting later. There's a peace about knowing when we'll do it and how long we'll try for. 

So that's where we're at now. We have goals, we have a consultation I'll be setting up this coming week, and we have our set limitations. Last year I was so depressed, not knowing any of these things and feeling like we'd never be able to try. Things are going so different last year.