Ahhh, San Diego. Swaying palm trees, a temperate climate, surf and sand, the land of Shamu – oh yeah, and fertility capital USA. Say what? Who would have thought that San Diego has two of the world’s most pre-eminent fertility clinics. And here DJ and I were in one of them this past July – about to, ahem, release our “little men” to kick-start this baby-making process. But, I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let me rewind.
Earlier this year, DJ and I were on a waitlist for a surrogate. To help truncate our timelines, we decided to create our embryos and have them frozen so that they would be ready for implantation the moment our surrogate was ready.
My mind had been blown when we learned through our surrogacy agency, IARC, that fertility science had advanced so much that the success rate of implanted frozen embryos was equal (if not better) than fresh ones. So many of my girlfriends who had gone through IVF were told that fresh is better – but apparently that is only in cases where couples have had challenges conceiving naturally. DJ and I would have our embryos created and genetically tested even before we had a surrogate identified.
But, how do you decide which fertility clinic to use? IARC had provided us a list of clinics that they work with. We looked at that list and expanded our search to include other offices that are in the Bay Area. But, we were quickly turned off by the two clinics in San Francisco – one had recently had a total mishap where backup generators had failed causing the cryo tanks to turn off which contained eggs and embryos. Unfortunately, that genetic material was lost. My heart went out to so many people whose dreams of having a child were erased. The other clinic had ok success rates, but their wait times to even see the fertility doctor were long.
Success rates for us were the number one criteria, but some level of proximity to us was equally as important. We looked at clinics in Oregon, but ultimately, our search narrowed to the two clinics in San Diego – San Diego Fertility Center (SDFC) and La Jolla IVF Center. Both had similar success rates, were highly rated and had similar pricing.
Ultimately, SDFC won out over La Jolla because of the egg donor. Yes, the egg donor. In a previous post I mentioned that most fertility clinics also run their own egg donor networks. The benefit of using their donor networks vs. other sources is that they do some pre-screening of the egg donors beforehand thus ensuring you won’t have any surprises later on.
We focused on two egg donors – one from each clinic. Ultimately, one egg donor from La Jolla was unreachable by the clinic and was ruled out. So, we decided to move forward with our anonymous donor from SDFC and we couldn’t have been happier with our choice.
So, we flew down to San Diego in July and we were greeted by a friendly staff who walked us through step-by-step what we could expect during this entire scientific process. And most importantly, we got to meet our fertility doctor in person, Dr. Daneshmand, Dr. D. for short. Dr. D is incredibly talented plus he does a great job of explaining everything we wanted to know. He’s skilled at using simple everyday language to explain some Gattica-level genetics. We felt fortunate to have one of the best in the industry on our team.
During the visit, we also had full physical exams, medical screenings including a bajillion gallons of blood withdrawn – I hate blood! Oh, yeah, and we had to like, um, you know, go get “inspired” in the bathroom so they’d have our genetic material to work with.
DJ went first. It’s kinda weird to wait for your spouse to go “do the deed” and then have to follow suit. The whole event was clinical and weird. But, like many straight couples before us, I’m sure we’re not the only people who conceived their children in a bathroom. LOL
Well, with our contributions on ice, our anonymous egg donor went in for her appointment for the egg extraction a few weeks later. They sourced a total of 23 eggs, 19 of which were mature enough to fertilize. The clinic then split the eggs between us and fertilized all 19.
In the end, 7 matured successfully to blastocyst phase (that’s an embryo that’s 6 days old.) We opted to do preimplantation genetic screening (PGS), which allows you to test for chromosomal abnormalities and even see the gender of the embryos. Really cool stuff!
We learned that we had six healthy embryos in total – 4 boys and 2 girls. The seventh embryo had a genetic anomaly that made it not viable for implantation. And most exciting of all, the two healthiest embryos were a boy and a girl, exactly what DJ and I wanted!
So now the embryos wait to be thawed and two will be implanted in our surrogate, Ilsa on December 4th. We’ll be flying down to San Diego next month to meet with Ilsa and be with her for this next big step. We’ll be able to soak in those amazing San Diego ocean views while we toast Ilsa as we embark on the next leg of this amazing adventure, together.
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