Fertility Clinic Selected!
Well, here we are again, about 2 months later and IARC is still matching their average 5-7 surrogates per month, even with the current pandemic. As of the end of June, we have 53 families ahead of us on the waitlist, so we still anticipate matching in about 8-9 months! Given there has not been much of any change to our matching timeline, we decided to start researching fertility clinics.
Ideally, we wanted to choose a clinic in Minnesota with the hopes we will be matched with a surrogate somewhat local or in the midwest region. After some discussion with IARC, we realized that the local clinics may not be the best fit for us and our situation. They did provided us with the names of a few clinics they have worked with before, so we started researching more.
After careful review, we decided to contact ORM out of Portland, Oregon. There were a lot of factors that went into selecting the clinic, financial cost and program options were major considerations, but more important to us was the success rate. ORM had one of the best success rates for IVF and gestational carriers (IE Surrogate), and they also had an internal egg donor program which some clinics would have to outsource. Though a bit more costly, we felt this was still the best option to have the best overall odds and an easier option for us with their internal egg donor program.
On July 9th, we reached out to ORM for general information on moving forward with their program and had an initial phone consult with their staff on July 14th. After talking with them and going over our options, we felt confident this was the perfect fit for us and let them know we would be moving forward. They got us all set up on their portal system and their egg donor program so that we could start to look for potential donors. We also got assigned to Dr. Bankowski, who would be our doctor throughout the entire process, and scheduled a new patient consult video call with him on July 23rd.
Our call with Dr. Bankowski went great, he was very informative and walked us through the entire process and what we would need to do. The first step will be for us to visit the clinic for sperm freeze, and before we can do this we would have to undergo a psychological evaluation, have a physical exam, and bloodwork done by our primary physician to make sure we were healthy and clear of any diseases. In the meantime, we can start to review potential egg donors, but wouldn't be able to move forward with one until our sperm freeze was done and tested.
Once the clinic has our sperm collected, tested, and frozen, then we can move on to picking our egg donor for embryo creation. Also, before picking a donor, we will need to have Sema4 reproductive genetic test done to identify any possible traits either of us might carry that would be incompatible with a potential donor.
So a lot more information rolling around in our heads yet again, but we are eager to start our family and can't be more excited to keep moving forward with the next steps!
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