We have our first consultation June 29th!!!  Whoo hoo!!! 

DH & I are wondering if anyone has any other questions besides the tons that we have written down so far to ask the doctor about the whole IVF/surrogate process.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Wow, that's close!! Here are some things you could bring up in the appt:

Starting Dates (Some clinics only accept a certain number of patients at one time for
specific treatments. If you want to start right away, you might not be happy with
going to a clinic that needs you to wait until the next treatment cycle
begins.)

Procedures? Tests involved prior?

The Lab

The lab is one of the most important parts of a fertility clinic. You want to be going to a lab that is fully updated and has all
the available technology. Ask if they have a trained embryologist and
if they perform blastocyst transfers, assisted hatching, and other techniques.Also ask about when the lab is open. Some clinics close their labs
during the summer months, and this could interefere with your schedule.

Doctor Attention Find out if your doctor will accept phone calls from you at her office. What's the best way to get in touch with your doctor? Email, Phone, etc?

How will we communicate with you outside of the office? Do you offer phone consultations?Who can we call if we have a problem after office hours?Are you or another doctor on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Thanks so much!  I didn't even think about the lab.  I'm starting a journal with all my questions to ask when we go.  I'll let you know what we find out in about a week or so.

Congrats on being a step closer to your transfer! I can't think of anything to add, it's too late and my brain is fried right now, lol. Good luck!

I just thought of another question. Ask if they do ICSI. Basically this is where they "inject sperm into the middle of the egg." Most IVF programs see that about 70-85% of eggs injected using ICSI become fertilized. I believe at some offices they only do this based on age or number of eggs retrieved. Our RE uses ICSI on everyone.

That was one of the questions we were going to ask.  Also, if they can do genetic tests & hubby wants to ask about if they can test the sex but I really don't want to do that.  It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl.  But, he's like all men....want a boy.  His reasoning is that he is the last male in his families bloodline & he wants a boy to carry it on. 

Any other questions you guys can think of?

That was one of the questions we were going to ask.  Also, if they can do genetic tests & hubby wants to ask about if they can test the sex but I really don't want to do that.  It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl.  But, he's like all men....want a boy.  His reasoning is that he is the last male in his families bloodline & he wants a boy to carry it on. 

Any other questions you guys can think of?

We were able to have a sex test, but the embryos would have to fly to another state for testing.. I was just too worried about something happening to them. I know now that we have a boy, I'd like to have a girl if we're able to do this again (we have 4 frozen embies), but once they are at this stage they are too late to test.

So, you had to send the embies out of state for that test?  I think I would be worried to about something happening to them.  I'll definitely write this question down to ask the doctor & see if they do the test in office & I will let hubby know.

We didn't send them off because of being worried something would happen.. but yes that was our only option to find out the sex. Well, the Sher Institute (SIRM) is located in several states, but the main one is in Las Vegas, so that's where they send embryos for sex testing. Since it was our first, we didn't really care, but we also lost the chance to find out what all of them are, so we have 4 frozen and don't know the sex now. Would be nice to know if any are girls, but oh well! So yes, keep that in mind if it's important to y'all!