Goodbye USA, hello Central America!

Today is our last day at home, and I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I procrastinated on packing, and now I am frantically trying to get everything together. So far I am shocked that a. everything seems to be fitting in to our suitcases and b. that I haven't had to make a last minute Target run for something I forgot.

I had mentioned before that there were some definite pros and cons to choosing this option for IVF. Since I'm short on time, I'm going to do a quick version and if you have any specific questions feel free to contact me!

Pros~

1. The most obvious positive is cost. $2800 for IVF (including ICSI), $85 for each monitoring appointment, and about half price medication. Freezing of embryos is $500 and a FET is $1000.

2. In addition to an IVF cycle, you have the opportunity to vacation in two amazing places...Costa Rica and Panama.

3. During your cycle you are away from work and everyday life stresses so it may be easier to relax and keep your stress levels low.

Cons~

1. You have to be away from home for at least 18 days. For me it was easy because I work at a school and am off in July. For Mr. Chef Bud, not so easy.

2. You have NO contact with the doctor until the day you show up in Costa Rica. I coordinated everything through Mark with Passport Medical, and he was quick to get back to me or pass my questions on to Dr. Perez, but I will not personally speak to Dr. Perez until we get there tomorrow.

3. There is a lot of planning you have to do for the traveling part of this whole thing. Personally, I love to plan trips so it was fun for me, but I know not everyone enjoys that.

That's a quick and dirty version of the pros and cons. The biggest thing I will say is that you have to have a pretty laid back personality, and be able to trust in the doctor and his method (even though you've never met him) for this to be a viable option for you. For Mr. CB and I, we felt like this was our only option. We weren't willing to pay $14,000 to cycle at our local RE. We have one shot right now...if this doesn't work we will have to take a year or more off to save money and figure out a next step. But it was important for me to feel like I had tried EVERYTHING to get pregnant, and that ended up being IVF. So even though I tend to be someone who needs to control everything and wouldn't usually describe myself as laid back, for this I had to let all that go and just trust that this could work for us.

So, off we go! Our plane takes off tomorrow at 8:04 am EST, and we should be in Costa Rica by 1:30 EST. I will try to update as I can along the way. We appreciate all your positive thoughts for us as we embark on one of the greatest adventures of our life!

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