Bun Without an Oven

On 31. Jul 2024, at 18:52, our agency wrote:

Hi Kate and Jan,

Happy Wednesday! I am writing to get your thoughts on a potential candidate for you.We have a lovely GC in California that we feel would be a good fit for you. The only issue is that she does not have usable insurance, which means she would need an ACA policy.

I know you had said no to a candidate previously that needed an ACA policy but just so you are aware she is NOT a repeat candidate or from the concierge service, so that $5,000-$8,500 additional fee would not apply. Additionally, she is young, which means her monthly premium will likely be lower than if she was in her 30s (she is 23).

Please let me know if you would be interested in working with this candidate. If so, we can send her records to your clinic for review today!

July 31st we finally got word of our 3rd potential carrier from our Agency. What a relief… third time is a charm right? So from this point, we’re accustomed to the average time needed by our clinic to review a potential candidate. It’s now August, and I’m in Omaha briefly visiting my family. Jan has to work, so I’m here by myself and it dawned me on the flight over, the reason we even booked these flights for me where so that we’d probably have a carrier by now and I’d get to meet her. HA. That’s what happens when you make plans, right? 

Either way. I’m taking advantage of the opportunity, while being in Omaha, to pay my clinic a visit and meet with my OB for a check-in. Our clinic has been extremely accomodating to working with us virtually. I guess we have the pandemic to thank for Tele-Health and other virtual meeting platforms becoming so prevalent. But it’s always nice to check in from time to time, in-person, to remind everyone that Jan and I are indeed humans that exist. 😀 

It’s always so nice to meet with my OB. She really goes the extra mile to make me feel taken care of. She genuinely cares about us as her patients. She is invested in our journey. She plays a crucial part in making sure we become parents. 

We revisited the fact we have amazing embryos, and she explained a little bit about what the embryo transfer would entail. Our carrier would fly out the day before, then on the day of the transfer, I could be in the procedure room, where my OB will play some fun music, some Tay-Swift, Adele, whatever, to lighten the mood and have kind of a “transfer party” 😀 Then, our carrier can fly home later the same day. 

Crazy! Somehow I imagined our carrier having to lie down with her legs in the air for an hour or some other ridiculous, old wives tale…so I was really happy to learn it’s quite simple indeed. 

Potential… concerns… that my OB mentions were two fold. She had requested with our agency that this potential candidate gets a more recent STD panel tested and that she has her blood glucose A1C level re-tested. Our clinic requires STD tests to be no older than 6 months (fair enough) and apparently, this carrier had developed a little pre-diabetes in her previous pregnancy. This is not at all uncommon, however my OB wanted to see how her diabetes risk was now, as this would then require an additional discussion to whether or not we proceed. She said it wasn’t a major concern, but it needed to be addressed. 

So, I asked how close we are to being able to say, “this is our match”  to which she responded: “We’re 85% there”. I’m feeling really excited! We’ve never been this far in the process, so this feels monumental. 

In this journey, technically, the carrier travels to our clinic for a medical check-up, then the transfer itself, then, with a pregnancy, she continues care at her OB wherever she is based. Our clinic does not have to be involved if they don’t want to be beyond that, technically. However, my OB said that it’s her intention to be with us every step of the way. To have regular check-ins and work together with our carriers’ OB to help us make decisions, to monitor the pregnancy, because as she put it, “My job isn’t done until you’re going home with your baby.” 

Cue the water works. After the first two candidates were declined by our clinic, I didn’t know where to focus my frustration. I partly felt that my OB was being too picky and even our agency has described our clinic as more “conservative as those they’ve worked with in the past. I’m now starting to really understand that this process is in place so we find our perfect person, and I’m comforted to know that our clinic and my OB won’t sacrifice their standards or approve someone who isn’t the right fit. All in all, we’re grateful to have her in our corner.