California Conceptions

So last post we told you about the NEDC (National Embryo Adoption Center) and we have a change of plans....(Things move pretty quickly at the Hebdon House!) We have discovered a new center that is a lot closer than TN, although we were really looking forward to a TN vacation. The center we have found is called California Conceptions in Davis California (near Sacramento). They specialize in Embryo Donation/Adoption in California.

The difference between the two centers is that the Davis center is a donor to donor embryo while the NEDC in TN is strictly IVF left over embryos. What that means is that the TN center only uses embryos from married couples who have gone through the IVF cycle and have either failed or been successful and no longer plan on utilizing their frozen embryos, so they donate them. The Davis center is two people who don't know each other, one donating a sperm and one an egg and then the Doctors at the Davis center fertilize them on site and freeze them. So these two donating people have never been through IVF or have any fertility issues.

The Davis center does screen all of their donors for any genetic disorders and will only use donor egg/sperm from individuals who have a clean bill of health and no genetic disorders to ensure that the recipients of the embryos have no worries with their health or the health of their child. Their embryos tend to be pretty fresh because they have no been frozen for as long AND we may even be able to get fresh embryos which increases your odds of pregnancy significantly. The Davis center has one of the highest success rates in the US and they will give you a full refund of your money if you don't achieve pregnancy within three transfers (minus the cost of meds and lab work).

So we have decided to go with the Davis Center and not the NEDC and we are really really excited about it. We can still choose some qualities of our embryos such as their race and genetic background (aka european/english). So we have requested Caucasian embryo, preferably with brown hair and somewhat tall. We aren't being super picky so if they don't have brown hair and aren't tall that isn't a huge deal....but it would just be nice. The Davis center will also ONLY transfer TWO embryos instead of the typical four or so that other centers do. This is because of their high success rate. So we could still potentially have twins, which we think would be great because that would be our whole family in one shot!

I had my initial phone appointment with the Doctor in Davis. He said that he doesn't think we will have any problems and is going to send me a list of lab work that I have to get done and submit to them. While I am doing my lab work they are going to look for matching embryos. Once they receive my lab work and we have a match it would take a month or so to prepare medically for the transfer and then we would have the implant. He said a realistic timeline is december through february for the transfer! WOHOO!