a useful second opinion

I had my phone consult with the out of town doctor today, and he was fabulous!  He had clearly reviewed my record beforehand and seemed very honest and knowledgeable.  He basically told me that recurrent losses are the hardest things he deals with, as you so badly want to give someone an answer.  Although every miscarriage has a cause, doctors often cannot pinpoint that cause, so you're left guessing.  You can do all the testing in the world and it all come back normal, yet the patient is still experiencing miscarriages. 

Based on my records, he said he didn't disagree with anything my current RE is doing.  He agreed with the testing we are having done and said the only additional test he would consider would be genetic testing, but that might not be necessary.  He said he thought IVF was a good option...or at least not a bad option.  IVF is our best chance at getting pregnant--if we were his patients, he would present that as an option and let us decide if we are ready to make that leap.  He said if we want to get pregnant quickly, that's what he would recommend.  He did say, though, that he would feel okay letting us try a progesterone protocol a few times.  If we don't go to IVF now, he said that if we experienced another loss he felt that "the writing was on the wall" and IVF would be his only recommendation.

In sum, he said IVF is a good option for getting us pregnant.  He didn't think it was nutters to go ahead and move to IVF, especially if we are exhausted from the ups and downs of it all.  He made me feel good about the decisions my RE is making, and he said to feel free to schedule another phone consult down the road if needed.  Based on all of this, I am pretty sure we are doing the January cycle.  Unless the thrombophilia panels shows something totally wacky (we get the results around Dec. 15th), we are moving to our "best chance" of getting pregnant.  Pretty exciting stuff.