What the Future Holds

Sorry for the long break. The radio silence was intended for a day, not a week plus. I did actually honor it, by the way, and it was sadly pretty difficult. I've been back checking in on blogs and such since then, but I just don't have much to say. There's not a whole heck of a lot going on in my daily life, and I recently feel at a loss as to what to say to others. Bad blogger. Sorry.

We're dealing with lots and lots of unknowns right now. It's pretty hard to plan or dream or do much of anything. Sam has begun the application process. This has been the long awaited point for us that we have looked to with so much anticipation for so long. Now that it's here, I'm full of anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited. I'm sooooooo ready for that first pay check, but in the mean time, the unknown aspects are kind of scary.

The most likely scenario will be that Sam will find employment somewhere within driving distance of Athens. In which case, we will find a super duper cheap rental in the Athens area (our desired living area in Georgia). I'm currently applying to just about everything in the Athens area myself on the assumption that this is where we will land.

In this scenario, we will stay at RBA with Dr. Slayden. The only foreseeable reason we would leave RBA is if we simply cannot get the funds together for IVF. Sadly, RBA is like THE most expensive. clinic in the metro Atlanta area. There are two other clinics that are significantly cheaper. The first is the Servy-Massey Fertility Institute, which is promising all inclusive IVF for $6,975. The only thing not included in that price is medication. ICSI and assisted hatching aren't even an additional cost. Pretty sweet. But we didn't have an awesome consult as you may remember. The second cheaper option is Georgia Reproductive Specialists which is now doing IVF for $9,500, which is still significantly less than RBA and ACRM. We're keeping both of those in the back of our minds just in case.

Anyway, back to the unknown. We've also decided to throw some applications out west. Rumor has it that PT's (and doctors in general) make more out west. I'm not sure if that's the case for where we would be interested in living, but we will see. If you've been a long time follower of this blog, you might remember that I have a mild love affair with Colorado. It's pretty much the greatest state in my opinion. For a brief period, Sam and I were pretty fired up about moving out to Colorado. And then life started to happen. It started to look less and less feasible. We began to plan for life in Athens and shelve the Colorado dream. However, infertility, believe it or not, has brought Colorado back into the picture. Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine has the highest success rates of any clinic I've found (props CO). CCRM has come up over and over in the last several months, until the point I just couldn't ignore the feelings I had. Sam and I discussed it, and we've decided to throw some applications that way. We see it like this: 1- it doesn't cost us anything to apply. Just a few bucks for postage out there. 2- Colorado is AWESOME, so moving there wouldn't be a loss. 3- if we're going to pay a zillion dollars for IVF, we might as well go to the best (if we can).

If moving to Colorado doesn't work out, we won't shed any tears. We are fully satisfied with the prospect of living our little life in Athens, the greatest college town in the world. It's a pretty sweet deal to be honest. Southern hospitality, awesome food, beautiful surroundings, excellent social life opportunities, a fantastic church home.... Plus six Saturdays a year the city bleeds red and black as the Dawgs host some team at Sanford Stadium and serve them up as puppy chow. BUT, if Colorado does work out with an awesome job opportunity for Sam, we are prepared to view it as a sign that our path leads west in the hopes of being a one hit wonder in this hole IVF insanity.

With all of that being said, the future is pretty unstable. We could be looking for a rental home in Athens in the next few weeks, OR we could potentially be moving across the country in a few months. That is, of course, assuming that we have a job opportunity at all in the next few months. We are pretty confident that Sam will find employment. However, nothing is certain, as we have learned time and time again over the last few years.