Talkin' Shop

So last night we went to an IVF seminar, put on monthly by the clinic. I kind of wanted to go, since it's been over 3 years since we last did IVF, and I remembered looking up a lot of the terms online in the middle of the night, so hoped that maybe they'd explain more.
I didn't view it as a waste of time, but my husband kind of did. He said he's glad he went, in case there had been anything new, but he didn't feel he heard anything new. I was glad I went, since they did go a little more in-depth, plus showed pictures of some of the procedures, like ICSI. They showed a picture of embryos at Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5. I hadn't realized how crappy our embryos were until I saw that beautiful Day 3 picture. Eight clear little cells, happy as could be. Mine were jumbled messes, with all the fragmentation. I was kind of surprised at some of the stuff they left out. Like one of the reasons to recommend ICSI is if enough of the sperm don't have the enzyme on their heads for getting into the egg, or if the caps don't come off to expose the enzyme (I forget which they're looking for.) That was one of the reasons they wanted to do ICSI with us the first time.
And it was kind of neat (and scary terrifying at the same time) to see the needle depositing a sperm into the egg too.
And the embryologist at the seminar mentioned fragmentation a few times, but never explained what it was, so I asked, even though my husband and I were probably the only ones in the room, other than the medical experts, who actually knew.
There were a lot of stupid questions. A LOT. And I didn't like how the doctors answered several of them, but I kept my trap shut. My husband doesn't like me butting in at stuff like this, plus I didn't want to wave it in everyone's faces that we'd done this before and had a child.
Stupid questions, like, should they do ICSI if it's not deemed necessary. Is there an advantage to using assisted hatching if they aren't over age 38 or have thick egg walls?
But I knew where those questions were coming from. From the fear that this wouldn't work. I remember being there. I remember being supremely pissed off and terrified that it had all been for nothing every time I realized they had let some detail slip through the cracks. I remember wanting every. single. advantage we could get. Will this procedure make it more likely? Less likely? If we do this, do our chances increase...?

Plus questions that were financially based. Do I have to do ICSI with frozen sperm? Can we 'collect the sample' at home and bring it in that day? This 'flat fee' for IVF, what if we've paid and you decide to stop that cycle, or do fewer checks along the way? Or more checks? What if we do ICSI and there are tons of eggs? Will it cost more?
Since we had the benefit of partial insurance help the last time around, and 80% coverage this time, it was hard to be patient with these questions, since really, 'saving' on these types of things are just nickel-and-diming it. The IVF retrieval, fertilization, and transfer are the big costs. Around $10,000. ICSI is only a few grand, varying by around $500 whether they are fertilizing more or less than 10 eggs. All the other stuff is peanuts. But it is daunting. Seeing this $15k price tag, plus $3-5k in medications. Each peanut becomes a bigger deal.