Editing Pregnancy (section)

== Picking the Obstetrician ==

This is the very first thing to do in this process. In our case, we were recommended a few from [https://springfertility.com/ Spring Fertility], our IVF clinic. We liked our doctor, Dr. Monica Pasternak, there and trusted her opinion. The two top places we considered were:

* [https://www.pacificwomens.com/ Pacific Women's Obstetrics and Gynecology]
* [https://goldengateobgyn.org/ Golden Gate Obstetrics and Gynecology]

Our primary objective was to be near our intended delivery centre and to be near where tests were available, conditional on the service being good.

We had some trouble signing up with GG Ob/Gyn that is likely not their fault (the onboarding calls happened to line up with times that were inconvenient for Julie) and found that our first visit with [https://www.pacificwomens.com/providers/dr-alexandra-neiman Dr. Alexandra Neiman] was exactly what we were hoping for.

Here's what we were looking for:

# Awareness of IVF and genetics
# Experienced at delivering children
# Personable and easy to ask questions of
# Prioritizes delivering her patients' children herself

Some things I was pleasantly surprised by was that Dr. Neiman was very acquainted with pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT), and even whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of the embryo. Perhaps this is normal for obstetricians but I expected familiarity with IVF and carrier screening and maybe PGT but not WGS. That's relatively newer technology.

In any case, it was easy to get setup with her office and we were able to book the meetings we needed so we went with her. One of the advantages of the location was that the CPMC centre we wanted to deliver at was half a block away and the Sutter Health Labs were a block away. In addition, the Stanford Childrens' Hospital branch that does some radiology is located in the same building as Sutter Health Labs. Altogether, this has worked out well.