Second Opinion RE

We saw the new RE on Thursday.  We were impressed.  He actually had a personality. Specialists usually tend to not be very personable, so we weren't expecting much in the personality arena.  We were pleasantly surprised that he was kinda nice.  It didn't seem like he was giving us his 'scripted' evaluation.

He looked over all of our records and saw nothing that seemed to be amiss. He said they do about 5 times more IVFs than the other clinic, and maybe their lab just didn't work well for us.  He said they have had many patients get pregnant with them, after having multiple failed IVFs elsewhere.  Suggested ICSI with assisted hatching and transfer of 2 embryos.  They could transfer 3, but he's having a high amount of triplets lately.  "So if you'll just see Cheryl, and write a check for $12,000.00, we'll get you scheduled right away".

I've not seen many specialists before.  Thankfully, I'm fairly healthy.  However, I still get the feeling that I'm at a car lot or an insurance sales office.  I can almost hear the salesman say "you pay, we do whatever you want".   This clinic was much more subtle about it, but I couldn't help but have that feeling.  Salesmen with Power.

So, they checked my records, measured my uterus and the size of my ovaries.  Everything looked fine, apparently.  He said they can do a semen analysis on my husband and a laproscopy on me and try IUI route again, or we can go straight to IVF.  They apparently do better, more thorough testing on semen. The laproscopy would help determine if my tubes are open enough to allow the eggs to pass through to  meet the sperm.  Apparently tubes can get scarred and icky from just normal ovulation and age.  Who'd a thought.  Anyway, we've had 3-4 IUIs, and multiple regular semen analysis'.  We all know his guys are messed up and he has low numbers.  I'm not convinced IUI's would result in anything more than an even emptier wallet.  Although we are both somewhat relieved to hear there's nothing majorly amiss with our past IVFs, we're at a different crossroad. 

We could: 

1. Do the semen analysis, laproscopy, IUI route - which is not cheap - I'm guessing somewhere around $5,000.00 at this clinic, and hope for a different result than last 3-4
2. Do another round of IVF - at a cost of around $12K, plus drive time and lots of time away from work--the clinic is 1.5 hours away from home, and hope for a different result than the last 2
3. Domestic adoption

I believe we're leaning towards domestic adoption at this point.  Anyone know anything about the Adoption Tax Credit for 2009?  Anyone used the Adoption Tax Credit in the past? Does it work as clearly as I think it does?  Does the government actually write you a check for $10K+  ?