The Juice is worth the Squeeze: August 2013

Friday, August 16, 2013

To In Vitro...And beyond!

I feel like a space explorer... about to boldly go where I have never gone before. I am about to enter, the infertility world of IVF. The thing that infertility has taught me is that the common person believes this is the only treatment. So most might be surprised that it's taken us four years to get to that point. But four years, six treatment cycles, five IUIs, and one miscarriage later that is where we are finally headed.

I've talked before but now the plan is more solidly in place. I had my RE consult (which I've blogged was mainly just him explaining how it worked) three weeks ago. And yesterday I had the nurse consult. That was going over what I specifically will be doing. Um...why can't these be done in the same consult? Why insist on two appointments? Cha-Ching? But I digress.

I will be starting birth control pills after my baseline from my next period. Which is about 10-12 days from now. I will be on the BCP for about three weeks and stopping them Sept. 18th, have another baseline and start stims on Sept 20th so that I will be ready to have egg retrieval and egg transfer in my RE's "October Window". Since he only works in the Highland Park IVF clinic two weeks a month this will have me ready to go sometime between Oct. 1st - 11th. I tend to stim fast so I expects to go in for ER in that first few days. I will be on 150iu of Follistim and two vials Menopur and add Ganirelix towards the end. And of course Estrace, Endometrim, etc. etc. etc. And oooooh, a valium for ER. Drug induced haze! I've never taken a valium and thought it was funny that she said it was more to relax my uterus then to relax my mind...but it will help with that too. I thought for sure it was to just relax me, who knew my uterus would be tense too LOL. And I'm sure other drugs I'm forgetting because, well, it's a long ass list. But I was told I am on the "easiest protocol" yet never actually told what protocol that is. I've heard of "long lupron" or "short lupron" (and FYI I'm not even on lupron of any kind! I was told BCP is enough of a suppression for me, and I forgot to even ask about lupron. I think I'll try to get clarification on why I'm not taking it next appointment.) And I've heard of antagonist protocol...but who knows what they're calling this? I sure don't.
**Update an hour later, after some quick searching on the internet it appears Ganirelix use is what they refer to as antagonist protocol. Good to know!**

So with that said, 16 days from my ER will be my beta. So two months from now I could be getting my results. Which happens to be the due date of our miscarriage. And a day after Infant Loss awareness day. Ouch. I'm in for being one hot mess.

Now, I know some of you watched Giuliana & Bill's TV show. Do you remember their IVF at their Chicagoland doctor? It's that office. I've been there once before but yesterday I got a tour of the whole place. Waiting & recovery room, room for ER and ET, embryologist room where they actually do the in vitro and watch them grow and cell division (nerd utopia! I'd love to watch that!) and the cryolab where the frozen embryos for FET hang out (and where our little ones, if any extras make it to freeze - fingers crossed) will live for up to a year or more) and the "Husband Rooms" for his sample time. And you know what I said "Looks just like it did on TV." Because I remember that episode of G&B, with the inlaws in the waiting room and such. So now you can picture (if you saw it) where the magic will happen.

So here goes nothing! Only two weeks left til we get this show on the road!

Saturday, August 3, 2013

July recap - So much going on!

OK - so the IF stuff first since that's why most all of you follow me. We had our IVF consult on Monday and really it was just my RE explaining in detail what IVF is and how it works. Since I've known sooooo many of my support eFriends that have gone through it I knew everything he said - but I think it was good for Jeff to hear it from someone other than me and in a continuous telling. (I think he's heard it all piece-meal from me over the years). And we got the packet from the nurse - where filling it all out feels like you're buying a house. But I had to pump the brakes when they kept saying "next cycle we'll do X" because I was like "Hey! We still don't have a price! I was told once you guys put in my protocol THEN the finance department can give me an exact price and that will determine if we can do this now or have to wait until November."

Well finance got back to me the next day and I was not happy with the news. They want $5,000 up front since our new coverage is only $3,500 for procedures (don't get me wrong - after three years of IF without any coverage I am most thankful for negotiated rates) but it's still small in the IF world of coverage. So she explained say they bill $10k (what our OOP cost would have been) and our insurance negotiated rates bring it down to $7,000. Then they pay $3,500 of that and we owe the other $3,500. This is taken out of our $5,000 deposit. THEN if we have any frostie embryos to freeze it's another $1,100 for freezing and storage for a year. Then they'll give us a credit back for the $400 or so that's left over (give or take a few hundred). Oh man was Jeff angry at this. He says its like insurance fraud. That they basically want to earn interest on our 5K until they get paid from insurance. But my mom and others have said "Well, they must have been burned enough by patients not paying" to have this practice. And I do know from my girls that it's customary to have to pay it up front. But that put us at November in order to pay for it because Mid October is when we'll be finished paying off the current 401K loan.

But then yesterday Jeff looked into our HSA and that loan and said "what if we can scrimp and pay off the loan early (we're so used to the money just coming out of his paycheck I hadn't even thought of just paying them off LOL stupid me.) So we hope to pay the loan off by Sept. 15th paycheck and get a new 401K loan and we'll have $2,000 on the HSA Visa by Oct. 1st that we can start in early October instead of November. I know a month isn't much but I was worried about holidays closing down the clinic and screwing with my IVF calendar so I'm happy we figured out how to move it up. And really? Oct. 1 is two months away! Bring it! So I'll spend the next two months working on exercising and eating healthier in prep for it.

Next topic: My mom. Her surgery on Wednesday went wonderfully! It was their "best case scenario" where they were able to do everything laparoscopic and it took four and a half hours. I just got off the phone with her. She's to be released this afternoon just four days in the hospital and today for the first time in five days was allowed to eat food! Bariatric soft diet but still, she sounded so happy to be able to eat runny scrambled eggs and oatmeal. And since they said there was a possibility of a feeding tube, it's so amazing to think instead just four days later she can eat soft foods! Anyway, very happy.

Next topic: Founders! New park was amazing. We got so many compliments on how well we pulled off the move and how much space and better for the fest it was. It did rain almost all day Friday so that day was close to being a total loss but the sun finally came out the last few hours of the day and the bands played for three hours. The 5 & 10K that I'm in charge of went off great. 140 people in it which while not amazing was not bad. It's about on par with usual and after expenses for the timing company and some small costs I brought in almost $3K for the fest (money goes to local charities and to put on the next year's town fest). And I only had one person complain, that's like unheard of the last three years I've been in charge of it! And it's the same complain every year - they want clocks at mile markers. Dude get a watch or an ap for that! We're not spending money on it, deal with it! But I'm glad I had a good year to end on to pass it off to someone else. I hope for next year's fest I am a big PG lady that needs her sleep!!

AND my BBF Brit has been in town for a week from Georgia. Whew! It's been a crazy past ten days! And because I love photos so much I'll end this with several pics. For those of you having a hard IF day, turn away as there will be many shots of little ones and their cuteness.