Stork award?

So I've gotten a few other blog awards from fellow IFers but not the Stork Award (could this be a good sign for tomorrow's FET?).  Thank you Sausha from Welcome to My Uterus for the love.

How it works:
1.  Add the avatar for the award in your blog post (done)
2.  Link to the blog that nominated you (check)
3.  Answer the ten questions given to you
4.  Nominate bloggers
5.  Ask your nominee's their ten questions
6.  Let your nominee's know they've been awarded
7.  Put the award icon on your side bar if so inclined (I'm not that crafty!)

Questions given to me....
1. What's your favorite curse word?  I would say that it's variation of fuck but I've learned over the years I say Shit more often and when about to be in a car accident that is what escapes my lips so I guess it's shit and it's variations (I use Shit-Ton alot).

2.  Do you have any tattoos?  Why yes.  I have a gecko on my hip named Buddy that I got as a 24 year old.

3.  Are you a morning person? Nope - I'm the type that hits snooze forever.  In fact I now have to have three alarms going off every two minutes in order to get up.  I've found if I only have one going off every five minutes I can keep sleeping until the alarm just gives up on me.

4.  What are three physical features you get complimented on a lot?  Hmmmm, my hair is what people at work compliment me on the most.  I'm told year ago (though I think it might be a lie) that I was runner up for "Best Smile" my senior year in HS.  And well, I guess eyes get third because saying boobs just sounds crass HA.

5.  What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas!  I looooove to give presents.  In fact I think sometimes I'm too hard on myself when I can't find the "perfect" gift, or if I think I found the perfect gift and the receiver's reaction isn't as over the top as I feel it should be (hehehe).   But seriously, I really do love to try and find something perfect for all my family members.

6.  What's your favorite animal?  I've been obsessed with penguins since 2nd grade.  I collect penguins for my christmas decor and love that in Fight Club that's his "power animal".  They became more "in" after March of the Penguins and Happy Feet so part of me likes they finally got the recognition they deserve and part of me is like "You joiners!  I've loved them for years!"  Yeah, I'm a nut.

7.  Do you have any pets.  Sadly no.  I'm a dog person and had dogs when I lived with my parents, my senior year in college my roommate Kimmy got us a dog, etc but when I was working sales I was just gone too much to have one and now with Jeff - - - he never had pets so I think it's something I have to convince him of.  I'd said "Once we have a house and kids" but it's four years into the marriage and no house because of paying for trying to have a kid.  We hope to have both in the next year but if one or both don't come true I still think in the next year or two I'll sway him (because he'll do almost anything to make me happy).

8.  What's one thing you'd really like to do before you die?  Tough one.  I used to want to skydive but somewhere after 30 I've become "meh" on that one.  I'd love to travel to Ireland or Italy but if I die without going it won't be the worst thing.  IDK...Too hard.  Maybe I'm just not the type to put that much pressure on myself.  I just want to be happy.  Not too much to ask right?

9.  What would be your first purchase if you won the lottery?  A house or a trip to vegas...depends on when I won it I guess (as I wouldn't want to go to Vegas in the summer months).

10.  Do you still wish upon stars?  Yes, OCD girl here when I was little (like 8 or 9?)  I made minor wishes on stars to see which came true and found my "luckiest star" was the one farthest to the left on Orion's Belt so I actually have only been wishing on that star for over two decades.  If I can't find it, I don' wish.  (Remember I said I'm a nut?  Yeah....the cray cray is strong in this one).


As a thank you to some of my more recent followers (Have I really been doing this blog for over three years?!)  I nominate these lovely ladies:
1.  Runcc37 at Running and Dreaming for Two  I hope IVF#2 brings you your miracle!
2.  Ttuprincess at Table for Two  Congrats on losing wight girl!  Keep it up!
3.  L at Put on a Happy Face   Almost half baked! What what!!
4.  Running Red at The harder to Get, the Better to have  So close to due date!!

Since you all have been commenting on my posts the last months I figure you'll see this so that's my way of informing you :)  Lazy lady over here!  And since these things are supposed to be fun do this only if you feel like it and have time - no pressure from me.  Just a nice way to get to know ya a little better.

MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
1.  If you could change your first name, what would it be? (Or if you don't know, have you ever been told you look like a "Fill in name here")
2.  What is one of your irrational fears?
3.  What is your favorite or most used ap if you have a smart phone?
4.  What's something odd that you're good at?
5.  Favorite movie?
6.  What's the best meal you've ever had?
7.  What was one of your funniest moments in life?
8.  Who was your teenage celebrity crush?
9.  What was the worst date you have had like?
10.  Did you have a moment where you knew your DH was "the one"?

Why had I not thought of that?

On a call to my brother yesterday finalizing some Turkey day plans he asked "So when will you know?" and I explained that my beta is for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving but I'd like to try and get it moved to the Monday before so that if it is positive I could have my second one on Wednesday.

And then it all hit me.  This all comes to a head right before Thanksgiving.  First let me say that when we original planned it I thought Thanksgiving was a week earlier (It's *not* the third Thursday of the month? Wha?!?)  so I thought I would not know but now...I will.  Sort of.

I told him I'd really like the second one before the holiday because well, last time the second one is when my beta started going down.  So he said "So either you will not be drinking or you'll be drinking ALOT."  And I laughed "Yes exactly" but the thought hit me - that's the end if I'm not PG.  Like the end, the end.  The end of our infertility journey.  The end to the hope of being parents.  And I'll find out just days before the holiday.

Now, if I had a normal job this wouldn't be too bad as I feel I can compartmentalize and not associate the holiday with all my hopes and fears of being a family and the following year and I'd have a four day weekend off work to deal with the mourning of this.  But instead I work retail now, and instead of having four days off I have Wednesday and Thursday off and will be working 8am-4pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  So if it's bad news I'll have to suck it up and face the world of mom's and dad's and screaming toddlers.  And if it's good news I'll still be running around like mad not able to take it easy because it's frickin black Friday weekend.  At Tar.get.  Oh Lord Help Me!

But I just can't believe I had not put together the implications of knowing if it did or did not work the week of Thanksgiving.  Good or Bad - there are issues to deal with.  Obviously I will be over the moon happy to try and handle whatever I have to if it's positive.  Like wake up even earlier to get a third beta before work if I have to.

But yeah....it hit me.  Holy Shit!  How did I not think about that before now?!

Laaaaaid Back oh FET cycle I love you.

Having never done IVF and FET before this last two months I knew the "on paper" idea of what both entailed but really didn't know what it was like.  For the IVF I was not aware just how all consuming  it would be.  Up to three shots a day and various pills etc with morning appt. and evening phone calls it really is something you think about non-stop.

Oh FET how wonderfully laid back you are!  I knew it meant less drugs and doctors visits but I still thought I'd have a fairly one track mind.  But with just the patches and one nightly shot the first eight nights I nearly forgot to do it some nights.  Can you believe that? Almost forgot!  Of course I didn't but it was nice that it wasn't on my mind so much.  Less stress, less obsessing.

So what HAS been going on then since I have not been daily blogging?  Well I started nightly ganirelix after my baseline on Mon Nov 4th as well as doing two patches of minivelle every two days.  This was to both increase my estrogen levels (so that my lining would thicken up) yet suppress any growth of follicles basically to trick my body into getting it into the right spot to think it ovulates.  That Friday I had my first lining check and it was at 5mm so I was given estrace twice daily (up the vag) aka smurf cootch pills to add and as planned we moved on to four minivelle patches for three days at a time for the following week.

This friday was my second lining check and I'm proud to say I am at 10.7!  Never been this thick and fluffy!!  Patches and estrace did their job.  E2 was at 1594 yet ovaries are "sleeping" as my U/S tech said.  So we are a go for FET next Friday.  We'll start to wean down the number of patches and start progesterone tomorrow.  No!!! The dreaded PIO!  Argh!  This is where the stress will begin!  I *may* have Jeff do it but I'm going to try and keep with me doing all the shots (keep the control, plus he's never done any shots and is a bit squeamish).  Need to go off to YouTube soon to learn how on earth to do self PIO.

But, you want to hear something funny?  When I was told (On the table) what my lining was I threw my arms up in victory.  She laughed at me but I was really fearing thin lining since I've had issues with that in the past.  And then for some unknown reason I got "My lining brings all the eggs to the yard and they're like 'It's better than yours'. "   My mind is a fucked up place people.  SMH

Victory is MINE!

So I spent much time last night and this morning working up a spreadsheet on what happened when, what was billed to my insurance agency, how it was discounted and therefore what I owe for our IVF cycle.  Gotta actually love that insurance is now online now, can't imagine ten years ago having to wait for paper to come in the mail to prove this shit.  And yes - I'm one of those anal retentive people that loves to spreadsheet and color code.  BOOM.  This is what I sent my RE's finance department:

Date	Day of the Week	What for?	Billed	Discounted	Paid by insurance	owed by us
18-Sep	Wednesday	Baseline	$538.85	$325.25	$170.44	$43.16
23-Sep	Monday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
25-Sep	Wednesday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
26-Sep	Thursday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
27-Sep	Friday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
28-Sep	Saturday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
30-Sep	Monday	Monitoring	$358.00	$187.97	$136.02	$34.01
2-Oct	Wednesday	EGG Retrieval	$8,414.00	$4,762.92	$2,513.44	$1,137.64
8-Oct	Tuesday	U/S for Cyst	$267.00	$0.00	$0.00	$267.00
15-Oct	Tuesday	Baseline	$358.00	$0.00	$0.00	$358.00
		TOTALS	$11,725.85	$6,215.99	$986.56	$247.22
					$2,513.44	$1,762.64
					$3,500.00	$2,009.86
				Coverage	$3,500
				We Paid		$5,000
				Minus what we owe		$2,990.14
				Minus cost of FET of $3,050		($59.86)

Now the great part is that according to my insurance company - before the ER bill (that has not been processed yet thus why guesses are highlighted in pink) I only used up about $600 of my IF coverage.  Not the $986.56 I've added up because of what was paid) so that means some of the charges for B/W or U/S does not actually fit into their IF category and was covered under regular insurance.  That means I'll actually pay LESS out of pocket.  However I proved that I will have enough to cover all but about $60 of the FET so there is no way I should be required to pay an additional $3,050 upfront for it if I have a credit coming my way of $2,990.14.  AND I got her to agree this is the case, and email that shit to me in writing that our credit will most likely cover most all of that cost.  Boo-ya. Victory is Mine!

Of course, since alas I never had it in writing about the freeze being covered I am sucking it up and paying that because whether it came from the $5,000 deposit or from us now - we'd pay it to someone eventually since the $5,000 doesn't cover what we owe after insurance handles the fresh cycle, the FET, and the freeze cost.  But since the cryo lab mentioned a possible discount I'm gonna try like hell to get that since I've heard from some of my #75strong that I'm over paying as it is.  So I'm not gonna feel bad damn it.  I will sleep fine tonight.

ETA:  They just called back - got the cost of freeze lowered from $1,100 to $850.  I seriously feel like dancing around the house to the theme from Rocky right now.  Yesterday it looked like we would be out another $4,150 and today I'm able to say now it's just $910.  FUCK YEAH!

What a cluster fuck this has turned into

So first let me explain the massive miscommunication that is the instructions.  Waaay back in 2010 when I first met with my RE I gave a hotmail account as my email.  I never got anything in that account from them other than articles about various infertility related things (often not even applying to me like PCOS).  So when that account got hacked, I changed to a yahoo account but kept the hotmail account simply for spam (you know...people I didn't want to have my real account so it's flooded with emails from online shopping and such).  Fast forward to this past cycle.  I got my instructions for IVF from the coordinator herself as I always had and was never told anything would be emailed to me.  Discussions on payments and what they cover were also all done over the phone - no emails.

So over three years of in person or over phone discussions.  Suddenly post IVF they email my FET protocol to me the day after egg retrieval.  But to my old hotmail account that I only clean out once a month (usually there is over 400 emails and I just quickly scan through the sender to make sure it's no one I know).  Because I never noticed this email or was told to expect it I didn't know I was given specific instructions like "Keep taking progesterone even if your period shows up"  and "Start Lupron on 10/14".  Instead, I start my period on 10/11 and I call their Highland Park office (the one's in change of IVF, not my local office).  They inform me of the missed email, that I'm starting luron Monday, and don't mention to keep taking the progesterone.  Because it was after 4pm CST I have to scramble with my specialty pharmacy in EST zone to make a special trip to UPS to get my meds here by Monday and patiently wait for them to resend this protocol email to my current address.

Monday morning arrives, the meds show up, but still no email - so I don't know how much of the lupron I'm supposed to take.  So I call my local clinic (because they know me and seem to get shit done much better than IVF HP location).  That nurse informs me if I got my period and stopped taking the progesterone that it suddenly changes my protocol and timing AND MEDS!  WHA???  Why didn't HP tell me this?  Thankfully after a baseline, and behind the scenes consultations with RE they decide that I can "swap" the lupron I rush ordered for Ganirelix(using their stash at the office this saves me $840 OOP), and use birth control, and just move my FET date to Nov. 15th.  But emails were going back and forth so that both my local nurse and my RE understand the mix up in communication and why I was so upset.  A) if they are suddenly going to start communicating with email they should TELL YOU to expect that and sometime in the five phone calls and two office visits someone should have TOLD ME either what the hell my time line and protocol was or made sure I GOT the email.  But at least I was heard, understood, apologized to for the fuck ups and we're still on track for for FET Nov. 15th now instead of Oct. 28th (which apparently was what they were shooting for if I had not stopped the progesterone and thus been able to started the lupron). WHEW.

**Sorry this is such a long ass post but I seriously need to get this off my chest.**  Now for the finance fuck up.  As I said, everything was done over the phone or in person.  I had been told the IVF (non meds part) cycle would cost $10,000 - but that since I have some insurance coverage it will be sent to insurance and they would negotiate the rates down to say $7,000...of which I have a $3,500 coverage for IF.  So they pay half and I'd pay the other $3,500.  They said they needed a deposit of $5,000 to cover not only this $3,500 but $1,100 for cost of freezing any embryos and then $400 for room on if they were off on negotiated rates.  If we didn't have anything to freeze or the rates were negotiated as they expected I would get $400 or we also have nothing to freeze we would get that credit back.  Well we didn't end up doing a fresh transfer so there should be some credit in there right?  And they said SPECIFICALLY about the cost of freezing is included.

Now suddenly I have a cryogenics center saying I owe them $1,100 for the freeze.  NO, I was told that was included.  They called and checked and called me back saying "No, sorry you still owe us $1,100".  They are giving me time to deal with my finance department to see if I can get that money from them since that's not what I was told.  And she said she could try to see if I can get a discount (I think because I was crying on the phone about how I was no told that etc.etc.etc.)

So I've tried calling my finance department.  A) no one answers their phone. Ever.  It always goes to voicemail.  I knew this from back in August trying to get answers on the initial cost.  BUT OK, I leave you a voicemail - call me back the same day would you?  NOPE.

Then today I get an email about how "I see you're about to start a FET cycle.  Our records indicate you are self pay.  You will owe $3,050 for the cycle."  and it lays out what all that covers.  Um...I don't have anything in writing like this for the fresh cycle so no way to prove what they told me about the freezing.  And while my coverage for IF stuff is done, I can still have it run through insurance to get the negotiated rates.  And since I didn't do a fresh transfer I should have some credit in that area.  AND if you're not paying for the freeze I am I should have even more coming to me.  AND CALL ME BACK YOU FUCKTARDS.

You know how they say you should try to stay as stress free during this crap as possible?  YOU ARE NOT HELPING.  Somehow we  have to come up with $4,150 soon or work this shit out fast.  Just shoot me.  I can't take much more of this.

I'm too young to feel this damn old

This phrase did escape my mouth twice yesterday and damn it if it isn't true.

First let me say that moving from doing desk jobs for over eight years to physical retail work for the last four years is clearly not good for my body.  Long time followers of the blog will remember I have chronic tennis elbow.  While cortisone shots can make the pain go away for six month stretches, I will most likely need surgery within the next year or two.  I didn't know how cortisone might affect IVF so this is the first time I've said "Fuck it, I'll live with the pain."  So that's hurt since my last shot wore off in early September.

And in July I developed what I believe is planter fasciitis in my left foot.  So it hurts when I first start walking (when I first get up in the morning and if I sit for a while after a period of being up and around).  I had hoped that the 12 days off work would resolve this (Since many sites say rest can clear it up).  But I started working again on Thursday and damn it yesterday if I wasn't hobbling around like I'm 80 first thing in the morning.

Then there's that cyst on my left ovary giving me some pains here and there.

Then I got my period yesterday.  Hello back pain and cramps.

Oh, and I've apparently developed stress bumps on my face. WHAT THE FUCK?!  I've dealt with moving cross country on my own, being fired from a job, getting married, and four years of infertility treatments - not to mention last week waiting for phone calls and NOW once all that is behind me I get this?

So yes people...I'm sitting here with a hurting right elbow, left foot, left ovary, crampy uterus, back pain and and an ugly face full of bumps and the five pounds I've gained from IVF and eating takeout all the time the last three weeks from being too tired to cook.  And I get to start stabbing myself again with needles starting with Lupron come Monday.  Pity party time.  I'd love to go back to being someone where my biggest physical complaint is a zit or a headache.

Pokey didn't make it

Pokey didn't make it.  So we have just the one frozen embryo.  But it's a 4BB embryo, and it made it.  So that will be what's transferred at the FET.  Talk about pressure on little Lucky!  I don't know what else to say.  This one embryo is our last chance.  It's really sinking in now we're nearing the end of this IF journey one way or the other.