Thursday, March 27, 2014
Another one of the joys of IF
Today I learned the harsh reality of Infertility coverage by most insurance companies....there isn't much. I called my insurance company to see if I needed to get a prioritization for my consultation next week and she said all
consultations and testing to see if I am infertile is covered but ZERO
fertility treatments are covered. She said they are not covered because the treatments are not
medically necessary to have a child. I responded with well wait there are conditions that may make them medically necessary and her response was that they are not the only way to have a child and that there is always adoption. I
wanted to fucking throat punch her. She was super defensive too and
kept saying now wait mam you didn't let me finish. I have worked in medical billing and I know the harsh reality of insurance companies but at least be a little sympathetic about it. I started to go through my benefits book and i am just amazed that they will pay for weight loss
surgery and rehab. Are you fucking kidding me if i chose to get fat you will pay to help me loose weight or if
I choose to start smoking crack you would pay for me to go to rehab and help me stop that but will not pay for help to have a child if other conditions make the difficult. Infertility is such a bitch.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Fuck You March
I have been falling behind writing but I feel like this month has been so overwhelming I never know where to start. Just as I expected March has by far been the worst month for me. Everything I sit at work and think "I should not be here, I should be home with my newborn." All of the people that were due around the same time as me have had their babies and are getting to enjoy every moment of being a new mother and it feels as if I have been left behind.
DH and I took a trip to the city where my Dr is located and because we were there I stopped by the specialists office to fill out the new patient paperwork. That day she called me and asked what cay of my cycle I was on and I sent me right to the ultrasound place to check if I was close to ovulating and if so she was going to give me a trigger shot. I was so unbelievably excited, I could not believe we were going to get the chance to have 2 medicated cycles before DH leaves fishing. I really felt like things were starting to look up. Well of course we went and got the ultrasound (at the same place where I discovered my miscarriage) and all they saw was a ton of cysts and very small follies, the biggest one measuring 10 so they pretty much just sent me on my way. At this point I really do not expect to hear any positive information from a providers office.
DH also was able to get a SA while we were away. My new provider called a few nights later and told us everything looks except for motility is a little low. I have not received the write up yet so we will know more soon.
My due date was rough, I barely got out of bed. I think the roughest part for me was the only one of my loved ones who knew I was due said anything to me that day. Not even my mother said anything to me about my loss that day. I couldn't help but think of how my phone would have been blowing up if I was still pregnant. March 16th definitely brought an overwhelming feeling of loneliness that I have never experienced before in my life. We booked tickets to Vegas for Saturday for a little get away and while I am very excited and ready for a break I am sad that I can go to Vegas to let loose. I am sad that I am not home with my new baby.
As April is our last chance for any sort of medicated cycle before the summer madness begins I have it all worked out to work from the city and be able to have my first fully monitored cycle in April. Since started Metformin I have been ovulating right around day 17 and have been having between 31-35 day cycles. It was going to line up perfectly that I get back from my trip, have my first RE consultation and be able to dive into things right when we got home. Well now of course my body is not responding to the clomid and I cant tell what my body is doing. My temps are higher than normal and bouncing all over the place with no sign of ovulation. So now I am freaking out because I cant get pushed back too far into next month or else I will not be able to have a medicated cycle.
I just keep waiting for something good to happen and the more and more time that goes by it makes it harder to stay positive.
DH and I took a trip to the city where my Dr is located and because we were there I stopped by the specialists office to fill out the new patient paperwork. That day she called me and asked what cay of my cycle I was on and I sent me right to the ultrasound place to check if I was close to ovulating and if so she was going to give me a trigger shot. I was so unbelievably excited, I could not believe we were going to get the chance to have 2 medicated cycles before DH leaves fishing. I really felt like things were starting to look up. Well of course we went and got the ultrasound (at the same place where I discovered my miscarriage) and all they saw was a ton of cysts and very small follies, the biggest one measuring 10 so they pretty much just sent me on my way. At this point I really do not expect to hear any positive information from a providers office.
DH also was able to get a SA while we were away. My new provider called a few nights later and told us everything looks except for motility is a little low. I have not received the write up yet so we will know more soon.
My due date was rough, I barely got out of bed. I think the roughest part for me was the only one of my loved ones who knew I was due said anything to me that day. Not even my mother said anything to me about my loss that day. I couldn't help but think of how my phone would have been blowing up if I was still pregnant. March 16th definitely brought an overwhelming feeling of loneliness that I have never experienced before in my life. We booked tickets to Vegas for Saturday for a little get away and while I am very excited and ready for a break I am sad that I can go to Vegas to let loose. I am sad that I am not home with my new baby.
As April is our last chance for any sort of medicated cycle before the summer madness begins I have it all worked out to work from the city and be able to have my first fully monitored cycle in April. Since started Metformin I have been ovulating right around day 17 and have been having between 31-35 day cycles. It was going to line up perfectly that I get back from my trip, have my first RE consultation and be able to dive into things right when we got home. Well now of course my body is not responding to the clomid and I cant tell what my body is doing. My temps are higher than normal and bouncing all over the place with no sign of ovulation. So now I am freaking out because I cant get pushed back too far into next month or else I will not be able to have a medicated cycle.
I just keep waiting for something good to happen and the more and more time that goes by it makes it harder to stay positive.
Friday, March 14, 2014
10 Words of Infertility
Two days until my EDD and I still feel like like hell. My new provider has doubled my dosage of metformin so I feel like I am going to puke at any moment which does not help at all. I finally broke down and got tickets to Vegas for my husband and I at the end of the month, the same week as our appointment with the specialist. I have been planning my life around my cycles since our loss and we have not gone on any vacations and I really need some fun in the sun. It will only be a short break but we definitely need it. We were able to get in for a SA this week and are anxiously awaiting the results of that. At this point we really don't expect any positive news from any part of this process.
Here is something else that I found online about infertility and it really hits the nail on the head.
1. Lonely.-- We saw couple after couple get pregnant before us, our best friends included. When they told us, we high-fived them, then we went home, and hardly knew what to say to each other. We felt lost, sad, and even lonelier than before. We were excited for them; we were just very sad for us.
It’s okay to go home and cry your eyes out when your friends get pregnant.
2. Exposed.-- Everybody wants to give you advice, and some people say incredibly stupid things. My favorite: “You just need to stop trying so hard!” Some people want to know every excruciating detail of what you’re doing to get pregnant. Suddenly, your most private details are the subject of casual conversation. Once people know you’re trying, people want to know how it’s going, if you’ve done artificial insemination, if you’d consider IVF, and how it felt in that small white room with the gross leather chair & the bad magazines.
It’s okay to avoid the question, smile, and change the subject. Keep as many things private as you can (except to a few trusted friends).
3. On Hold.-- We were always checking the calendar, wondering if we should plan that vacation, or that work trip, because what if we’re pregnant? Then we stopped doing that, because we would have never lived if we would have scheduled everything around a “what if.”
It’s okay to miss a month or two; you have to live your life. This is hard, but over the long haul, it will create more stress if you feel so trapped that you can’t plan anything. We even found that it’s good to take a month off now and then.
4. Invaded.-- For women, there are so many things entering your body (probes, needles, drugs) and so many people measuring your progress. Even sex, at the mercy of a calendar or a temperature reading, can feel invasive. The loss of control can almost merge into a loss of self. But, it feels like once you’ve started down this road, there’s no stopping until you get pregnant.
It’s okay to say what you need, and it’s okay to shore up your boundaries in whatever ways you can.
5. Awkward.-- During one of the first visits where I was given the small cup and ceremoniously ushered into the small room, I actually ran into some people from my church afterwards. Of course they had their baby with them. I had a small cup that contained very personal contents with me. They asked, “What are you doing here?” I mean, what do you say?
It’s okay to laugh at yourself sometimes. And when someone catches you with your cup in your hand, that’s all you can do.
6. Angry.-- Unfair is the password that gets you into the infertility club. Mary tells a story of a friend asking her if she was angry with God. “No!” she blurted. “I’m angry at pregnant women!” She knew this was irrational, but she also knew that it was good for her soul to be honest in safe places. You actually may be angry with God, and you may need to find some safe places to be honest about that.
It’s okay to express the darkness, even the stuff you’re terribly embarrassed about, because it’s good for your soul. But in the right places, with people who can handle it.
7. Stressed.-- Even though it seems like a stressed out couple is less likely to get pregnant, The American Society for Reproductive Medicine finds that there is no proof stress causes infertility. Besides, trying hard to “not be so stressed about it” never worked for us. It also didn’t help to “just stop trying.” Everybody has a friend who was infertile for 73 years, and the day they stopped trying, they got pregnant. That never happened with us.
It’s okay to be stressed. Don’t stress about your stress. Trying hard not to be stressed is silly.
8. Despair.-- The cycle of hope and despair with infertility can take you out. I remember getting so excited when Mary was 2 days late, and just knowing that this time, it’s going to happen! Then, a few days or hours later, when she told me she got “it,” I would plunge into despair. The alternative is to temper your hope so that your despair doesn’t get so low. After about a hundred months of experiencing this cycle, we found that the best route is to keep hoping, and if it doesn’t happen, keep crying. It’s too hard to pretend that you’re not excited and that you’re not depressed. Be excited. Be depressed.
It’s okay to hope, and it’s okay to cry. Keep hoping and keep crying.
9. Loss.-- This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not what you dreamed it would be. And you don’t know how it will end.
It’s okay if you don’t know how to wrap your mind around your emotions. Be gentle with yourself for not totally having control of how you feel from moment to moment.
10. Ambivalence--. Every time you have to go through another kind of treatment, you ask yourself: “Is it worth it? Do I really want it that bad?” And then in the very next breath, you are taken out by the sheer magnitude of how much you want a baby.
It’s okay to want and not want. That’s normal.
If you’re struggling with infertility, it can be such a dark time. You have to be out loud with each other about what you need, and every journey will be different. You have to give yourselves permission to do this journey in whatever way makes the most sense for you.
Here is something else that I found online about infertility and it really hits the nail on the head.
1. Lonely.-- We saw couple after couple get pregnant before us, our best friends included. When they told us, we high-fived them, then we went home, and hardly knew what to say to each other. We felt lost, sad, and even lonelier than before. We were excited for them; we were just very sad for us.
It’s okay to go home and cry your eyes out when your friends get pregnant.
2. Exposed.-- Everybody wants to give you advice, and some people say incredibly stupid things. My favorite: “You just need to stop trying so hard!” Some people want to know every excruciating detail of what you’re doing to get pregnant. Suddenly, your most private details are the subject of casual conversation. Once people know you’re trying, people want to know how it’s going, if you’ve done artificial insemination, if you’d consider IVF, and how it felt in that small white room with the gross leather chair & the bad magazines.
It’s okay to avoid the question, smile, and change the subject. Keep as many things private as you can (except to a few trusted friends).
3. On Hold.-- We were always checking the calendar, wondering if we should plan that vacation, or that work trip, because what if we’re pregnant? Then we stopped doing that, because we would have never lived if we would have scheduled everything around a “what if.”
It’s okay to miss a month or two; you have to live your life. This is hard, but over the long haul, it will create more stress if you feel so trapped that you can’t plan anything. We even found that it’s good to take a month off now and then.
4. Invaded.-- For women, there are so many things entering your body (probes, needles, drugs) and so many people measuring your progress. Even sex, at the mercy of a calendar or a temperature reading, can feel invasive. The loss of control can almost merge into a loss of self. But, it feels like once you’ve started down this road, there’s no stopping until you get pregnant.
It’s okay to say what you need, and it’s okay to shore up your boundaries in whatever ways you can.
5. Awkward.-- During one of the first visits where I was given the small cup and ceremoniously ushered into the small room, I actually ran into some people from my church afterwards. Of course they had their baby with them. I had a small cup that contained very personal contents with me. They asked, “What are you doing here?” I mean, what do you say?
It’s okay to laugh at yourself sometimes. And when someone catches you with your cup in your hand, that’s all you can do.
6. Angry.-- Unfair is the password that gets you into the infertility club. Mary tells a story of a friend asking her if she was angry with God. “No!” she blurted. “I’m angry at pregnant women!” She knew this was irrational, but she also knew that it was good for her soul to be honest in safe places. You actually may be angry with God, and you may need to find some safe places to be honest about that.
It’s okay to express the darkness, even the stuff you’re terribly embarrassed about, because it’s good for your soul. But in the right places, with people who can handle it.
7. Stressed.-- Even though it seems like a stressed out couple is less likely to get pregnant, The American Society for Reproductive Medicine finds that there is no proof stress causes infertility. Besides, trying hard to “not be so stressed about it” never worked for us. It also didn’t help to “just stop trying.” Everybody has a friend who was infertile for 73 years, and the day they stopped trying, they got pregnant. That never happened with us.
It’s okay to be stressed. Don’t stress about your stress. Trying hard not to be stressed is silly.
8. Despair.-- The cycle of hope and despair with infertility can take you out. I remember getting so excited when Mary was 2 days late, and just knowing that this time, it’s going to happen! Then, a few days or hours later, when she told me she got “it,” I would plunge into despair. The alternative is to temper your hope so that your despair doesn’t get so low. After about a hundred months of experiencing this cycle, we found that the best route is to keep hoping, and if it doesn’t happen, keep crying. It’s too hard to pretend that you’re not excited and that you’re not depressed. Be excited. Be depressed.
It’s okay to hope, and it’s okay to cry. Keep hoping and keep crying.
9. Loss.-- This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not what you dreamed it would be. And you don’t know how it will end.
It’s okay if you don’t know how to wrap your mind around your emotions. Be gentle with yourself for not totally having control of how you feel from moment to moment.
10. Ambivalence--. Every time you have to go through another kind of treatment, you ask yourself: “Is it worth it? Do I really want it that bad?” And then in the very next breath, you are taken out by the sheer magnitude of how much you want a baby.
It’s okay to want and not want. That’s normal.
If you’re struggling with infertility, it can be such a dark time. You have to be out loud with each other about what you need, and every journey will be different. You have to give yourselves permission to do this journey in whatever way makes the most sense for you.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Infertility Lottery
March has definitely been my lowest month since my loss and I just cant seem to get out of this funk. My due date is this coming Sunday and I am absolutely dreading it. I have found a few different things on other blogs that really hit home about how I feel lately. Below you will find one of them...
Pregnancy is a miraculous thing. So many things have to go the right way at the right time to make it possible, and even then you have only a 20-30% chance at best each cycle of getting pregnant. Even less of having it stick and making it through the entire gestation and being born. Yet people do it all the time, most without even thinking about how they won the biological lottery.
For those of us struggling with infertility, that lottery has become a numbers game. We're the crazy caffeinated ladies with the bucket of coins at the slot machines at 4am when most normal people have already taken their winnings and gone to bed, while we are convinced just one more coin will get us the jackpot. So we don't give up. One coin after another.
At first it was fun and exciting, knowing the next coin might cause the machine to light up, bells to go off, and the jackpot to come pouring out in a stream of joyful coins. You'd be so happy, and feel so glad that you won! It was exciting each time you put a coin in, pulled the lever, waited to see if this would be the lucky turn. And when you lost, it wasn't a big deal as you might win the next one.
After you've been putting coins in the machine for awhile, you might look up the statistics. Okay, so at this particular Pregnancy Lottery machine, you've got about a 20% chance each time you pull the lever (or rather, each cycle). So if you pull it a half dozen times or so, you're bound to win!
Except you don't. And then you start realizing that 80% of people have already won the lottery after this many coins and you haven't. And then you start calculating how likely it is that you'll ever win the lottery. And how likely it is that you'll never win no matter how long you play.
You start to wonder if the machine is broken, so you have the staff come check it out. You might have a defective machine and the mechanic comes to fix it before you can keep playing. Or you need a special kind of coin that costs a lot of money to keep playing each turn. Or you might find out that the machine isn't the newest model with all the upgrades, and might just take a few extra turns to get your jackpot.
So once the machine is in more or less working condition, you start getting superstitious and strategic. Maybe you start putting coins in all the machines, hoping one of them is a winner. Or you commit to one machine, believing it eventually will have to pay out. Or you start using only newer coins because maybe the machine can tell the difference. Or you close your eyes and say a mantra every time before you pull the lever. Perhaps if you pull the lever a little harder, or at exactly two seconds after you put in the coin, it will work this time. And did last time not work because you forgot to say the mantra, or is the mantra keeping you from winning?
Eventually those losses start to hurt. It feels like you have lost personally. That something is wrong with you, that you're pulling the lever wrong, that maybe you just aren't lucky enough to win the lottery. You've tried so hard, you've invested so much time and money, you deserve to win. Damn it, you've earned that win.
Except you haven't. And you might not ever win. And that starts to weigh on you, like an anchor hanging around your neck, and it's all you can think about. So you keep putting coins in, sitting there as dawn breaks, fanatically putting coins into the machine.
And of course, there's your friend who just arrived to the casino, who pulls up to the seat next to you at 6am as you're chugging another Red Bull to keep up the energy to continue. She's fresh faced from a good night sleep, can't figure out how to put the coin in, doesn't realize you have to pull the lever, and yet still - her first tug on that lever - the bells are going off and the coins are spilling out and she's so happy. How great for her - her first time! She must just be naturally good at the Lottery. Or really lucky. Or both. But she doesn't care, because she's convinced it was just "meant to be" for her.
And you just want to slug her right in her pretty exuberant face.
It's not that you aren't happy for her - okay, maybe not much. But you want to be happy for her, so that counts for something, right? It's not that you're a hateful selfish person, or at least you didn't used to be. But after pulling an all nighter, plunking coins into the machines, strategizing about how to win, feeling like you've lost your sanity... why isn't it "meant to be" for you, too?!
Pregnancy is a miraculous thing. So many things have to go the right way at the right time to make it possible, and even then you have only a 20-30% chance at best each cycle of getting pregnant. Even less of having it stick and making it through the entire gestation and being born. Yet people do it all the time, most without even thinking about how they won the biological lottery.
For those of us struggling with infertility, that lottery has become a numbers game. We're the crazy caffeinated ladies with the bucket of coins at the slot machines at 4am when most normal people have already taken their winnings and gone to bed, while we are convinced just one more coin will get us the jackpot. So we don't give up. One coin after another.
At first it was fun and exciting, knowing the next coin might cause the machine to light up, bells to go off, and the jackpot to come pouring out in a stream of joyful coins. You'd be so happy, and feel so glad that you won! It was exciting each time you put a coin in, pulled the lever, waited to see if this would be the lucky turn. And when you lost, it wasn't a big deal as you might win the next one.
After you've been putting coins in the machine for awhile, you might look up the statistics. Okay, so at this particular Pregnancy Lottery machine, you've got about a 20% chance each time you pull the lever (or rather, each cycle). So if you pull it a half dozen times or so, you're bound to win!
Except you don't. And then you start realizing that 80% of people have already won the lottery after this many coins and you haven't. And then you start calculating how likely it is that you'll ever win the lottery. And how likely it is that you'll never win no matter how long you play.
You start to wonder if the machine is broken, so you have the staff come check it out. You might have a defective machine and the mechanic comes to fix it before you can keep playing. Or you need a special kind of coin that costs a lot of money to keep playing each turn. Or you might find out that the machine isn't the newest model with all the upgrades, and might just take a few extra turns to get your jackpot.
So once the machine is in more or less working condition, you start getting superstitious and strategic. Maybe you start putting coins in all the machines, hoping one of them is a winner. Or you commit to one machine, believing it eventually will have to pay out. Or you start using only newer coins because maybe the machine can tell the difference. Or you close your eyes and say a mantra every time before you pull the lever. Perhaps if you pull the lever a little harder, or at exactly two seconds after you put in the coin, it will work this time. And did last time not work because you forgot to say the mantra, or is the mantra keeping you from winning?
Eventually those losses start to hurt. It feels like you have lost personally. That something is wrong with you, that you're pulling the lever wrong, that maybe you just aren't lucky enough to win the lottery. You've tried so hard, you've invested so much time and money, you deserve to win. Damn it, you've earned that win.
Except you haven't. And you might not ever win. And that starts to weigh on you, like an anchor hanging around your neck, and it's all you can think about. So you keep putting coins in, sitting there as dawn breaks, fanatically putting coins into the machine.
And of course, there's your friend who just arrived to the casino, who pulls up to the seat next to you at 6am as you're chugging another Red Bull to keep up the energy to continue. She's fresh faced from a good night sleep, can't figure out how to put the coin in, doesn't realize you have to pull the lever, and yet still - her first tug on that lever - the bells are going off and the coins are spilling out and she's so happy. How great for her - her first time! She must just be naturally good at the Lottery. Or really lucky. Or both. But she doesn't care, because she's convinced it was just "meant to be" for her.
And you just want to slug her right in her pretty exuberant face.
It's not that you aren't happy for her - okay, maybe not much. But you want to be happy for her, so that counts for something, right? It's not that you're a hateful selfish person, or at least you didn't used to be. But after pulling an all nighter, plunking coins into the machines, strategizing about how to win, feeling like you've lost your sanity... why isn't it "meant to be" for you, too?!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)