Fertility Chronicles: Part 5

Sorry I didn't update this last week, but I was busy! Jeff and I had our IVF medication instruction class last Thursday. There were 4 other couples in the class and it lasted about 2 hours, but was filled with a LOT of information. She gave us the details of which meds to take and when and for how long and showed us how to draw the meds. She left very few questions unanswered. I'm really glad Jeff went with me b/c it was a lot of information to get in such a short amount of time. The progesterone needle was the only part that made me go.."hoollly crap". Two inches long..all the way in my hip..every day for 10 weeks after the embryo transfer. If the embryo's don't attach and I'm not pregnant, then I don't have to take it..otherwise, it's through most of the 1st trimester. OUCH.

So..where do we stand now? I got a letter from Duke telling me the amount I owed after insurance paid, which is $3518. I faxed that to ARC Sunday night and they called me back confirming that they got it and were just waiting on the clinic to fax the prescriptions. Duke faxed those to ARC today and she called telling me the price on those was $2328.48, for a total loan amount of $5846.48. She said she'd get the loan paperwork up and ready to go and fax them to me tonight...which I never received..but then I just sign them, fax them back, they order the drugs and have them overnighted to me..and away we go! I still have to go in for my baseline ultrasound before I can start the drugs, but hopefully I can start them the first of next week.

Jeff got me all freaked out the other night because he told me his contract expires on April 15th and I thought we had until April 30th. If I had started the drugs tomorrow, we'd be looking at an embryo transfer date of around April 13th. That's cutting it verrrrry close. The only way this is going to work now..is if Jeff gets the COBRA insurance through the end of the month. That's also really expensive, but still cheaper than paying full price for IVF. If his insurance hadn't covered any of it, we would've paid about $13,000 for everything. We're hoping that his insurance doesn't end the day of his contract, but at the end of the month during which his contract ends. We'll see. I can't stress over it b/c there's nothing I can do, you know?

The fact that this might not work hasn't even set in really. I'm just confident that it will work...I have to think that way. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but at the same time, I'm thinking of names, who to pick for an OB, how I'll do the nursery and wondering how fat I'll get. My biggest concern is that Jeff can't get another job until this cycle is over with b/c of the insurance. So..he'll be technically without a job before we even have the embryo transfer and that scares me. I know we'll be ok because we always have been...it just works itself out...but that doesn't mean it'll be easy. Our first year was rough b/c he got laid off..and even if he gets another job, he may not be making as much...and we need to prepare for that. I'm putting away as much as I can to help cushion it a bit, but it's not going to be enough. The job market for IT people in this area has slowed to less than a crawl. It's kind of like a baby who's just lying on the floor, drooling, rocking back and forth but not going anywhere. He's looked for jobs outside of the Triangle and in other states, but the truth is that we don't want to move. Despite the strange weather and unbearable summers, we like it here. We're close to just about everything and there's never a shortage of anything to do..but...you have to do what you have to do. If we can't make it through the next 18 months and wait for the economy to turn around, we'll have no choice but to go elsewhere. That makes me sad.

I'm just so thankful to have a very supportive family who I know will help us out when and how they can. All I can do is pray. So, here's to a successful IVF cycle, a new job for Jeff, and strengthening our bond by extending our family!

Fertility Chronicles: Part 1- The History

When Jeff and I got married back in 2001, I wasn't ready for children. I was 24 and still trying to find my path in life. In 2003, I went off of birth control and we tried the method of just not preventing pregnancy. It didn't work, so about a year later I tried going on Clomid. Only 50mg at first..and was told to have "relations" any time in the 5 days surrounding my ovulation day. After no success in the first few months, I was upped to 100 mg. I had an HSG done to determine if my tubes were blocked and everything was found to be normal. Jeff had a sperm count and he was normal. No luck.

After a year of Clomid, I stopped and in September of 2005, we saw a fertility specialist at NCCRM in Cary, NC. I was expecting him to suggest an IUI..which is the next step. He jumped straight to IVF and freaked me out. He had a good point though. The lab work isn't covered by insurance, so our out of pocket expense would have been the same but our chances of conception would be tripled. 15-20 % vs. 50-60% for the same price. He explained the whole process and what they do and how long it takes...and at that time, I just didn't know if I wanted children badly enough to put my body through something like that..but we switched me over to Jeff's insurance because they cover 2 cycles of IVF. Then..everything just stopped. No more drugs, no more Dr's, no more trying. We even stopped really talking about it except for the occasional mention of when we were having children. I guess we'd lost hope.

Now, after a recent long discussion about children and where they would fit in to our lives and why Jeff wanted them so badly, we've decided to give the IVF idea another try. We're meeting a doctor at Duke Fertility in Durham on February 4th to discuss the plan best for me, costs, etc. We'll schedule some blood work and tests for both of us and try to get the ball rolling. Funny, we've been able to do this for several years but now that Jeff loses his insurance in April, we're now under the gun to get it done. Sigh. I feel bad for waiting, but I wasn't ready. The process scared me. I always had this hope that it would happen on it's own when the time was right...and that if it was God's will, it would just happen.

This past October or November, I had a bit of a spiritual reawakening and after a lot of prayer for guidance, I've come to some realizations. In a way, I thought IVF was intervening in God's plan and playing God..and that's wrong. Now, I think doing this is part of God's plan for me. I just wasn't meant to conceive naturally. I think of it as God using the doctors to help perform some of his miracles. Whether a child is conceived naturally or with the help of some doctors, it's still a miracle and still a child. I almost think IVF is better in a way. Going through the process of in-vitro is a testament to how much that child is loved and wanted. Most children are conceived by accident and were never planned. That doesn't mean they weren't loved, but they weren't necessarily wanted, you know? Plus, with IVF, they put the strongest embryos back in..those that will have a better chance of survival. I think that says a lot.

I'm sure people will disagree and say that IVF is playing God a bit..but I've also realized the following, thanks to Jeff. We eat seedless grapes, buy hybrid flowers, use mules to farm, and buy "teacup" dogs. All of those things were created by man, not God..and no one has any complaints about them. Granted..the breeding of horses and donkeys happen in nature on a regular basis..but man also breeds them on purpose. Same with teacup dogs. Breeding them over and over until you create the exact size or color you wanted...and people snatch them up left and right.

Now, I also realize there's a clinic in California and in England that will genetically engineer the sex of an embryo. The purpose is to weed out gender based genetic defects, should they exist. Say all the men in your family have had webbed feet. They can make sure the baby is a female. Or if all the women in your family have had PCOS, they can make sure the child is a male. To go even further, for the right amount of money, they can make sure your child has a certain hair color, eye color, intelligence level, height, weight, etc. Basically...you can order your ideal child who is the best of both of you. While I agree that most people would want to give their child the greatest advantage in life right from the get go, I do feel this is taking it a bit too far. Just my personal opinion though.

Anyhow, I hope to be able to keep you posted on our progress through the coming months. I'm still scared to death of the process and have a ton of worrisome questions. Will it hurt? Will I miss a lot of work? Will I have severe mood swings? What if the stress of the procedure causes the embryo not to attach? What if we lose our insurance before we can complete the process? What if I have a complicated pregnancy? Will I be a good mother? What will I do about daycare? Can I afford daycare? Can I afford to work only part time? What if the child has a defect? What if the child has mine and Jeff's worst traits? What if I have twins? Triplets?? Sigh...just a lot of worry. I'm still praying on a lot of this and hope I can just let it all go and be at peace about it. Anywho...I'll update in a few weeks!