Bright and early this morning (yes, Sunday) I ran down to the IVF doctor for a check in. Jeremy was in Frankenmuth with Anna visiting his parents so I was by myself. The doctor performed an ultrasound to look at my follicles on my ovaries that I have been taking medications to stimulate and they looked great, there were tons of follicles that the doctor said were in great condition, he said that he would have no problems at all getting plenty of quality eggs.
He told me to stop taking the stimulation hormones and we were going to move in to Egg Retrieval mode. I was told to take my "trigger shot" that starts the egg production that night. The retrieval process is scheduled for Tuesday morning!
The egg retrieval procedure is the more intense of the 2 that I will go through, I will actually be put under anesthesia but the process itself is relatively short and easy. The doctor will go in and grab all the follicles that look good and hopefully have good eggs growing inside of them then they will be fertilized and the ones that make it past that stage will be allowed to start developing and if everything goes according to plan, next Sunday they will be put back inside of me.
Well, it turns out that "if" is a bigger one than we planned on. As I said in last post the stimulating hormones were actually working TOO good. So now I am at risk for something called "Ovarian Hyper-stimulation" and because getting pregnant actually will stimulate my ovaries even more there is a chance that actually doing the implantation in the same monthly cycle as taking the drugs will be too much.
The doctor is going to have to make that call on Tuesday and if he decides it is too risky they will freeze the embryos until next month and I will only have to do the easy part of the procedure then.
Obviously I want to do what is in the best interest of my health, but I really hope that we don't have to put anything off for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that my insurance resets in the new year. But we just have to wait and see how it goes and pray for the best outcome.
Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Check One
Well, we had our first check point today at the doctor office and it was passed without any concern! All of my follicles appeared to be similar in size and all very small which is exactly what we wanted.
So now I will be taking 2 shots a day, and they are both shots that I will be able to administer to myself which I am used to - or at least I was and I'm sure it will all come back to me :) Neither of them look too scary, it is just a process. My evening shot requires mixing powder with liquid and switching needles on the syringe, I will feel like a nurse for the next 10 days LOL Maybe I'll take a picture, but I have a feeling no one really wants to see me poking myself with a needle.
The biggest challenge for me will be that I have to take the shots at specific times everyday - I am very forgetful about that kind of stuff and now that I don't have a job that requires it, I don't always have my phone on me so setting an alarm on there won't work. Although, I am getting a new phone tomorrow...Jer got me an iPhone for an early Christmas gift, and I will probably being playing with that a lot getting used to it. I have also set several alarm clocks in our house and I have Jer to help me out with remembering.
Another big milestone reached today - I am (finally) officially approved by our insurance for infertility coverage. There was quite a long process I have been going through for several months to prove to Aetna that I indeed need assistance conceiving. I guess they finally have enough evidence and I also got confirmation that the coverage does "re-set" on January 1st, so if the procedure does not work, we will not have to wait very long to try again. And I guess it is 'good' that due to the ectopic in February and the resulting surgery our deductible is already met for this year so our out of pocket is really the lowest it could be (which is not saying much!!).
So next step is another check in with the doctor in a week. This time we will be looking to see if the follicles are all growing together and at the rate that the doctor wants. Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers, you have no idea how much it helps.
So now I will be taking 2 shots a day, and they are both shots that I will be able to administer to myself which I am used to - or at least I was and I'm sure it will all come back to me :) Neither of them look too scary, it is just a process. My evening shot requires mixing powder with liquid and switching needles on the syringe, I will feel like a nurse for the next 10 days LOL Maybe I'll take a picture, but I have a feeling no one really wants to see me poking myself with a needle.
The biggest challenge for me will be that I have to take the shots at specific times everyday - I am very forgetful about that kind of stuff and now that I don't have a job that requires it, I don't always have my phone on me so setting an alarm on there won't work. Although, I am getting a new phone tomorrow...Jer got me an iPhone for an early Christmas gift, and I will probably being playing with that a lot getting used to it. I have also set several alarm clocks in our house and I have Jer to help me out with remembering.
Another big milestone reached today - I am (finally) officially approved by our insurance for infertility coverage. There was quite a long process I have been going through for several months to prove to Aetna that I indeed need assistance conceiving. I guess they finally have enough evidence and I also got confirmation that the coverage does "re-set" on January 1st, so if the procedure does not work, we will not have to wait very long to try again. And I guess it is 'good' that due to the ectopic in February and the resulting surgery our deductible is already met for this year so our out of pocket is really the lowest it could be (which is not saying much!!).
So next step is another check in with the doctor in a week. This time we will be looking to see if the follicles are all growing together and at the rate that the doctor wants. Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers, you have no idea how much it helps.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Meet the doctor
So we had our long awaited first meeting with the IVF specialist and it exceeded my expectations very much, and we went into with expecting it to be great. The office, while quite a drive for us in Ypsilanti, was nice and we were the only ones there (at least it sure seemed that way if we weren't) and when we arrived, they were expecting us and presented us with a packet of information that included a hand written and detailed list of all the financial questions that they knew would come up - they had already called my insurance company and gotten the answers as to how much (or little) coverage we could count on.
I have had more than my fair share of medical ailments over my life and have seen a wide variety of doctors, I have never had a doctor proactively go after my insurance company, then again I have never faced such an expensive procedure. Actually, I take that back, giving birth was quite a bit more expensive, and while my OB/GYN office helped with my insurance it was nothing like this. Anyway, the point is, I took it as a good sign. And honestly it turned out to be good news - our insurance should cover more than we thought they would (which was really nothing) and the initial cost looks like it will not be as high as I was thinking.
And outside of all that, we did like the doctor, he immediately made me feel comfortable with his knowledge of PCOS and all it's side effects - he just reinforced that basically IVF is our only option now and that is actually a big part of the process we can skip, the trying to figure out what the problem is, and the trying less invasive methods before resulting in IVF - we can just go straight to the end.
So everything is good with the doctor and we feel comfortable with the practice. We got some basic information and the next step is a more intense info session with a nurse sometime in the next month. Forward progress....
I have had more than my fair share of medical ailments over my life and have seen a wide variety of doctors, I have never had a doctor proactively go after my insurance company, then again I have never faced such an expensive procedure. Actually, I take that back, giving birth was quite a bit more expensive, and while my OB/GYN office helped with my insurance it was nothing like this. Anyway, the point is, I took it as a good sign. And honestly it turned out to be good news - our insurance should cover more than we thought they would (which was really nothing) and the initial cost looks like it will not be as high as I was thinking.
And outside of all that, we did like the doctor, he immediately made me feel comfortable with his knowledge of PCOS and all it's side effects - he just reinforced that basically IVF is our only option now and that is actually a big part of the process we can skip, the trying to figure out what the problem is, and the trying less invasive methods before resulting in IVF - we can just go straight to the end.
So everything is good with the doctor and we feel comfortable with the practice. We got some basic information and the next step is a more intense info session with a nurse sometime in the next month. Forward progress....
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