I talked to my mom on the phone last night, she told me she chose not to get tested for Huntington’s. :( She’s pretty sure she doesn’t have it, though, as she’s the age that most people would start exhibiting signs. But she said if she’d found out she had it she’d live her life differently, and she didn’t want that. Personally, I would want to – I mean, I’d rather get the chance to do things I wanted to do, finish up my plans, etc. But anyways. So we don’t know. :/
I just flipped quickly through the chapter on prescreening for genetic disorders and discovered something I didn’t know. Huntington’s disease is an “autosomal dominant” disorder, which means it only takes one gene being passed down for the child to become a sufferer of the disorder – if one parent is a sufferer, there is a 50% chance that the embryo(s)/child(ren) will be as well.
This is shocking news to me, because my maternal grandfather had Huntington’s. There are 5 children – my mother has two sisters and two brothers. And yes, just a year or two ago one of those brothers started showing signs of Huntington’s – it has now progressed to the point where he cannot drive anymore. Which is further scary because that uncle has two children who recently got married, and one of them has two young children herself now. (Huntington’s is fatal, for anyone who doesn’t know. My “Opa” died when I was very young, I think about 4 years old.)
And I honestly can’t remember if my mom got tested for it. There was some debate a few years ago, I do recall – probably around the same time that my uncle started showing signs. Some of the siblings didn’t want to know if they had it or not, some did. I’d fall squarely in the “wanting to know” camp, because even if it wouldn’t change my outcome, it could change my child’s. And hell, I just want to know what’s coming, I hate being blindsided by things. So I really need to ask my mom about it.
There appear to be one RE clinic in Springfield (but gives two locations?). It’s a member of the Baycare Health Partners Physician Network – Springfield.
I guess, since we’re covered by ConnectiCare, that I should include the Connecticut laws as well – I’m not really sure which one applies:
2005
DEFINITION OF INFERTILITY/PATIENT REQUIREMENTS
* Individual and group insurers are required to provide infertility coverage to individuals under 40 years old.
* Infertility means the condition of a presumably healthy individual who is unable to conceive or sustain a successful pregnancy during a one-year period.
* Limits coverage to individuals who have maintained coverage under a policy for at least 12 months.
Effective date – October 1, 2005
COVERAGE
* Lifetime maximum coverage of 4 cycles of ovulation induction.
* Lifetime maximum coverage of 3 cycles of intrauterine insemination.
* Lifetime maximum coverage of 2 cycles of IVF, GIFT, ZIFT or low tubal ovum transfer, with not more than 2 embryo implantations per cycle. Each fertilization or transfer is credited as one cycle towards the maximum.
* Limits coverage for IVF, GIFT, ZIFT and low tubal ovum transfer to individuals who have been unable to conceive or sustain a successful pregnancy through less expensive and medically viable infertility treatment or procedures, unless the individual’s physician determines that those treatments are likely to be unsuccessful.
Requires infertility treatment or procedures to be performed at facilities that conform to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine and the Society of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Guidelines.
[RESOLVE]
If this one is what our insurance is under (which I believe it is) that kind of sucks, as MA law states no limitations, unlike CT law. :/
PS – I’ve been having some weird stomach upsets and been very gassy (sorry, TMI) for several days now. My period’s over and I still feel that weird queasy feeling. *sigh* A part of me thinks I could still be pregnant – but that’s a very small part of me, because I had a full, normal period and my temp is back down.
Had another one of those dreams… this time I gave birth and they took the baby away right away… I really can’t remember why. But there was some “reason” the baby needed to be away from me for x days. Well halfway through that I started freaking out and wanted my baby – I didn’t even get to find out if it was a girl or a boy. I called and they brought the baby to me… it was a girl! But they were all nervous that I would hurt her because I didn’t have any clue what I was doing. I breastfed in the dream, I was having some really weird all-over sensations… weird!! And in the dream Den was away, so I called him and made sure he came to me when he got back… and he showed up to see his baby girl. :)
I’ve been reading the books I have for whatever sections they include on infertility treatments. It got me wondering about costs of these things – one of the books lists IVF as costing between $6000 to $10000 per retrieval (which also lists a success rate of about 26%). Gulp. So I looked it up online. Here’s what I found:
1987
Mass Gen Laws Ann. Ch. 175, Section 47H, ch. 176A, Section 8K, ch.176B, Section 4J, ch 176G, Section 4, and 211 CMR 37.00
DEFINITION OF INFERTILITY/PATIENT REQUIREMENTS
Infertility means the condition of a presumably healthy individual who is unable to conceive or produce conception during a period of one year.
COVERAGE
* All insurers providing pregnancy-related benefits shall provide for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility including the following:
o artificial insemination;
o IVF;
o GIFT;
o sperm, egg and/or inseminated egg procurement and processing, and banking of sperm or inseminated eggs, to the extent such costs are not covered by the donor’s insurer, if any;
o ICSI;
o ZIFT
* Insurers shall not impose any exclusions, limitations or other restrictions on coverage of infertility drugs that are different from those imposed on any other prescription drugs.
* The law does not limit the number of treatment cycles and does not have a dollar lifetime cap.
EXCEPTIONS
* Insurers are not required to cover (but are not prohibited from covering) experimental infertility procedures, surrogacy, reversal or voluntary
[RESOLVE]
That’s great! This does mean that the insurance is not required to cover anything until it’s been a year, not so great as we want to get his sperm analysis done within the next couple of months. I’ll have to hunt down more information on that. But this is great news that if we ever get to the point that we need to consider something high-tech it will be covered by our insurance.
Okay, just doing some reading through the library site. (I have discovered ebooks. It is not a particularily good ebook, but it’s something I can read now, as opposed to waiting for the good books to be shipped to the local library.) Basic info:
Things to be checked / Tests that can be performed:
For the Male
(Yeah, that’s basically it.)
For the Female
Wasn’t that fun. (Not.) Apparently there’s a lot of things that can go wrong in a female. Everything surgical is off-limits for the time being and for some time to come – not willing to go there yet. *shudder* But I would not be adverse to getting my progesterone checked and maybe a pelvic ultrasound and the FSH checked.
Of course first things first: sperm analysis. That’s first. My testing can wait another few months.
(X-Posted to the forum)
It’s many hours later and I’m still dealing emotionally. Every month it hits me harder and harder. The first few months there was the feeling that “oh well, I’m not luckier than average.” Now every month is a bigger disapointment and looming is the thought that something is wrong with one of us. DH and I take turns reassuring each other that our time will come, but how do we know that? There’s no reason we shouldn’t be pregnant by now. I’ve been ovulating perfectly, get EWCM, have sex on the days leading up to O. And nothing is happening.
I’m just so sad. I’m laying in bed with my laptop, crying. I was up late throwing myself into stupid little projects, like changing the color theme on one of my websites. Every month I get my period I have this ritual of things – I update my cycle list, I write down the info, I print off the finished cycle chart and put it in my binder. It helps give me a little bit of closure. It helps me feel productive, instead of helpless. But I’ve done all that and it hasn’t helped much. What I WANT to be doing is making a pregnancy ticker and a baby site and all that stuff.
I just can’t believe we’re onto our 8th month of trying. I never even considered it would take us this long. After reading all about TTCing I knew some healthy couples take a year to get pregnant, but I never really thought it would be ME, you know? Almost all my friends got pregnant within a few months, except for one who was having very obvious cycle problems (not ovulating). I guess this is one thing I didn’t want to be “different” at.
Things I need to get checked with a bloodtest:
* All those diseases the Midwife jotted down
* My blood type (need to find out Den’s as well)
* Immunity to Chicken Pox and Rubella
I need to make that appointment.