I am still getting EW CM. That is making me go HUH? I’m hoping it’s just leftovers.

Some info for myself:

[link]

Oh now I’m ramped up. I was going through my insurance handbook to photocopy the page on infertility and took a closer look. They do not cover IVF. (They do cover IUI.)

So they just recieved an email pointing out the STATE LAWS in MA and CT – both of which mandate coverage for IVF – and asked them why they do not. I’m pretty ticked. I’m willing to bet they’re going to reply with some loophole to the state-mandated coverage. I may need to contact RESOLVE. (Oh no, I am not letting this one go.)

Hopefully we will never need IVF. But god damn it pisses me off that we have a state law and the damn insurance doesn’t follow it.

:: ::

According to Fertility LifeLines, Connecticut’s mandate is a “Mandate to Offer.” Which means insurance companies are mandated to offer it to the employer – and the employer chooses which package to purchase. So it could be that the reason for the lack of coverage is Den’s employer – who, I might add, is the Federal Government. (Den’s military – Air National Guard.) If that’s true, they will be getting some letters from me as well.

On this site here it lists Connecticut under mandated coverage, not mandate to offer. I know Connecticut has had recent changes to their mandate (in 2005) so I’m wondering if that change was recent, causing the different information. I’m going to have to call someone to figure that out.

My local chapter of RESOLVE is having an Infertility and Family Planning Conference in November. Looks very interesting, something I would definitely enjoy. But that’s a lot of money. :/

Here’s what ConnectiCare sent in response. I was right – it is Den’s employer. Which, unfortunately, is the effin federal government.

I’m so pissed off! I’m going to be writing to the personnel department to complain about this. They chose not to cover it. I’m going to write a letter all about how important family is in the military (they promote family activites all the time, they state it’s so very important) and how this affects people, etc. BUT I’m willing to bet the decision was made really high-up, not someone at the base or even in this state. So I seriously doubt my bitching is going to get any notice at all.

But Den says open season is coming up, where they are free to change insurance companies. So we’ll check out what’s available to us. But if they chose not to follow the mandate for one insurance company, I’m willing to bet they chose not to follow it for any of them. At least with our current insurance we do get coverage for meds cycles and IUI, just not IVF.

But I’m still fuckin pissed off. Here I thought we were so damn lucky to be living in Massachusetts.

My face has errupted. God damnit. I feel like a freaking 15 year old.

Temp went up more! And my CM seems to be drying up for sure. :) Yesterday I could tell it was definitely changing.

So yay. Still not sure which day I should assume O occurred. 15? 16? Hmmm. This sucks cause I don’t know when AF will hit.

I am totally and completely obsessed with my statistics. My little excel spreadsheet has evolved… it now has a graph of my past cycles (not a temp chart, but a bar graph showing each cycle’s menses, ovulation and LP); a statistics page calculating averages and mins and maxes of all my data; an intercourse timing chart showing how well we’ve timed each cycle; and, my favorite, a predictions chart that shows for each cycle what my projected due date would have been and the “predicted” gender going off a chinese gender chart (just for fun, because I like to bug Den about it). And almost all of it is controled from one page where I just input each cycle’s numbers. It’s so much fun, I tell you. Much fun. I should post some screenshots.

Although I must say I am considering writing a whole PHP program/database to do all the same things. Excel is great, I love it, but it’s having some limitations regarding a calendar and highlighting function that is making me annoyed.

I don’t know why I like all this stuff. But I know that it makes me feel so satisfied to be tweaking numbers and formulas and code. It makes me feel content. I’m now looking for what more I can do with it all.

(However I am feeling rather annoyed at the moment that my laptop is out of commission, because right now I would be in bed working on said PHP database. I just don’t like sitting here right now, it’s too cold and uncomfortable. I want to be in bed with my laptop, damnit. At least the replacement part has already shipped so I should get it monday or tuesday. Because I am grumpy without my laptop.)

Manuela at Thin Pink Line and Jenna at The Inch Worm Diaries both lost their babies this week. Their second trimesters. I didn’t know either of them – I didn’t read their blogs until other people mentioned them this week – but I am sitting here weeping after reading their entries.

My latest concern is endometriosis. Squarepeg just mentioned she’s worrying about the same thing, and she appears to have more symptoms than I do. I know one of the major things that makes me nervous is the fact that my aunt had endo and it’s what delayed their second child for, oh, 5 years or so. Of course back then I had no idea what was going on, but later in life it made more sense and mom told me it was endo. So now I worry. How much of AF is “just” AF? I don’t have constant pain, I don’t have pain around O, I do have cramps during AF. And bloating. And horrible diarrhea all AF. I always just feel so ill the whole time, like my insides have turned to jelly. So I don’t know, is that normal?

And then there’s of course two other things to worry about: the fact that some people with endo don’t have any symptoms (so even if the weird shit is just AF, I could still have it), and the fact that you need a lap (surgery) to look inside and diagnose it. Not cool. Really, really not cool. Better than a c-section, but cutting holes in my skin is not a good thing. Childish, maybe. However I have survived this long without being in a hospital except for my grand entrance (via a c-section, ironically enough), and I had hoped to make it much longer.

So I’ll continue to worry.

I mentioned to my supervisor at work about the testing we’ll be starting next month. She is just such an awesome person. She asked questions about what can be done, she was shocked at the cost of IVF, she said how much it sucks that we can’t get pregnant. No stupid assvice. No brushing it off getting all wiggy. I like this girl more and more.