Just a clarification, after I read the sheet for 2007. What is covered for infertility:

* Any medically necessary diagnostic and testing proceedures needed to treat diagnosed infertility
* Ovulation induction (clomid or injectibles), maximum of 4 cycles per recipient per lifetime (whether combined with IUI or otherwise)
* IUI, maximum of 3 cycles per recipient per lifetime
* IVF/GIFT/ZIFT, maximum of 2 cycles per recipient per lifetime

I’m feeling much better about things now. I got some great advice and support from those peer counsellors that just helped to calm me down a lot and give me some perspective. Plus just time thinking about things has helped my mind sort things out.

I think I am going to go ahead with the Clomid and IUI. We can talk to the RE and decide where we want to go from there, but I think this month I really need something different done, something to look forward to. I’m glad we’re doing the day 3 bloodwork and the HSG – I’m nervous about the HSG but trying not to think about it – but I just need something different in the babymaking equation.

I’m already feeling excited too. Getting my “IUI” blinkies out, reading about other people who are doing IUIs, planning out my cycle depending on when AF starts. My AF will start this week either thursday or friday. We want it to start friday. It would really suck for AF to crash Thanksgiving. I don’t think very much of the holiday as it is, but having AF arrive mid-dinner would really make it suck. So please, dear uterus, hold off until friday if you can. This also avoids any weekend doctor visits.

So yeah. Clomid and IUI. Yikes. I guess we jumped on the infertility train with both feet. Now I just really really hope that I don’t get very strong side-effects to the clomid. With my depression… well it could get bad. I just really really want to avoid falling to pieces.

What I am thankful for:

That there is nothing obviously wrong with either one of us. At least we appear both healthy, I have good eggs, he has good sperm, I have a good uterus.

That we have the option to seek treatment with medication and proceedures like IUI and IVF. At least we have choices.

That we have insurance coverage. I’ve learned how rare that is in the U.S. We are very blessed to have three IUI and two IVF tries covered, in whole, by insurance. I am further thankful that our insurance/Den’s employer added IVF coverage starting 2007, just when we are starting treatment. Thank light for good timing.

That I am young. Factors on our side are good things.

That we have our pets. Without them I think I would be a mess. I may be one of the special few who, had I never met my husband and gotten married, would probably have been fine without kids, with just my dogs and my cats. My little dog Zoe is a true light in my life – she makes me laugh daily, she gives me comfort when I’m sad, companionship when I feel alone. Right now I’m laying in bed with a cat laying against my leg and my dog curled up beside me. And I will never underestimate the power of their love.

Erm. Stomach isn’t feeling good today. Probably means AF is coming tonight/tomorrow morning. Damn. Means my day 3 bloodwork and ultrasound (day 10) will both fall on a Sunday. At least they do proceedures on the weekends.

After reading this entry (and all the comments) at a little pregnant (I’m reading archives) I am now more convinced than ever that my child will be wearing a harness and leash every time we go out in public. Hubby thinks it’s very cruel. I don’t care. The little bugger will be strapped to my side so I can reel him in.

In a completely unrelated topic – I’m trying to think up explanations to the inevitable questions tomorrow of why I feel sick. I have a feeling that because I’m bleeding like a stuck pig is not the appropriate response.

Thanksgiving was okay – half of the family members we expected to see weren’t even there. Den made a point of saying I was feeling sick to explain why we were late to his mom’s meal, so of course she asked what I was sick with. We just said, “what she’s sick with every month.” No more questions. Aside from that and a couple of family members who can be assholes – and me feeling nauseated all day – it was uneventful. I spent most of the day curled up against Den’s side on a couch, watching football that I really didn’t understand.

I called the RE nurses today and left a message saying my cycle started yesterday and that I needed to schedule an HSG and my day 12 ultrasound. Yeah, day 12 – I was wrong about the day. I was also wrong about what day of the week my day 3 falls on, duh, it’s tomorrow. I can’t count. So tomorrow I’ve convinced Den to drive me in, the lab is only open from 7:30am – 9:00am on weekends. So I get my blood drawn, go home and sleep. Oh, and then start my clomid. Ugh. I’m a little scared what to expect.

Oh, and a total offhand – the dogs don’t give me much of a hassle through my cycle. I guess they’re used to it. But today I’m sitting on the toilet doing my thing, getting my pad stuck to my underwear properly, and Zoe very politely comes up, gently picks up my tampon (still wrapped in packaging) and starts walking off. LOL! I shouted, she dropped it, I recovered it. Little brat. No, it’s not a new dog toy!

Today was a pain in the ass. I drove to the pharmacy to pick up my clomid and ovidrel (trigger). They went through the drawers of prescriptions, pulled the one out under my name and… it was just two pieces of paper. Pieces of paper saying, in essence, that insurance denied my claim because there was no pre-authorization filed with them. WTF? I don’t blame the pharmacy at all, but I was pretty tiffed when I walked out. I need to start the meds tomorrow, but I don’t have them.

I called the doctor’s office when I got to work… left a message on the nurses’ machine. But of course, today is the one day I don’t have my cell with me… it had died overnight and so I left it at home to charge, thinking of course that I wouldn’t need it. So I called from my work, but of course I don’t want to leave my work number because it’s not my number, it’s the darn shelter’s main number. So I left my cell phone number and asked them to please leave a message.

The phone rung twice while I was working. I ran over the second time to check the call display, it was Den’s number. So I picked up. (My supervisor, who answers phones, left early today so she’s not here. We don’t have full-time staff here, no receptionist to answer phones… people just leave messages and the manager calls back when she is here.) So I answer, and it’s Den. Apparently he had answered my phone (I had called him before I called the nurses, to let him know of my situation and to vent a little.) What he tells me is that the nurse said that the clomid comes to $37 at Walmart pharmacy, or they can order it from some other place and have it overnighted to us for the same price. Den, being the sweet man he is, said he didn’t want to make a decision without consulting me. I told him it would have been fine to just pick one, I don’t care, but he knows how ticked I can get when he does things without asking. He said the nurse preferred us to do the overnighting, though he didn’t know why (or couldn’t figure out why).

So back I call to the nurses to leave a message for the nurse whom he had talked to, that the overnight shipping that she had recommended was fine, and to just leave a message on my cell.

Oh, the reason the insurance declined us… is that the doctor’s office had filed the pre-auth on wednesday, and I guess the insurance office was/is closed for the holiday and not processing it. Either that or they’re just really slow. So we’re just going to pay the $37 to get the clomid – I’m guessing that the ovidrel I’ll pick up at the pharmacy later, after the pre-auth goes through, since I don’t need it until CD 12. We may be able to get the $37 partially reimbursed through the insurance, since they would have paid for it had they actually processed my paperwork. But of course with insurance that is always a fight and I don’t know if that’s really worth it. *shrug* But now I know that clomid is only $37 a cycle (for whatever dosage I’m going to be on), which is totally affordable.

I’m just relieved that it’s getting sorted out and that I WILL have the clomid tomorrow. I was really starting to panic that this month would be a total bust and I do not want to wait another cycle! I guess I really am sure about the clomid/IUI, considering how upset I was at the thought of cancelling it this cycle (though part of that might just be because it was out of my hands and the decision was taken away from me by circumstance – I hate that). I must admit, part of the reason that I did decide to go ahead with the full clomid/IUI this first cycle of infertility treatment is because if I get pregnant I’ll be due right around my birthday. And for some reason that feels special to me. It feels important. I kinda feel like I get more and more superstitious the older I get, light knows why, I’m definitely not a religious person and I’m not a spiritual person either. But hell, sometimes things just call out to me. I’m really hoping it turns out to mean something and that this month will be our lucky one.

Blood test and clomid tomorrow. Fingers crossed for very little side-effects. If I turn into a raving lunatic it won’t be pretty. (I do enough of the raving lunatic thing without clomid.)

So Den is really not happy today… at all. I came home from work with our new cat – which is something else he’s not happy about – and he was just looking angry. He’s mad that my phone was dead today so I had to leave it at home. Obviously I didn’t know I was going to be playing phone-tag with the RE today. I had to work, and it was on my way to work that I discovered that I couldn’t get the clomid. In the previous post I talked about the phone-tag and how I called them, they called my cell. Well Den was the one answering. From what he said they called like 5 times, but I just checked my cell phone and they called twice – once after my first call, and once after I called them to go ahead and order the clomid overnighted. *rolls eyes* He had all sorts of notes written down, I guess the nurse had given me instructions for the clomid and that they’ll call back with my HSG appointment and the CD12 ultrasound will be on X date at Z time. I guess Den’s head was exploding from all this info he didn’t understand and he was trying to write it down. She was asking questions on what we wanted to do for the clomid and he’s all, “I don’t know!!” So I can see how by the time I got home he was very frustrated.

The only part I’m a little irked about is that when she said $37 that was for the clomid, but apparently she is going to have both clomid and the ovidrel sent to us, costing us $70-something. Gah. I’ll try to get reibursed for it through the insurance, but light knows how well that will go.

I am laughing my butt off right now. Den had told me about what the nurse had told him on the phone – he’d written it down so I didn’t bother paying too close attention. So just now I sat down with the little scrap of paper and read his notes. I could make NO sense of it. Here’s what is written, as written:

I brought the piece of paper to him and asked him to please decipher it for me. He pointed to the little notes one by one and said: “Sonja will call on Monday for the Dye test, it’ll be between the 28th and the 1st. The pills you’ll take 2 a day from Saturday to Wednesday. The ultrasound will be the 4th of December between 7:30 and 9:30 and you bring the ‘HCG’ there.”

I just cracked up laughing. I told him the note is written in some secret code and there’s no way I would have figured that out. I’m glad he remembered what he wrote – or at least can decipher what he wrote. Cause sheesh!

Just got back from going for my bloodtest. They’re testing Estradiol, FSH, LH, and Hep B. Only 2 vials. I was good! I just looked away when she went to stick in the needle.