I talked to the financial coordinator at The Hatchery on Tuesday. She went over my benefits for fertility coverage. We're covered so long as my husband and I have been married for at least a year (check) and he's been employed by the hospital for at least two years (check). I have to fax a copy of our marriage license to her to prove we've been married at least a year (are you KIDDING me?).
- We are covered for 4 IUIs, with no dollar limit on those. No thank you. Not walking down that road again.
- We are covered for IVF up to $30,000: approximately 2 IVF cycles.
- We are covered for $10,500 for medications.
- We are NOT covered for embryo freezing and storage ($1100 for freezing and $540/year for storage).
- We have a $1000 copay per IVF procedure.
This is very good coverage, but far less than I had under my previous coverage. Since we're hoping to do single embryo transfers, being limited to two covered IVF's is a bit daunting, but it's definitely better than nothing. I am somewhat concerned about it, but I'm trying not to let the financial consideration get in the way of the medical data that I know supports my stance on this matter.
I had my CD3 and Infectious Disease Labwork drawn yesterday. I don't think they're planning to call me with the results of all of that, since I'm not actively cycling. I did schedule my HSG for next Tuesday, so maybe while I'm there, I'll ask how it all turned out. I like to know these things. It was a two hour ordeal to get it drawn, between the 50 minute drive up there, the 45 minute wait, the 15 minutes sitting in the chair, getting it drawn, and getting out of the lab, stopping over at my husband's office a block away to get a bottle of water and some moral support, and the 50 minute drive back. Yippee.
I spoke with the Infertility Nurse Coordinator yesterday morning before I went out there for my bloodwork and scheduled the HSG, as I noted already. She said I could just do a sonohystogram (sp?) if I'd prefer, because the only reason to know whether my tubes are unblocked would be if we convert my IVF cycle to an IUI (over my dead body) and since I've had an HSG before, they could assume my tubes are unblocked unless something's happened since then. But I'd just as soon know what we're working with. The HSG didn't bother me so much the first time around, and frankly, even if it had, uncomfortable tests don't bother me. It's not about my comfort, it's about the end result. I want the baby in the end. The singleton, preferably.
After I get my next period in December (assuming that happens), I'll start birth control pills, and sometime in January, I'll start my IVF protocol. Holy cow. This is a huge deal.
One more point before moving forward. I've decided that in light of Dr. McBrusque's preference to do a two-embryo transfer and in light of the fact that I have a limited number of IVF attempts in front of me, which might, unfortunately, affect the game day decision for how many to transfer... I've decided that I definitely need to have a pre-pregnancy consult with my perinatologist. I had been planning on doing this regardless, but I felt fairly stupid doing so with the prospects of most likely having a singleton, but if we're facing much higher odds of twins, I am a little more worried. I had such a horrendous pregnancy (not that I didn't love it, mind you!), and I don't know how much of it was attributable to the high order multiple factors, how much of it was attributable to just being a multiple pregnancy in general, and how much of it was attributable to my body just not doing pregnancy well in the first place. There was some thought throughout my pregnancy that I probably would have had serious contraction activity, even with a singleton, but I imagine there's no way to predict whether those contractions would have affected my cervical length so drastically in a singleton pregnancy. I also don't know if I'm at a more significant risk of developing preeclampsia in a subsequent pregnancy now that I've had it before, and if so, whether that risk increases if it is a multiple pregnancy (I'm sure the risk increases if it is a multiple pregnancy). I do think these are questions that at least need to be asked before I go putting myself at a very real risk of ending up with a twin pregnancy. If my perinatologist says "Twins would be a very high risk for you," then that ends the debate; there will be no game day decision to make, and we'll only consider SET's (Single Embryo Transfers) .
The important thing to note is that the more removed I get from Monday's appointment, the more I realize that it wasn't an all together negative appointment. I had a two-hour post-mortem lunch with LJ and it really helped me put a lot of it into perspective and focus on the positive. I know that a lot of what is colouring my opinion of the whole thing is the 40mile commute, and I definitely didn't love his bedside manner. But he is otherwise an excellent doctor with a lot of experience and I do trust his medicine, even though he doesn't always do things in the way that I'm used to having things done. Change, after all, is not always a bad thing. It's just that I don't always deal very well with change, so it's taking me some time to adjust.
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