Why is my body designed the way it is? Why can I not pop babies out left and right like everyone else in my family can? Why can insurance companies not be simple to deal with? Why do I feel like I am being punished by God for something? Why? Why? Why?
Welcome to my pity party.
I haven't blogged about our journey of TTC in quite some time. I've been jotting down little notes on our TTC page, but not actually devoted a whole entry to it.
Rewind back to February 2012 when Shawn and I went to see Dr. Gentry after a 2 year hiatus of using fertility medicines and TTC on our own. It still wasn't working and we wanted to try using the fertility medicine again and to try artificial insemination (IUI). However, because of the extra large fibroid that didn't get removed from my first surgery, in October 2012 I ended up having to have an artery embolization (aka the surgery from h3LL), and then again in November 2013 I had to have another surgery, a laparodomy myomectomy, like I did in 2008.
Fast forward to 2014, since my surgery last year, my blood work and levels appear to be fine, however now Shawn is having problems with his little fellas. Shawn had to start taking Clomid in February and has been daily since then. His numbers have raised a little bit according to the blood tests (that's awhole different situation!). He was only supposed to take it for 2-3 months, but it's been 5 months and he's still taking them. Early this month Shawn and I were talking and I told him that I was done with TTC and taking fertility medicine and going to doctors. I was spent with everything and wore out from dissappointment. He wanted us to try the IUI at least one time since that's what we went in to do in 2012. I agreed to it.
We met with Dr. Gentry on July 9 to discuss moving forward with the IUI that we wanted to do in 2012. Shawn has to continue taking the Clomid pills, and I was to call back when I started my period. The nurse gave me the name of the medicines and dosages that I would be taking so that I could call and get prices and get enrolled in some discount programs to help offset the cost of the medicines, and then the name of a company that would call my insurance and draft a letter to the doctor office so they would know my coverage for all of infertility treatments. Because my deductible hasn't been met yet, and because my insurance only pays for 50% of the medicine once the deductible has been met, we are considered self-pay and are paying for the total cost of the medicine. I spent a couple different days making phones calls, writing notes, filling out and faxing forms, and making more phone calls until I had everything figured out and knew what the costs of everything was going to be.
On Sunday, July 27, I started my period and Monday morning I called Dr. Gentry's nurse to let them know that I had started and we wanted to start our IUI. She called back and made an appointment for me for Tuesday morning for a baseline u/s. I went in to today's appointment confident in what our plan was. The baseline u/s was successful, despite the fact that it felt like they had crammed Bob Barker's microphone from the Price is Right in my cooter and was checking my heart instead of my ovaries! All the while another nurse was standing on top of me pressing on my ovaries!
After the u/s, when I went in the hall to talk to the nurses to get our "plan" they changed the type of medicine I was supposed to take and which pharmacy I needed to go to and rambled on about insurance and I have to use this, and here's a discount coupon card for co-pays, and here's a prescription for this, and here's what you owe today, and Kristi will make your other appointments, etc. I was so confused and wasn't prepared to research everything again especially since I need to start the medicine in the next day or two.
I knew my insurance covered all of my visits for ultrasounds and blood work, just not the actual IUI, IVF, etc. At the checkout window Kristi told me I needed to pay for today's appointment because I didn't have insurance coverage for infertility. Again, I was confused cause I've had insurance in the past and we've got nothing at work about insurance changes. The doctor's office always ran it through insurance and then billed us for the rest. I wasn't prepared to pay or for that and got a little loud and rude with Kristi, who in turn gave it back to me. Hee (I can laugh about this now, we've got it all worked out!). Kristi said she would call my insurance to double check and would call me back. She also gave me my appointments for the follicle ultra sound and the actual IUI.
I left the office mad and aggravated! I didn't even want to go through all of this again! I didn't want to have to research everything again or make numerous phone calls to figure everything out. I just sat in the car and cried. My friend Heather called me on my way to work to talk about it so that helped let me vent. Thanks for being a great friend Heather!
I was able to call the fertility drug company to get the prices of the medicines, get the discount coupon card for co-pays activated, and vent to a couple more friends who asked me how my appointment went. The mail order fertility pharmacy called me to get my insurance information and then was going to call me back to place my order. I missed their call back cause I was out doing deliveries so I had to call them back. She processed my order, took my payment of $847, and then emailed me a form to fill out for yet another discount program. I filled out the forms and scanned and emailed them to that company. Then I went back to my inbox in my email and had an email from my bank that said "suspicious activity detected" and that "Unusual spending has been identified on your account. For your security, card x3326 has been blocked and can no longer be used." Well just freaking great! So I had to call the bank, be transferred to and explain the situation 3 different times until I finally got to someone who could remove the block so that I could use my debit card at the pharmacy to buy more medicine that I have to start tonight. Ugh!
Tomorrow I'll be stalking the sound of the elevator dinging so I can see if the Fed Ex guy brings my package. It's supposed to arrive between 8 and noon. Tonight I stopped at the pharmacy and got my Femara pills which I have to take twice a day for the next 5 days. Thursday I start the Follistim injections.
Until next time...
1 comment:
I can not imagine the frustration that goes hand in hand with all of this. It's like adding insult to injury.
You guys are in my prayers for a successful outcome.
Post a Comment