Time to Hop Back on the Emotional Roller Coaster

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...

Throwback Thursday: 7.24.14

 

Below is my Throwback Thursday pic from last week.  It's a pic of my cousin Chrystal, her son Braidon, my little puppy Hershey Bell, my sister Beth, and her little peanut-in-her-belly Gavin.  I had just gotten my new "professional" camera so we went down to the bluff in Rockport to play around with it!

Saturday Fun Day

Saturday morning I got a hankering for Sandy's pizza buffet.  I invited Heather and Zoe to go with me cause they love Sandy's just as much as I do!  We got there early and the place was dead :(  There was one couple already there and then another couple came in while we were there.  This was not good for us cause the buffet didn't get replenished often.  While the food was good, I've come to the conclusion that ordering off the menu is much better!

Later Saturday evening we headed back over to the Robinson's for dinner and to hang out.  I figured since we weren't going to be gone that long that I would take Hershey and Reese with us.  We obviously don't take the dogs for car rides often enough because they can't sit still in the car!  LOL!! Reese was cracking me up sitting in the back window!

We had yummy corn on the cob, grilled hot dogs, and smoked chicken for dinner!  The Robinson-Bell's were hard at work before we got there putting up corn for the year.  

Part of the group for the "annual" watermelon picture!  HAHA!

Goodnight Robinson-Bell's :)  Hee!!  Thanks for always having the Glenn-Bell's over for dinner and to visit!  We love hanging out with everyone!

Hangin' with Heather @ Friday After 5

 Friday afternoon I took a half day vacation to go to my friend Heather's to swim.  It was another pool day bust :(  The pool water and the weather wasn't cooperating with us at all.  It really hasn't been all summer!  We did have a great time visiting and talking though.  We ended up heading to Owensboro for their Friday After 5 again.  

I offered to drive since Bowen had Heather's car for work, but she said she would drive and watching her try to parallel park the big barge truck totally had me cracking up!  After attempting, well attempting and not attempting, a couple parking spots, we ended up paying to park in the parking garage next to the Riverpark Center.  I wish I would of gotten a picture of said attempted parking jobs!  LOL!!

We had to partake in the free photobooth fun!

Last week when Bethie and I were down at the playground area with Gavin we saw this guy walk by.  He was definitely an interesting character.  I spotted him again Friday when Heather and I were down there.  I was right, he was an interesting character and made the evening very entertaining!  The "Shawn-look-a-like" definitely added to the entertainment too!  HAHA!!  While I didn't get a picture of him, I have video!  I'll try to add the video to the end of this blog post.

They also had a hula hoop contest and water balloon toss!

And a toast to the sunset on the river! A truly amazing sunset and beautiful evening!

 It is so much fun hanging out down at the Owensboro riverfront!  That new park and downtown development is amazing!  Can't wait for next Friday night!  Heather and I are dragging Bowen and Shawn down their for 70's big hair bands music!

I didn't take these last two pics, but found them on the Friday After 5 Facebook page.  We made it into a water balloon toss photo!  HAHA!  And I would so love to have a boat and be sitting out with all of the other boats during this event!

Trucks & Heros

Saturday Gavin and I got up early, but not as early as planned (haha!) and went to the 2nd annual SMILE on Down Snydrome's Truck and Hero's Event.  We went last year and had alot of fun and I wanted to take him again this year, plus Uncle Shawn was working the WOW booth at it again!

  I was surprised with Gavin this year though.  The loud noises and sirens of all the trucks didn't bother him and he didn't need to wear his "earplanes", and he actually got in alot of the trucks for pictures, unlike last year and didn't really even want to get near the trucks.

You can read about last year's event here.

I tried to get Gavin to put the helmet on for a picture, but it was squishing his little ears so this is as far as it would go on.  Love that crazy looking face too!

 

Aunt Stace's favorite truck ;)  The Kona Ice truck!  And I didn't even get one :(

They have a golf cart shuttle you can ride around in!  It's probably one of my favorites too!  Reminds me of driving around the golf cart in New Harmony!  We need to do that again!