IVF – Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen…

Tag: IVF

Drifting Forward

Apologies, again, for yesterday’s heap of venting. Sometimes you just need to put it all out there, read it over a few times, and become accountable for your own life.

And sometimes you just need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, put on your big girl panties, and deal with things.

Which I am now doing, thankyouverymuch.

My doctor is on vacation, which I know isn’t easy for her to do… I would hate leaving my patients in the hands of others; luckily, she works in a large practice with several other very competent physicians, and they are helping me work through all of the WTF?, NOW WHAT?!, WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?!! crap I’m currently spewing into the universe.

More accurately, the lovely nursing staff at the University of Michigan Center for Reproductive Medicine is fielding my emails, running around and asking doctors to make decisions for me, and generally just patting my hand and giving me virtual hugs to make me feel better about being a crazy person with busted junk.

I love them. I need to send them flowers or a fruit basket or something.

Anyway, they talked another of the doctors there into letting me continue on with a Femara-only cycle. No monitoring, no trigger – just pills and OPKs and old-fashioned mattress-dancin’.

(And shhhhhhhh… don’t tell, but I have a teensy bit of Gonal F left in the fridge that will spoil if I don’t use it. So I probably will. It’s too small an amount to make much of a difference, but hey… why not, right?)

Based on past results, I have very little faith that this will be my miracle cycle. About that much, I am realistic. I’m not doing this because I think it will get me a baby…

I’m doing it because it feels like doing something, and I need that right now. It’s something to hold onto, and a way to feel like I’m less drifty and floaty in the miasma of space and time. It gives me a bit of an anchor, and something to obsess over for the next month.

Next month is going to be a whole different story…

July will be my laparoscopy month. When my doc gets back from vacay, she will call to schedule my surgery for me. I estimate that it will be scheduled for around July 12th, but I’ll know more in a couple of weeks.

I’m super nervous about having surgery. I haven’t had to be put under for anything since I was like four, and that freaks me out. I have faith in the doctors, though, and know that this is one step I have to make, regardless of where I’m headed next.

Worst case scenario – they find nothing, and the surgery was a waste. At least I will have gotten it out of the way, as most docs require it before moving forward with IVF.

Best case scenario – and I know this sounds twisted – they find some serious endometriosis in there. I don’t want to have endo, believe me, but if they find it, they can remove it. If they remove it, there’s a good chance that I will feel so much better physically. Maybe my periods won’t leave me gasping and sobbing on the floor for the first three days of each cycle, and maybe – just maybe – removing the potential escaped endometrial cells will help my hormones shift back to normal and let me go on with the business of making babies.

Maybe. It’s a gamble, but there’s no way to know until I try.

I suppose that’s why they call it an “exploratory surgery”.

So that’s where I am. Not so much adrift as I was yesterday, because now at least I have a distant shore in sight. I don’t know what I might find there, but it’s the only bearing I have, and I’m taking it.

Ahoy, bitches!

I know how you feel, Tom. One day at a time.

June 11, 2013 4 Comments Short URLdecisions, endometriosis, Femara, infertility, IVF, laparoscopy, TTC, unexplained infertilityLife

Status

Humility

I have a hard time asking for help.

It probably relates directly to the fact that I have a hard time saying “No”, too.

I end up with more things on my plate than I can handle about 99% of the time.

I like to live in chaos, and I like to help others as much as possible, sometimes at the cost of my own comfort.

Although we have decent health insurance, it has limited coverage for infertility treatments.

Add to that fact that the husband and I have limited funds these days, what with trying to buy a house and all, and you have a recipe for barely hanging on.

I’m not complaining – I know there are many out there who have no insurance coverage and a smaller income than we do who are still finding their way along the expensive road to Infertile Parenthood.

We’ve been talking lately about the possibility that these injectables cycles may not work. We don’t want to waste time, and if Dr. K says that IVF is our best bet, we are going to dive in headfirst.

Insurance won’t touch IVF.

Not even the meds, which typically account for about 30% of the cost.

And that cost is typically in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.

Here comes the humility part:

The husband and I have created an online fundraiser to hopefully help fund an IVF cycle, or contribute to the cost of an IVF package.

I don’t want to be a charity case, and it took a lot for me to be able to do this, but this is where we are right now: so desperate to become parents, and so limited by the terrifying cost of treatments that we have resorted to asking the public for help.

By no means should you feel like this is a plea for you to donate. All we ask is that you spread the word, maybe share this with a friend or two. Who knows? Maybe someone out there has been here before, and wants to pay it forward…

Also, if any of you are friends with Oprah or Ellen, please feel free to call them up and plead our case. 😉

If, by some miracle, we find that we do not have to board the IVF rollercoaster, we will donate this money to someone who does. We want to become parents, and we want others in our boat to have that same chance.

Thank you, friends.