Good News, Bad News

Infertility is such a rollercoaster. I know I've said it before, but I have to say it again. It feels like good news and bad news go hand in hand sometimes. One thing starts to look up, something bad lurks just behind it. Today, I heard back from the specialty pharmacy that my meds had been ordered. Unfortunately, they are out of the medrol, but she said I can get a prescription from my doctor and fill that with a normal local pharmacy. I won't even tell you all the details of the run around I had to go through to get information on pricing. Let me just say that it was ridiculous. Apparently, they don't really want to tell you what it will cost until they have your credit card in hand. Just take my word for it when I say it was not a fun afternoon.

Finally, though, I spoke to someone who had a heart and was able to place a "test claim" and bring up the cost of my meds. Because of the type of insurance we have, we don't have a choice when it comes to the pharmacy we use. We HAVE to use our insurance's specialty pharmacy, end of story. So, she went through all the meds and came back to say that the entire order would be somewhere around $280. Yay! Great news, right? I mean, it's amazing news. I had pretty much budgeted that we would owe around $1000 at least for the meds, so for it to be under three hundred bucks is pretty freaking fantastic.

Then comes the bad news. She says that after this order, however, our fertility coverage will be exhausted and any future injectible cycles will be out of pocket 100%. My heart sank. I've seen so many blogs where people have three IVF cycles covered, so I was surprised to hear that we only get one. Well, a lifetime fertility max of $3600 apparently. And we exhausted it with this one cycle. It felt like she added a hundred pound weight to my chest.

I am not in any way complaining about this cycle. I completely understand how lucky we are to have most of this cycle covered through insurance. We're incredibly blessed. I know that there are people who don't have any coverage at all, so I'm not trying to be disrespectful. But we've already used up so much of our fertility coverage. We already knew we were cutting it close with this cycle for our primary fertility coverage, so we knew that if we needed a second cycle, it was going to be expensive. Now, to hear that our medication coverage is also gone from now on? It's just putting so much pressure on me. I'm already feeling a ton of pressure to be healthy and to get this book written. Now, I feel this enormous pressure to get a BFP.

I realize how ridiculous that sounds. I can't control whether I get pregnant this cycle or not. Logically, I know that. But now I keep thinking that if this cycle doesn't work, it could be as long as a year before we can afford to try again. Then, that also pushes our dreams of a bigger house further down another few years because of the money. I am trying to find ways to manage this stress and just be okay with it and understand that things will turn out exactly how they are supposed to, but that's easier said that done. I'm so grateful this cycle is going to be inexpensive for us, but so incredibly terrified that it won't work.

Un-Crosshairs, Acupuncture, and Good News

So, I have a variety of things I wanted to talk about today. I'll start with the weird/bad news first. Well, it's not necessarily bad, but it's disappointing. This morning, my temperature dropped low. 97.27. I was so excited to get crosshairs yesterday on fertility friend, but when I put in my temp this morning, my crosshairs disappeared. Very disappointing indeed. :( I know they say you can't base anything on one day's temps, but still, it's odd. This has never happened to me before. Does this mean I still haven't ovulated? I got the positive OPK's though, and the EWCM to indiciate it last week, though, so I really thought I did. Implantation usually doesn't occur until 7-10 days after ovulation, so it's way too early for an implantation dip. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens to my temperatures then, but it's not necessarily looking so good for this cycle right now.

On a good note, however, I am meeting with my new acupuncturist today! After the bad experience with acupuncturist #1, I'm a little bit leery, but also cautiously optimistic. This doctor was recommended by my therapist and is known to be one of the best in the area. Unfortunately, he's also one of the most expensive, but it's all going to work out (more on this in the good news section below!). I have printed out all my fertility friend charts for him, and Friday I went to our clinic and got copies of my husband's SA and also all the follicle information from my Clomid cycles, etc. He will have lots of information to look at! He told me on the phone he loves working with infertility patients and has had a lot of success with IVF patients, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will make all the difference for us. This first consult with him is two hours long and costs $170. I'll know more later about how many sessions I'll do with him and how often, plus I think he's going to special mix some chinese herbs and powders for me to drink. I've heard bad things about taste, haha, but I'll try anything! His sessions after today will be $85 each. I do wonder how this stacks up with acupuncture costs in other areas in the country. Too bad it's not covered by my insurance! All told, we'll probably spend more than $1500 with him I'm guessing.

But now on to the good news!! Our clinic requires us to do a consult with the financial coordinator. I did this back in April when we first starting thinking about IVF and back then, she told me the embryologist was out of network for our insurance and would have to be paid up front. $4778 out of pocket two weeks before our cycle. After the cycle is complete, we could then file it with insurance (which then takes another 2 months or so to get paid). I know we're already extremely lucky to have such amazing fertility coverage. The company my husband works for was ranked in the top companies for fertility benefits and we have a lifetime max of $23,000 coverage. This was one of the deciding factors for us in moving on to IVF. We figured we might as well get the best chance of conception while we still have money left in insurance.

Anyway, I emailed the financial coordinator last night to ask if the charges would still be the same and she said, no, they have changed. I braced myself for the price hike, but it wasn't! Instead, now the embryologist is IN NETWORK! That means they can bill insurance directly with no out of pocket expense for us!! Yippee!! We will only have to pay for SA and freeze ($650), embryo freeze if needed ($400), anesthesia and facility fee ($1759) and medications (unsure how much we'll owe here, but I'm thinking less than $1000 copay). The only parts of that which won't be reimbursed are the embryo freeze and the meds, so we are in good shape! That's basically #3000 less that we'll have to pay up front! Now, that gives us more wiggle room to pay the high price of the new acupuncturist. See how it all works out!!

Everyday, I feel so thankful that we have this insurance that is going to help us bring our baby (babies?) into the world. Without it, we would be struggling for sure. I feel incredibly blessed and hopeful.