Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Our Story

I was told when I was 26 or so that my mother took DES while pregnant with me to prevent miscairage and that it could affect me reproductively. I've talked with several doctors about this and was told that it didn't appear that I had any issues. Mr and I were married in October of 2003. We started to try for a child before we were even married as we were both 32 at the time. We were able to get pregnant after 7months TTC with Boo. Boo was born 9 weeks early as a result of a condition called Vasa Previa. His umbilical cord attached itself to my bag of water and cervix. If I had gone into labor and my water broke, he'd have bled to death in a matter of minutes.

We began to try for a second child when Boo was 13 months old. Mr lost his mother a week after Boo was born. Then his father died in December of 2004. He is an only child and doesn't want Boo to have to go through losing parents alone. There will soon be no one able to answer his questions about what he was like as a child. He has no one that knows him like a sibling would. We both want Boo to have someone when we are gone. It's very important to us.

After a year of temping and timed intercourse, we were still not pregnant. Although I had requested testing from my OB after 6 months of trying as I was turning 35, my OB told me that we had to wait for testing. We finally were able to get in and do semen analysis and other workups in December of 2006. When the OB found nothing, we decided to find an RE. We were officially diagnosed as "unexplained secondary infertility." After 4 Clomid/IUI cycles, the RE suggested that we move to IVF last summer. We looked into it and discovered that Mr's insurance would cover IVF but that we may qualify for a clinical trial. We decided to try for the trial because we had our insurance to fall back on. We pushed hard to get into the trial as it is for women 21-35. I was turning 36 in September. We continued to TTC while awaiting news on the trial but did not get pregnant.

After beginning the trial in September, the doctors at the trial let us know that the projected success rates from the trial were not as high as a normal IVF. We talked about it and decided that even though we knew that, we felt it was responsible to attempt the trial and then use insurance only as a last resort. Little did we know how that would change things. On September 12, as a back up we sent our request for IVF approval to our insurance agency and got a letter saying that we were approved for IVF. The approval states that it's valid for a year. On October 10th we were told that as of November 1st, 2007 our insurance would no longer cover IVF. Period...that's it we are out of luck. We are now in the middle of the clinical trial that we chose because we didn't want to use insurance unless necessary but have nothing to fall back on now. We are doing everything we can to make this procedure successful but now have little options of providing our son with a sibling if this doesn't work. We are hoping for the best...that our family will grow and provide us with another wonderful child who fulfills us as well as a sibling for our son.

2 comments:

Lollipop Goldstein said...

It is so incredibly frustrating how insurance (and your emotions) have been jerked left and right throughout all of this. Thank you so much for writing this.

Unknown said...

How awful - I'm so sorry about the insurance coverage (I can't believe they can just rip the rug out from under you like that - don't they have to give fair warning? Asses.).

I'm trying for #2 so that #1 isn't alone either (not the only reason obviously, but the primary).

I have a lot of ivf experience (unfortunately) - if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Good luck.