Insurance is a bunch of crap!

I spent a lot of the day yesterday on the phone with our insurance provider. They are evil people. It's just plain wrong what they are doing.

They are going to deny my preapproval for IVF that they issued on September 12th. Even though it says on the letter that any preapproval gained before benefits change stands, it also says "with provisions" because of that, they will NOT allow me to do IVF. The letter I have says the preapproval stands for one year, but in actuality, it means absolutely nothing!

I have yelled, cried and been as persistant as I can.

What is even worse is that if I WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CYCLE right now, they would have still cut the benefits off on November first. What that means is that if I had actually started a cycle when the preaproval was gained, I'd be beginning stimming this week and in the middle of treatment they would have cut off benefits.

Thier reasoning is that a preapproval doesn't actually approve you for anything. They say that what a preapproval does is say that you medically need the proceedure, NOT that they approve it to be done!

I am not done fighting...we are actually going to talk to the CEO of Jeff's company to let him know that this not only affects us but that (and here's the kicker!)

THEY KNEW ABOUT THE BENEFIT CHANGE AT LABOR DAY! If they had sent a letter to us then, we'd have opted to do regular IVF at a MUCH higher success rate rather than do the study! They need to KNOW how much they have screwed us!

This sucks

Found out today that as of November 1st, we will no longer have any infertility coverage.

Nice of them to give us advance warning huh?

There is just no way that we can afford IVF out of pocket. Not now and probably not in the near future at all.

NO PRESSURE for the trial to work now huh?

It bites because we'd surely have gone a different route if we knew that we'd no longer have coverage. We chose to do the trial based a lot on the fact that we had coverage to do regular IVF afterwards.

We knew that the projected success rates for the trial are less than if we went the conventional IVF route, but based on the fact that we had insurance to fall back on, we decided to go with the trial first.

If we had any inkling that our insurance would be changing we'd have done IVF already. We decided to do the trial and wait on regular IVF because we knew we'd be able to afford one IVF cycle with insurance.

Now we can't as we don't have insurance.

We are even preapproved for IVF as of September 12th. When we were almost dismissed fromt he trial we had the option of converting to conventional IVF. We chose to stick with the trial instead. I'm regretting that decision big time now.

Mr is talking to them today to see if the preapproval still stands, but my bet is that it will be invalid as of the first. We are literally stuck. We couldn't even start an IVF cycle now. 10 days ago, maybe we could have done it, but not now.

I'm frustrated and mad. I'm mad at them but I'm mad at myself too. I made decisions that were wrong. Plain and simple, I CHOSE WRONG, I chose to go with the lower emotional risk of the trial first. I mean if it's experimental and doesn't work then it's not as devestating as doing an IVF cycle and it not working. Wrong choice...

Now it's all I have

This just sucks

Let's talk about that elephant, shall we?

Another, yes...that makes THREE, person I "know" through the boards has tested at 9dpo and announced a BFP. I feel like I am such a bitch because I just get frustrated when I see it. And you know what? I feel like everyone is probably wondering why I'm didn't immediately congratulate. I wonder if they think when I do that it isn't heartfelt enough. Yeah, I know...no one even notices probably, but still.

I get frustrated and mad and jealous. How nice to be able to trust a that "a line is a line." How nice to get excited so early. But I don't/won't/cant.

See I've had those cycles where I started testing at 8dpo. I was practically using a magnifying glass looking for a line. But when it doesn't show, ya know, it hurts. So I learned pretty quickly to wait as long as I could stand before testing. Less money wasted that way and less heart hurt, less stinging disappoinment at the empty space where a line should be.

I've also seen those faint lines. Guess what, a line isn't always a line. If you have to photoshop, backlight and squint to see it...you might want to think again. Sorry if that's blunt. See I have seen those lines and AF shows. I've even had a "not negative, not positive" blood test. Now THAT is fun huh?

I guess my problem is that I hate to see people hurt, including myself. So I learned how to insulate myself from that a bit. You don't trust everything right away. I've gotten excited about things before and had them fall through, not just in IF, but in other things too. You have to be careful, this is your heart. So I get angry when I see people set themselves up for hurt and pain. I don't see the point in it. If you know a train may come, if one is scheduled soon...GET OFF THE TRACKS!

I am so jaded

That I can't even hop on the "a line is a line" bus anymore. I have a friend who is seeing faint faint lines at 13dpo. Everyone is telling her she's pregnant and I can't.

It's not fair to her to do that...it just makes it worse if the line never gets darker.

But she doesn't know, no one does, that I've been there and didn't post those pictures. I didn't, for reasons I can't quite express without sounding to someone who hasn't been there like a huge huge bitch.

I think the elephant is in the room, but I can't talk about it quite yet.

Random thoughts floating through my head....

A woman I know from a mommy board I'm on just announced her BPF at 8dpo. She's already had 2 recent early early miscarriages. I don't know how I feel about this...maybe what gets me is the "I KNEW I was pregnant this time. I felt implantation and there was no question I'd be pregnant, but I NEVER expected the test to be positive this early!!!!" Why this bothers me...I have no idea. It just does.

In another board related thought...a friend of a friend's water broke at 20 weeks. Everyone is expressing their outrage that: "They said there is nothing they can do and if she has the baby in the next 48 hours, he'll die. If he makes it to 24 weeks, he'll be severely special needs. If she can make it to 36 weeks, he'll probably be okay. AND they don't put her on bedrest, tell her she can go to work today... I'm sorry but what the fuck kind of doctor does this????? " my thoughts...and it's just what I think...so I'm sure there will be those that disagree: I'm sorry, but if you do the research on it, her doctor...while not being kind about it...it correct...
Should he have put it that way, NO. BUT she does need to know the distinct possibilities of severe disabilities and even death. He is being responsible in telling her the true outcomes. She is only 20 weeks. Yes, there have been micro preemies that survive, but the outcomes for them are very very low.
YES there have been lots of infants that have survived prematurity but many have lasting effects, some severe, some mild.
Also, 20 weeks is MUCH MUCH MUCH different than 30 weeks. Even 24 weeks is a huge milestone in survival.
I'm very sorry that your friend is going through this, but let's realize that her doctor was being honest with her. Now I know this sounds harsh, but I hear all the time about how "I know a baby born early and they are fine..." My own son is caught up completely, but that is not to say that ALL babies born early are. I know a little girl born gestationally 5 days after Boo that has multiple physical disabilities. We are the exception, not the rule. Granted, there have been many advancements in medical ability but in the long run, preemies especially early preemies have many issues.

I need to figure out where my head is...I'm having a hard time keeping up with everything and being given a lot of school things to do at very short notice. It's frustrating.

I want a weekend with Mr. Our anniversary is coming up soon, I need some time with JUST him! Boo is wonderful but Mr and I need to reconnect as a couple too.

It's finally fall today! YAY!

Will AF be on time? I sure hope so...you know how I am about time schedules. It's the virgo in me.

My eggies are in the freezer

Retrieval was this morning. They took out 12 eggs. Of those, 9 made it to the petri dish to grow. Of those, six made it to the freezer. I'm tired but doing well.

Sleep well eggies, you have until November to rest. We'll cycle then and treat it as a FET. I thought we'd do that in October but our clinic isn't in UP time then, so November it is.

I bought MORE cake today *insert embarassed face* I seem to have a cake buying problem lately. I bought Boo 2 cakes and cupcakes. Today we stopped at my new favorite cake bakery and I got a piece of carrot cake (not eaten yet) and I picked out a black and white cake for my birthday tomorrow.....mmmmm

Important Dates!

Wednesday is my birthday...my THIRTY SIXTH birthday. With all this rush to get into the study, this is by far going to be a harder birthday than 35. Since May, I've been racing to beat this milestone. I think it's been hard for me to even anticipate my birthday because I've been trying to make sure I make the age cut off.

Funny, when we are anticipating 21 we want to get there so quickly. Now, if I could just stay in that 21-35 age limit a little longer...they don't tell you how quickly these "fertile years" are going to go and that we shouldn't waste them. That is the point of the study though, to provide women the option of freezing eggs and fertilizing them at a later date successfully. In that respect, I'm proud to be doing this.

Egg retrieval is set for Tuesday! I had 7 follicles over 16mm today. The study says that I could trigger tonight and do retrieval Monday but the clinic likes to wait a bit longer. So Tuesday it is!

There is a chance that since I'm the *first* to go through this that the head of the entire study will fly in for the retrieval. Miami is on our heels and for some odd reason, I really would feel special to be the first.