Hello all...I send greetings to you from day number 4. yes, that's right faithful blog followers...the period we all prayed for showed up on Thursday - with a vengence which made me question my excitement about having a second all by myself. And, as instructed, had a Day 3 appointment on Saturday. Once again, ultrasound and bloodwork just to make sure I'm on the right track, but this time, rather than Demetri, by Sister-in-law went with me (she was in town this weekend) and she's "fascinated" by all this fertility stuff, so we were very purposeful to tell people she was my SIL, and we weren't there "together". :)
Upon examination, the tech found 17 "potential" follicles in my right ovary and 9 in my left...didn't know if that was good or bad until I mentioned to the number to the nurse and she was very excited and said that 26 was a "great" number...overachiever, that's me. We learned that my little egg lives in these follicles and the follicle is what grows before ovulation...ovulation occurs when the follicle bursts and releases the egg and Clomid helps the follicles grow. (very much paraphrased from the nurse and the internet.)
I received a call late yesterday afternoon that cleared me to begin the Clomid and take every day until Wednesday. We have an appointment on Sunday, March 1st to see how many follicles grew like they were supposed to (1-2 is good....8 is not so good :)) and if there are the right number of potential candidates, then we'll take the shot and to in on Tuesday the 3rd for Operation Turkey Baster.
I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I find that I have this underlying calm about this whole thing that, dare I say it, is encouraging me to stay positive. I mean, just because normally this takes 2-3 cycles doesn't mean that God needs 2-3 cycles to work, right? I have to believe that a period before our appointment and then another one 34 days later is nothing less than divine intervention...especially for a girl that went 9 months having only 4.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
We're fine, thanks for asking
Hello, Friends...
Rather than update after every assignment we completed, I figured I'd save it up and write one big post after all our assignments were completed and we had a plan...that, and time just got away from me and I forgot to write them:)
Since we last spoke, we found out that my fallopian tubes are free and clear (HSG test), I am not diabetic (Fasting Glucose Testing), I don't have any tumors (bloodwork) and my levels of free testosterone are consistent with someone with PCOS (more bloodwork). We also discovered that some of Demetri's boys are on the low end of normal with regards to their shape. Which leads us to our follow-up appointment yesterday.
I would like to preface all this by saying that when we sat down to speak with Dr. McKeeby and I apologized for the way I sounded - I wasn't getting choked up, I'm just fighting the head cold that won't die. He said not to worry about it and he'd already made two people cry this morning...my eyes got huge and then he said that he didn't think that was going to be the case here...oiy!
So, some more explanation and diagrams follow and he confirms it's PCOS for me and a low morphology for Demetri...not bad, but low end of normal. He definately recommends Clomid for me and indicates that it's up to us whether or not we prefer the timed intercourse method or just jump right into IUI. My first reaction was to just do the timed intercourse - so sad, but I kept thinking that it'd be cheaper :) He explained that the odds of getting pregnant increase using IUI - we'd be back to the "normal" odds of getting pregnant, which are 20%-25% each month for normal women, and that sometimes, on Clomid, a woman's cervical mucus starts to reject sperm - even if previously it hadn't - so they couldn't even get up there even if they wanted to. Still, we stuck to our guns about timed intercourse. I asked for Provera to help bring on a period (Clomid cycle starts on Day 1) and he readily agreed (YEA), but needed to do bloodwork and an ultrasound to double check to see if I've ovluated - funny, huh?
After the bloodwork and ultrasound - I'm going to have to remember to start shaving my legs before we go to these appointments - we meet with the finance lady and here's where things change. She reminds us that our insurance only covers diagnosing and as soon as we document things like Clomid, it becomes treatment and none of our visits are covered anymore. She also indicated that they don't really recognize timed intercourse as a treatment modality, it's all rolled up in the price of the Clomid/IUI treatment. So, even if you elect to do timed intercourse, you're still paying the same amount as you would be if you were doing the IUI. hmm...
So this isn't too much of a financial burden, they've worked out this fee schedule that's discounted a little bit that you basically "lock in" before you start. Otherwise, it's about $400 everytime you go for monitoring and even more for the actual procedures (upwards of $2000 every cycle) and this "locked in" rate would be $1200 for cycle 1, $1000 for cycle 2 and $800 for cycle 3 and every needed cycle after that. Statistically speaking, most people do not get pregnant the first cycle...some do, but the normal number of cycles for pregnancy is 2-3, so I'm not trying to get my hopes up too much, but hey, crazier things have happened.
My little engineer, practical husband decides in the finance lady's office that we'd be silly to pay for a procedure we're not having done (because this is how you pay for the Clomid monitoring stuff) and have a reduced chance of getting pregnant...so he says to her, we'll just do the IUI. What?! um ok. Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Points, here we come!
Basically, here's what we agreed to -
Day 1 - call to say I started my period
Day 3 - bloodwork and ultrasound to check for cysts
Day 3 - 7 - Clomid each day
Day 9 - bloodwork and ultrasound to see if I've got any folicles that look promising
Day 11 - Hormone injection (at home) to induce actual ovulation
Day 13 - specimen delivery and 2-hours later, insemination
Day 28 - test to see if we're knocked up
It looks so simple on paper :) Oh, and if you'r curious, I did, in fact, ovluate this month and so they told me to hold off on the Provera to see if I have a period on my own again in the next 2 weeks - seriously? Let's just get this show on the road already!
And, if you're wondering, yes, I'm still trying to convince myself we're not paying for a baby and that just because our kid isn't concieved the old fashioned way, it's still our kid...so, if you have a free minute, a prayer on my behalf for those things would be much appreciated...that and a prayer that I'll have a period soon :)
Rather than update after every assignment we completed, I figured I'd save it up and write one big post after all our assignments were completed and we had a plan...that, and time just got away from me and I forgot to write them:)
Since we last spoke, we found out that my fallopian tubes are free and clear (HSG test), I am not diabetic (Fasting Glucose Testing), I don't have any tumors (bloodwork) and my levels of free testosterone are consistent with someone with PCOS (more bloodwork). We also discovered that some of Demetri's boys are on the low end of normal with regards to their shape. Which leads us to our follow-up appointment yesterday.
I would like to preface all this by saying that when we sat down to speak with Dr. McKeeby and I apologized for the way I sounded - I wasn't getting choked up, I'm just fighting the head cold that won't die. He said not to worry about it and he'd already made two people cry this morning...my eyes got huge and then he said that he didn't think that was going to be the case here...oiy!
So, some more explanation and diagrams follow and he confirms it's PCOS for me and a low morphology for Demetri...not bad, but low end of normal. He definately recommends Clomid for me and indicates that it's up to us whether or not we prefer the timed intercourse method or just jump right into IUI. My first reaction was to just do the timed intercourse - so sad, but I kept thinking that it'd be cheaper :) He explained that the odds of getting pregnant increase using IUI - we'd be back to the "normal" odds of getting pregnant, which are 20%-25% each month for normal women, and that sometimes, on Clomid, a woman's cervical mucus starts to reject sperm - even if previously it hadn't - so they couldn't even get up there even if they wanted to. Still, we stuck to our guns about timed intercourse. I asked for Provera to help bring on a period (Clomid cycle starts on Day 1) and he readily agreed (YEA), but needed to do bloodwork and an ultrasound to double check to see if I've ovluated - funny, huh?
After the bloodwork and ultrasound - I'm going to have to remember to start shaving my legs before we go to these appointments - we meet with the finance lady and here's where things change. She reminds us that our insurance only covers diagnosing and as soon as we document things like Clomid, it becomes treatment and none of our visits are covered anymore. She also indicated that they don't really recognize timed intercourse as a treatment modality, it's all rolled up in the price of the Clomid/IUI treatment. So, even if you elect to do timed intercourse, you're still paying the same amount as you would be if you were doing the IUI. hmm...
So this isn't too much of a financial burden, they've worked out this fee schedule that's discounted a little bit that you basically "lock in" before you start. Otherwise, it's about $400 everytime you go for monitoring and even more for the actual procedures (upwards of $2000 every cycle) and this "locked in" rate would be $1200 for cycle 1, $1000 for cycle 2 and $800 for cycle 3 and every needed cycle after that. Statistically speaking, most people do not get pregnant the first cycle...some do, but the normal number of cycles for pregnancy is 2-3, so I'm not trying to get my hopes up too much, but hey, crazier things have happened.
My little engineer, practical husband decides in the finance lady's office that we'd be silly to pay for a procedure we're not having done (because this is how you pay for the Clomid monitoring stuff) and have a reduced chance of getting pregnant...so he says to her, we'll just do the IUI. What?! um ok. Southwest Airlines Rapid Reward Points, here we come!
Basically, here's what we agreed to -
Day 1 - call to say I started my period
Day 3 - bloodwork and ultrasound to check for cysts
Day 3 - 7 - Clomid each day
Day 9 - bloodwork and ultrasound to see if I've got any folicles that look promising
Day 11 - Hormone injection (at home) to induce actual ovulation
Day 13 - specimen delivery and 2-hours later, insemination
Day 28 - test to see if we're knocked up
It looks so simple on paper :) Oh, and if you'r curious, I did, in fact, ovluate this month and so they told me to hold off on the Provera to see if I have a period on my own again in the next 2 weeks - seriously? Let's just get this show on the road already!
And, if you're wondering, yes, I'm still trying to convince myself we're not paying for a baby and that just because our kid isn't concieved the old fashioned way, it's still our kid...so, if you have a free minute, a prayer on my behalf for those things would be much appreciated...that and a prayer that I'll have a period soon :)
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