Consultation

The following Monday we went in for a consultation with the Doctor and the financial manager. The Doctor had no answers as to why the IUI hadn't worked.  She didn't think we should jump to IVF just yet, but suggested that we really "up" the medicine to stimulate my ovaries and see if we could get more than 1 mature egg.  The medicine was called Menopur and could also be the medicine I could take during IVF, so it would show us how my body could respond to IVF. She also did a baseline since I had gotten my period over the weekend, which turned out to be a problem.  I had grown cysts from the last round of medicine. Turns out they were pretty huge. She recommended that I take Birth Control.. yep how ironic??? The BC is known to stop all the hormones your body is producing or might have left over from fertility treatments which will cause the cysts to shrink.  I was so upset, but this is common. She hoped they would be gone in 2 weeks and we could start a new cycle then.  She also informed me that the office had a lot of Menopur from sales representatives and such, and asked if we wanted them.  Of course we said yes!!

The next meeting with the financial manager went as to be expected.  She gave us the break down for the different IVF steps, medicine and the other little things in between.  On average it was going to cost between 15,000-20,000 when all was said an done.  Which is crazy, but actually lower than we thought.  The difficult part is thinking about spending all that money and then not having it work!!  Chris did most of the talking and explained that we really just wanted to be parents.  We have no plans of spending 100's of thousands of dollars on trying a million times.  We wanted the most direct route to having a child, even if that meant telling us we had little to no chance of having our own child.  The doctor and manager insisted that we have a good chance with IVF but respected our wishes to not want to keep trying on hope, so they recommend doing everything right the first time and then there is option to move on to Donor Eggs if we discover my eggs are of poor quality once they are out of my body. I asked flat out..." Are you giving me all these meds for free because you feel like it won't work and its just part of the Doctor's process to see how my body responds?" The manger, said well not exactly, but your pretty smart and yes its a process, the doctor needs to see and know how I will respond to give me the best chance during IVF.

Chris actually made the manager tear up by talking about his love for me and to start a family together. He expressed that he knew in his heart we were meant to be parents and we just wanted to get to that step.  He also expressed that he couldn't watch me go through so much emotional pain each month if there was really only a little chance of us getting pregnant. He told the lady that I was strong and could handle the truth, but they continued to insist that we had a chance and we wanted nothing more than to believe it.

So home we went, Chris picked up my birth control and was outraged to discover our insurance completely covered it... yep they will pay 100% for BC but nothing to help you have a child... I broke out in tears again... but took the pill anyway, and yet again another 2 week wait. I also started acupuncture during this time to help with the cyst, balancing hormones and my stress level, which is also not covered by our insurance. Oh well... one day when I am holding my child this will all be worth it... right???