Red Beans & Rice Noodles

Affordable IUI/IVF meds—posting now...

... before this knowledge leaves my brain for good:

The other day, for whatever reason, I remembered this email (below) that I had written to a friend who was asking for the fruits of my research and experience with getting fertility meds on the cheap. I realized after I wrote it that I should probably post it, but of course I forgot, because forgetting is a finely honed skill of mine. So before I forget I ever wrote this, or accidentally delete the email, I figure I should pass this info along. Hope it helps someone out there in IF land!

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First of all, a possibility for one-time free meds:

http://www.fertilitylifelines.com/paying/fertilityassist/index.jsp?

For my 3rd cycle, I applied for this program and was approved. We got over $3K worth of free meds! Between that and IVF meds, we paid less than $500 for what would normally cost over $4K. Sweet. And
the whole process (from applying to having the drugs delivered to my doctor's office) was only two or three weeks.

The deal is: you have to currently be in treatment with an RE, you can't have insurance coverage for the meds, and you have to make less than a certain amount (though I have no idea what the cut off is). I thought for sure that we made too much money, but apparently they base it upon the incomes and take the cost of living in your area into consideration. Or something like that. What I do know is it's definitely
worth filling in and faxing the application!

My other discovery is this:

http://www.ivfmeds.com/

If you have least a few weeks before the cycle begins) this is the cheapest place to get meds. Why? It's based in the UK, and meds are just cheaper in Europe.

I  know it may sound a little weird to be buying from the UK, but I had gotten recommendations about this place from several other IFs I know, and my doctor even told me about them "off the record". I also checked with my doctor's office to see that the different brands/generic brands were okay, and if it was okay to use
either intramuscular or subcutaneous for repronex (they have both, but one is significantly cheaper). The nurse from the RE's office looked at the site and said it all looked fine.

Buying from them, I saved $700 on repronex alone (it would have been about $1000 or more through any pharmacy here, but only $320 through IVF Meds). For an extra $89, I got my shipment in about 4 days. And a lot of the meds can be stored at room-temperature as long as you're gonna use them in the next few months. You probably ought to take the time of year into consideration too. Also, IVF Meds doesn't provide syringes, due to customs issues. But those are cheap enough to get on your own, or your RE's office might provide them.

And of the pharmacies I researched before my 1st cycle, Apothe*cary Shop (in Arizona I think?) had the best prices, so I've purchased my meds from them in all of my past cycles. Overnight shipping is free with your purchase (but this is standard with most fertility med mail-order pharmacies).

But now that I know about IVF Meds, I'm only going to use Apothe*cary for what IVF Meds doesn't have (namely progesterone in oil, but they have all the pricey ones--Repronex, Gonal F, Follistim, Ovidrel).

One other possibility is to ask someone at your RE's office if they have any extra meds they can give you. A lot of time when people either get pregnant or give up doing IVF/IUI, and they have leftover meds, they give them back to their doctor's office so they can give them to women who may be able to use them.

Edited to add: Check the comments section out too! Other folks have left more tips and info about where to get your meds.

Brave or Stupid?

So I just made a big ass out of myself in front of my new coworkers. I started my new job three weeks ago, and now most people will remember me as the angry girl with fertility problems.

The company is switching health insurance plans, so representatives of the insurance company were there talking about how great their insurance was, what great benefits they offer, etc. So when it was time for questions, I asked plenty about why they claim they cover fertility benefits when they don't cover anything beyond IUI and clomid, even if it is medically impossible for a person to get pregnant without treatment beyond that. I heard all the typical responses, and won the argument... it basically was ended by them saying I could talk to them privately about this after the meeting. I stated (a couple of times) that I'm not doing this for myself, this is for the other employees that this issue will arise for, as it's very unlikely I'm the only employee out of 150 who has or will deal with these issues. I decided to be an advocate today despite what this might do to my reputation at my new job. Don't know if it will backfire, and the policy won't change now because of my confrontational questions today, but you never know, things may change eventually. Let's hope its sooner rather than later.

Update: It's 3 hours later, and I'm still feeling like a huge ass!

Erine Raquin

When did my life start seeming less like my own and more like that of a character in a novel by Frank McCourt or Emile Zola? Let's see, we'll start at the beginning of the melodrama, about four and a half years ago:

• Heavy bleeding for 120 days (not that this makes my doctor's office see this as a reason to get me in there in any reasonable amount of time) - check
• Diagnosed with severe anemia from all of the bleeding - check
• Diagnosed with fibroid causing the bleeding - check
• Two surgeries to remove fibroid - check
• Start trying to get pregnant - check
• Ovarian cyst the size of an orange pops up, seemingly overnight - check
• Get cyst removed, complicated surgery, spend six weeks on the couch recovering - check
• Told about my severe endometriosis upon awaking from surgery, doc tells me I should try to get pregnant asap, but will probably need IVF anyway - check
• Get some tests run, hormone levels, HSG - check
• Be one of the 1% of people at that medical facility who gets an infection from the HSG, which includes fever, swelling, and vomiting - check
• And that was a day before our first anniversary - check
• Ooh, and a tube is blocked, needs to be removed! - check
• Three cycles of clomid, didn't work - check
• Another cyst, another surgery, cyst and one tube are removed - check
• First IVF cycle, failure - check
• Start second IVF cycle - check
• Beloved 3 year old cat drops dead for no clear reason - check
• I'm pregnant ... Wait... not so fast, bucko, you're not pregnant anymore. Chemical pregnancy. - check
• Other tube removed - check
• No, genius fertile person, neither going to Hawaii, nor relaxing, nor time will allow me to naturally get pregnant. I have NO TUBES. (I don't understand why people can't retain this piece of information, but they still always say to me "you never know"... NO, I do know, actually. No tubes = 0% chance of natural pregnancy.) - check

[Note: keep reading. It's pathetic, I know. But it gets even more so. Just wait til you hear the news I got today!]

• Take some time off - check
• Get ourselves the requisite miscarriage dog (yeah they call it a "chemical pregnancy", but those who've had one know it's just an early miscarriage) - check
• Third round of IVF, failure - check
• Doggy heart problems, lots of $$ to vet - check
• Cycle four, I'm pregnant... oh, but the HCG count is low. Don't get excited or hopeful, missy. Go back for another beta in two days. - check
• Happy birthday! - check
• Next day: not pregnant anymore! - check
• Decide, fuck all this, time to adopt - check
• Doggy gets sick again - check
• Spend absurd sums of money (you know, cause we have so much after all of the completely lack of coverage by our insurance for IVF. IUI, sure! No tubes, you say, sorry--you're fucked!) to get the doggy's heart sac removed. Prognosis very good. - check
• Surgery went well, Pirate's doing great, you can pick him up tomorrow - check
• Get a phone call this morning from the vet. Lab results back, Pirate has cancer –  “mesothelioma”, caused by exposure to asbestos – and won't live out the year, even with treatment. - CHECK
• He's only FOUR years old. And he's the best puppy in the world. - check
• Now we have to watch him die way before his time. Fortunately he doesn't even know he's sick. At least we know that we have a limited amount of time to love him up...
  Cry, go out for an apple fritter and a cup of coffee, and numbly stare at the ocean - check

Geez, and I was hoping to write a nice post soon about how we're ready to move on to adoption and thanks to all of you for your well wishes and concern. Thanks, I do appreciate those things. I hate sounding like I'm dwelling on the negatives... but Sweet Jesus—enough already! If I were religious, I would have to wonder why God's smiting us so much these days. But I'm not religious, and I wonder, "great, what the fuck is next?"

Seacrest out.

2nd Chemical Pregnancy

Thirty-six minutes til the new year. And I've just finished my second very, very dirty gin martini. Which is the most I've had to drink in over a month or so because...

I just finished another cycle. IVF #4. I didn't even want to blog about this one, and I remained very positive and optimistic throughout. Boobs got very sore, felt some twinges in my abdomen, felt slightly nauseous a couple of times. Sadly, it was another chemical pregnancy. Was told I was pregnant, but my HCG count was only 30 so we had to wait and see if it doubled on the next beta. So, the day after my 36th birthday I found out that I wasn't pregnant anymore. Yeah, because why should this work for me? What an effing shock (lots of sarcasm here).

Seven eggs were retrieved this time, five fertilized, all five were transferred.

No, I don't think this ART stuff is going to work for me. I don't know if its my eggs or my uterus or what. All my hormone levels are fine. The sperm is fine. One ovary doesn't seem to do shit. I guess I'll have my post-failure talk with the doctor next week, and I guess he'll tell me another expensive thing I can do that only has a small chance of working. I don't think I have enough hope in that small chance anymore. We had a second opinion after my first chemical pregnancy, and they said they'd do nothing different from what my current doc is doing. So what then—surrogacy? donor eggs? We're so financially in the hole right now from four failed IVFs and a dog in need of heart surgery that those things just aren't options at all. And I can't spend that much money on another gamble. These are early days still, but I'm thinking its time for mourning and then moving on to adoption. And probably getting a more high stress and annoying job so that we can afford it. I feel different after this one. I feel a strong sense that this route is not going to work for us, and its time to move on.

We actually considered moving to Maryland to get IVF coverage there. But after checking Annapolis out over the holidays – although a very cute little town with the best crabcakes ever – we love Northern CA, and aren't ready to move away from this place we love so much for something that may never work... leaving all of our friends, jobs, the mountains, the ocean, the redwoods, and tolerable public transit system. We've given up so much already, and lived in a state of limbo for so long now.

I'm looking forward to some normalcy for a while, whatever we decide. I need to get back in some sort of shape. I'm so far from that after four IVFs and all the stresses (and comfort eating) and that can go along with it.

Off that sad topic... happy new year, fellow bloggers. Best wishes for 2007 be a great one for all of you.

Where to begin?

I haven't blogged in a while, my thoughts have been all over the place in the past couple of months. Adoption? Try again? Depressed, confused, bitter, trying to figure out what's next. Through a lot of reading, thinking and evaluating our finances we decided to try IVF again, at this point it scares me less than adoption. Maybe because I'm not ready for another huge learning curve yet, maybe I'm not ready for the invasiveness of adoption, maybe because IVF is less expensive for us than adoption. Don't get me wrong--I'm still scared about another round, just less so than adoption at this stage. Some days I feel numb and feel like I just can't do this anymore, I just want someone to hand me my baby without me having to think about it.

Last week I found out that I'm the "last one standing" of the infertility support group I was a member of. Yup, lucky me! Two couples have their babies already, two couples are due in February. And then there's me! I really didn't think I would be last. It hit me pretty hard. With all this going on, and all my thoughts bouncing back and forth between adoption vs. more treatment, I thought it might be helpful to seek some counseling. That, so far, has turned out to be a nightmare. I've seen two counselors with my medical center in the past few weeks, neither of whom seem to "get" (or try to get)  the infertility thing, who just ask me a list of canned questions and type my answers into their computer while making very little eye contact with me. Both of them kept asking me to tell them when my "symptoms" (of mild depression) began. I tried to explain it's a gradual thing, which after three years of infertility treatments and surgeries for endometriosis, etc. They didn't buy it, and asked me to pinpoint my symptoms (???) so I eventually said, "well, I guess they got a little worse after this most recent failure". Hard to explain how awful both of these sessions were, but they really didn't get IF and kept trying to figure out another cause ("so, do you have a strained relationship with your mother?") unrelated to three years of hoping, waiting, grieving, and confusion. One of them cut me off and changed the subject when I tried to explain the IF issue to him... twice. Neither of them seemed to hear a word I said and tried to get me into a group therapy session. I told them I had no interest in defending myself or educating a group about infertility, but both declined to put me into individual therapy. In the end, I filed a complaint with my medical facility and I have another appointment next week. Pain in the ass. Exactly what I needed--to have to battle with my medical center for grief counseling.

Last Saturday we spent a lot of time at the vet, we found out that our dog had "right-side heart failure" and fluid around his heart. We lost Pisco, the best-cat-in-the-world, last year around this time, during a cycle, and I can't handle the idea of anything happening to my pooch. Sunday I hid out from the world. I took a long nap, then went on a drive with my pooch, had a nice dinner (consisting of 110% comfort food) and watched a movie. 

I'm really not so morose all of the time, but it just spilled out... I've done some fun stuff. Went to NY to hang with a good friend, and also met up with a fellow blogger while there. Great trip. Besides that just a bit of this and that... went to the Opera and the Symphony, won the OK from my bosses to work at home sometimes, got a good freelance gig on the side, saw Borat (heh heh heh. I told Chuck that this next IVF will have me on a steady diet of pineapple and any show or movie with Sacha Baron Cohen).

So we're going another round, stims start next week, I'm on the antibiotics already (another lupron-free cycle). Here we go...

Not so charming!

Since I learned that my third time was not, in fact, the charm, this little dialogue from “My Cousin Vinny” has been going through my head. It’s played and replayed up there so many times that I decided to look up the exact dialogue and share it with you. If I remember correctly it's between Ralph Macchio's character (Billy) and Joe Pesci (Vinny). It makes me chuckle a little to think about, Vinny seems to have the appropriate bitterness in his tone. Switch up a few verbs and nouns and you're talking about waiting to get knocked up.

BILLY: But you graduated law school six years ago... what have you been doing since?

VINNY: Studying. For the bar.

B: That’s a lot of studying.

V: Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t pass it my first time out.

B: That’s okay, you probably passed it the second time.

V: Nope.

B: Third time’s the charm?

V: Not for me it wasn’t. For me, six times was the charm.

Remember that free wine?

... I’m drinking it right now. Had a beer and fish‘n’chips for dinner. BIG FAT NEGATIVE.

Thank you to everyone for your kind words, wishes and support.

And now... Fuck the standard sympathy... if you care to comment, please make it either funny, over-the-top sarcastic, or tell me a joke.

We’re going for another round in November. Blah.

UPDATE: Or better yet—In the comments, write whatever you think is to be the MOST inappropriate thing to tell me after my BFN. Either something entirely made up, or some garbage someone has had the nerve to tell you before. Mwa hah ha...

For example: “Maybe infertility is related to Darwinism... you know, survival of the fittest... it’s just nature’s way of controlling the population. These medical treatments are just unnatural and you should really just adopt.”

Horizontal Days

The transfer went well... my doctor put in three beautiful little embies. I was thrilled to hear that I had two grade I and one grade II quality embryos. They look great in the photo, round and unfragmented and real purty. I'm so excited, and dare I say, very hopeful and guardedly optimistic. Grow little embies!! Implant and grow and be healthy!

Now, back to bedrest!

Pineapple Princess (or “To pineapple... or not to pineapple”)

Cycle update: 6 eggs fertilized. Transfer Friday!

Woo-hoooo! Hoping for the best hoping for the best hoping for (dare I say it?)... a baby!

Now on to my ponderous entry (and when I say ponderous I mean it by m-w.com's definition #2: “unwieldy or clumsy because of weight and size”):

* * *

Does anyone else out there know the song “Pineapple Princess”, as covered by Annette Funicello? Perfect for interrogation and/or torture when played repeatedly. Well, since the lovely Ann Marie recommended pineapple/bromelain to me for the days post transfer, I‘ve had that dern song stuck in my head, ukelele and all. (Not your fault Ann Marie, my mom played the song repeatedly when I was a kid. It always comes down to the mother... he he he.) Funny thing is I do like the song for its nostalgia and the so-bad-its-good factor. I mean... why is Annette even singing anything, ever in the first place? And why would she be a Hawaiian pineapple princess with her white-bread-Mousketeer-Beach-Blanket-Bingo self? And doesn't Beach Blanket Bingo sound much dirtier than it was probably intended to? Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?

But I digress... the topic is really the post-ET pineapple idea. Old wives’ tale, alternative treatment, or proven medical treatment. I’ve been scouring the internet looking for anyone recommending it besides “a friend told me/someone told me/I heard somewhere”. No offense to Ann Marie for suggesting it, I appreciate all of the suggestions I can get. On this one though, I've found no evidence, not even from alternative practitioners; plus I've read that conflicting information: that pineapple can cause contractions or early labor and should be avoided while pregnant. I've been looking all over for specifics, but all I've gotten is that bromelain (the enzyme in fresh pineapple--maybe just in the core, maybe in the whole pineapple, I found conflicting stories of this too) helps with implantation because it helps to thin blood/improve circulation (ala baby aspirin) and help (who what why when how?) with implantation, and is anti-inflammatory.

Then I read that pineapple is considered a symbol of fertility, and wondered if it was just an old wives' tale with its foundations in that tidbit.

The anti-inflammatory properties, and the properties that help with implantation and improve circulation parts do sound good not to mention that pineapple is yummy; but then the uterine contraction part scares me away. But I've found no online info other than hearsay. Bummer. Anyone know anything more than what I've found?

Retrieval

Seven eggs. Works for me! Fertilization results tomorrow...