So, DH and I rose before the butt-crack of dawn yesterday to meet with the RE office for our IVF consult. It started off quite stressfully as construction/accident/general Monday morning traffic made us a few minutes late for the start of our 2-hour appointment. I really hate being late, but considering it's 80 miles one-way to the office on the other side of the city, a few minutes wasn't bad. The first meeting was with the business office people, essentially agreeing to the fact that insurance is covering everything except this "coordination of care" visit. It started the theme for the day--we have awesome insurance coverage for IF treatment.
The embryology chick came in next. We discussed how many embryos to implant, how to deal with any leftover embryos, and looked at some pictures of various stages of embryos. We talked about what to expect as far as how often they would call us and what they are looking to see happen with each day of incubation of the embies. I was very happy to hear that they never put in more than 3 embies, and it's very rare for them to even put in 3. She said they are working on perfecting their process to have more success with only putting in 1, but for now they are usually doing 2 with a success rate of 80% if it's a good 5-day blast. Of course, all my DH could hear was the 50% twin rate when they put in 2 blasts!
So, then the nurse came in to go over all of the consents and to give me my protocol. We reviewed all of the consents--yes, we still want to do this, yes we understand the risks, yes we want to freeze any extra embies for now, yes please knock me out for the retrieval, etc. Then she gets out my protocol and starts to review all the meds/doses/appointments/etc. My own personal pharmacy had arrived over the weekend, so I knew that it was going to be a lot of shots and pills. Here's a pic of all my meds (sorry for the blurriness, I took it with my phone)
(so happy to have insurance cover this--I paid a measly $0.75 for all of this, and that was for the baby aspirin which my insurance won't pay for since it's available OTC)
But seeing the protocol in writing made it so real and so "right now". I'm not at all intimidated by the idea of shots, but it just seemed so theoretical up until that point--now it was happening for real and so quickly! I can't believe that I only have 3 BCP's left to take! I go in next Tuesday morning for my suppression check and then it's off to the races! Yikes!
I'm meeting with my boss today to discuss what days I might need to miss work because of procedures. It's looking like it might be the worst possible timing, with ER being on the day of a big computer upgrade at work. I am one of the teachers and super-users for the new upgrade, so it would be really bad if I couldn't work that night. But, the IVF has to be my main priority and work will just have to deal with it. I called yesterday to set up an intermittent FMLA leave so that they can't get rid of me or revoke my weekend contract if I have to miss work. I'm hoping to not need it, but it's nice to know I have that protection if I do need it. Maybe I will get lucky and the IVF will fit around my work schedule.
6 comments:
Cort I am so excited for you!! I just found your blog, hehe. I feel like this will be it for you--it seems like you are in really good hands!
Do you get to do endometrin instead of PIO? If so, you're really lucky!! I was so happy once I switched to endometrin. My one piece of advice for those is long panty liners.
I hope your cycle fits in okay with work and isn't too much of a pain. I'm so excited for you! It all is a bit overwhelming, but I felt better once I got started. Good luck!!
So so very exciting! My suppression check is Saturday, so we will be almost cycle buddies!!
My doc just switched to endometrin instead of PIO too.
Much much luck!
Emmy--Yes, I'm so happy to not have to do the PIO injections. That was the only injection I was dreading!
Michelle--Yay for almost-cycle buddies! Good luck to you too!
This is all sounding very promising! It's good that they're willing to transfer multiple embryos--some clinics are so reluctant about that. And how fantastic that your insurance is so great!
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