7/23/08

The Emotional IF Rollercoaster


...and I want to get off.

After all the fretting over whether or not Alex was going to freak before our appointments at the clinic, we get there and meet Melissa (Financial Services) and Karen (IVF Coordinator). The new office is awesome.

We hear the spiel on our insurance first. Instead of the 90% coverage we thought we would have we now have 70% coverage. So basically we pay $3600 before everything is covered 100%.

Then we move next door and go through the checklist of what we've done and what we still need to do. According to Karen we are ahead of schedule with the testing but I'm too close for comfort in starting BCP for the September IVF cycle. Normally they like their patient on it for 6-4 weeks and I'd barely be on it for 4. She was amazed that I hardly had any questions. The internets is good for something I guess.

The whole time Alex just sat there. I don't think he said more than 5 words to Melissa and the only thing he said to Karen was his SS#. We are given the consent forms and the BCP script is called in and we are on our way.

On the way out I can tell Alex is freaking out inwardly. When don't talk about it in the car because my stepdaughter is there waiting for us. We do when we get home though.

Alex, very calmly says that there is no way we could save $3600 in a month and a half and I know he is right. We come to the conclusion that waiting for the November cycle would be the best and give us time to save. Hopefully I won't have to repeat any of my tests because it would be a year after I originally had them.

To console myself I call Megan (my personal cheerleader) and I post on TTC6+ the good and bad things regarding our RE appointments.


-DH is on board

-We are ahead of the game prep wise with our pre IVF testing. Now we'll be able to finish the last bit of bloodwork early.

- November would be better time wise for me than September. My RE asks all his patients to be on bed rest 3 days after transfer and this would be very hard to do the first month of school. Add in one day off for retrieval and ouch.

-We have three months to try and save the money.

-I can be on BCP the full length they would want me on. The IVF coordinator said normally they want their patients on 6 weeks.


So I was feeling pretty positive about our decision and was amazed that I didn't even cry. And then the roof caved in.

I decided to look up med coverage on Cigna's website and to my horror only found a couple things covered (Lupron being one of them). Injectibles were not covered. That broke me and I sobbed in front of the comp for a good half hour. It seemed that every time I was up something had to kick me back down. It didn't help that in the midst of this I discovered that Henri, one of my ratties, had a lump on his amdomen which I think is an abscess.

This morning I called Cigna right away and it seems that they will cover the injectibles but through the medical side of my insurance. The meds have a deductable though so add $1500 to the aforementioned $3600 and we are facing not being able to do November either.

I'm so tired of this. I don't want to ride this rollercoaster any more.

4 comments:

emilythehopeless said...

i feel your insurance pain.. mine doesn't cover anything related to infertility at all.. nothing. so we got accepted into an IVF clinical trial, great right.. we were told it was free IVF.. then we learned that we still have to pay for all suppression and stimulation drugs.. ugh. there's always something waiting to drag us down.. many hugs going your way..

http://emilythehopeless.wordpress.com/

May T said...

I love ya, buddy... hang in there. Eye on the prize.. eye on the prize.

xoxo
Meg

Unknown said...

IF just sucks. Hang in there ((HUGS))

PS would it make you laugh if I told you I originally typed in "huge" where it says "hugs"?

Stephanie said...

(((hugs))) I hate that all of this stuff has to be so damn complicated.