2/8/2017 2 Comments Tough DecisionsUGH. I literally don’t even know where to start. I walked into the doctor’s office today expecting the absolute worst news. I cried all morning. My chest physically hurt. I knew it wasn’t a heart attack because that would be far too convenient. I barely managed through a few hours of work. I quickly realized I have to take a few days off work. Luckily, my supervisors are amazing and understanding. It feels overwhelming to take time off work because this is my busy season. But it feels overwhelming not to take the time off work. One of my friends pointed out that no matter what I choose to do it’s going to be overwhelming. When my supervisor gave me the green light to “put on my own oxygen mask” to help myself first I wrapped up things quickly at work and left. I’ve never spontaneously taken three days off work before. It is overwhelming and relieving all at the same time.
I cried on the way to the doctor. I get to the doctor’s office and they have the radio on. They rarely have the radio on. And of course the Pharrell song Happy was on. WHO PLAYS THIS IN A FERTILITY OFFICE?! I seriously considered taking the radio and throwing it against the window. I figured that might be frowned upon, but I’m quite certain all the ladies in the waiting room would’ve been appreciative. Because of the scheduling snafu (no idea if I mentioned this in the last post because my memory is totally shot, but let’s just say it was ugly on their part) the office staff was overly nice to me today. I barely sat down before they called me into the ultrasound room. The nurses were asking me which person I talked to that messed up my appointment time. Even if it was all for show, I appreciate the effort. Our regular doctor came in to do the ultrasound. Apparently my sad little follicle has done some serious growing since Sunday. Dr. Bateman was very optimistic about our little follicle. This was not expected. I cannot handle the inconsistent responses. The emotional rollercoaster of all of this is bad enough. To constantly be getting drastically different opinions is infuriating. I don’t even care if everyone is recommending us to stop IVF at this point. I just want them to all agree on something. Although reproductive medicine is quite miraculous, it certainly has a long way to go in terms of inter-doctor agreement. If you ask 3 doctors don’t be shocked to get 5 opinions. He also didn’t seem to think not trying IVF a second time was the worst thing to do. I literally cannot take the inconsistencies. However, when he was running through the statistics on the chances of this one little follicle actually becoming a live baby it was concerning. When doctors rattle off statistics I wonder if they expect the listener to really understanding. Realizing that our chances of having a live baby with this follicle is in the single digit percentages is a lot to gamble thousands of dollars on. As much as I say I have no hope, obviously there’s some shred of hope somewhere or I wouldn’t be doing this. All I can think of are all the people who get their miracle baby under the most ridiculous of conditions. Why couldn’t I be one of those people? Am I not deserving of a miracle? I feel like I’m due for one. But then I remember the most poignant quote from House, MD, “People don’t get what they deserve. They get what they get.” Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Life’s not fair (I’ve certainly learned this lesson over and over.) Do we really want to sink THOUSANDS of dollars on less than a shred of hope? At any point this whole thing could go south. The doctor said this is more of a philosophical discussion. Boy, is he right. While I was getting my blood work done the nurse was talking to me. I can literally carry on a conversation without so much as flinching or pausing my conversation. Who would’ve ever thought that would happen? Then we spoke with the financial person. If we stopped our treatment now we would get all of our money back minus about $1100. That would give us a lot of money to proceed with a donor egg. The financial lady initially told us if we proceed with the transfer we are out all $15,000+. I started bawling. Through heavy breath and tears I said, “I want my own baby. What if this is my only chance?” Quickly, she began calculating the cost of one cycle. She ran so many numbers I don’t even know what they went with. It sounded like worst case scenario one cycle would cost about $11,000 and best case scenario one cycle would cost $8800. If we don’t actually get to a transfer we would recoup another $1200-ish. Then we would get the rest of our money back. It seems silly to cancel if we do spend $11,000 because it’s “only another $4,000” for another try. But the medicines for another try will cost at least $4,000-$5,000 in addition to that extra $4,000. Not counting the extra $1,000+worth of medicine that we will need to buy to finish out this cycle. That’s enough money to go to New York for a donor egg. If we spend all of this money plus another $5,000 for meds we would still need $10,000-ish for our donor egg cycle. If money were no object I’d try the two cycles and a donor egg. But...money is a pretty big object. Do we risk having no baby at all? Or do we cut our losses and try with someone else’s eggs. These are big decisions to make while in an extreme emotional crisis. I don’t think I could ever articulate the weight of this. I don’t think there’s any way anyone could ever imagine how terrible this is. We also have to make somewhat of a decision by 7:30 tonight. We have to at least decide if we are finishing this cycle or not. Our doctor is calling us by the end of the day and we have consult with another clinic at 7:00. I’m really not sure this could be more stressful. It’s so unfair that insurance doesn’t cover this. If I lived in a state that had fertility coverage I wouldn’t be trying to decide between keeping my house and car or having a child. All of this is so unbelievably unfair. When the nurse called to tell me my estrogen was looking pretty good, I just asked her what she would do. She recommended finishing this cycle and pursuing this retrieval and if this doesn’t work out just go for a donor egg. This is kind of my gut. I hope the financial person doesn’t change her mind about letting us out of our two cycle program. So now I wait again for the doctor to call and talk about our options while I try and figure out how to spend all the money I have to my name. I don’t know who said this quote, but it is often floating around the infertility circles: “One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face in life is choosing whether to walk away or try harder.”
2 Comments
Tanya
2/8/2017 02:36:07 pm
Ughhh!!! I'm in tears cuz that's how I felt when the first IVF didn't work so I can't make my own follicles/ babies!!! I'm doing an egg donor and hoping this will work! 😩💔❤❤❤I feel your pain and I'm here if you need me
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Heather Joyce
2/8/2017 03:32:55 pm
thank you! yes. I think we are going to proceed with this cycle and hope for the best. but I think we are going to call it quits after this and spend our money on an egg donor. good luck and baby dust to you!❤❤
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Heather Joyce
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