Insurance Games

I'm getting really good at playing this insurance game.  I feel like I've definitely come out on top this year!  I feel like beating insurance is not the norm...so I'm celebrating while I can.

I've been pretty upfront with my insurance dealings on here and want to pass on whatever tips and tricks I come up with to future Starbucks Mommas (or whoever else is reading this).

Benefits reset on October 1st for Starbucks so you want to use as much of your benefits as you can in the remaining time, especially if you've already met your deductible!  This goes for all doctors, not just your fertility stuff.

I was eligible to get refills on my estrogen patches (the ones where they filled 180 for me), leuprolide, and PIO.  I won't need the estrogen patches for a while, and I still have a TON left over from my last batch since the transfer was unsuccessful, but if I do get pregnant I will need more!  I'm hoping I don't need another batch of leuprolide since that would mean the 2nd transfer is also unsuccessful, but I refilled that just in case.

For the progesterone, my prescription has historically been for 2 vials at a time. I refilled that today (in preparation for the coming transfer later in October) and the pharmacy tech who I was speaking with (at Cigna) told me that if the doctor sent in a new Rx for more vials, they could fill that as well.  So I asked my nurse and she sent in a new Rx for TEN vials of progesterone.  This will theoretically last 100 days!  Plus the 4 vials I already have on hand which definitely gets me through week 12 of a pregnancy!!!  So even though my 2nd transfer hasn't even started, and won't happen until my insurance changes, I already have all the meds I need.

A few weeks ago I filled the regular pharmacy drugs for the transfer like valium and an antibiotic as well.

You may be wondering when this is a good idea and if it would be beneficial for you.  This is most beneficial for people who are switching insurance providers (I'm going from Cigna to BCBS) or people switching to a lower insurance plan (I'm going from platinum to silver).  The reason for this is that right now, I have very low copays for pharmacy meds (valium, antibiotic, estrogen patches) and copays will be significantly higher with a silver plan.)  ALSO with a platinum plan, it covers the fertility meds at 100% and with silver I will have 30% coinsurance.  So these meds will go towards my $15k fertility max, but I know I'm not close to reaching that, and since I'm switching to BCBS, I'll get a whole new $15k!

Begin Again

I feel exhausted knowing I'm starting this whole process again.  I am so grateful I have embryos frozen so I really don't have to start from the very beginning, but it's still a 6 week process and I forgot how long 6 weeks really is.

Tomorrow I'm starting the leuprolide shots again.  I don't mind these because they are tiny, in my belly, and don't need to be heated or refrigerated.  But I'm feeling just a little overwhelmed about shots, in general, again.  I don't know why exactly.  Because if I had gotten pregnant I'd still be giving myself shots.... but there's just something about starting over again that makes me tired and frustrated and a little angry.

However, I'm grateful for the opportunity to try again so soon.  I'm grateful I still have insurance (although starting October 1st it will be not nearly as good :( ) and I'm grateful for supportive family and friends.  I'll make it through this time, just like last time, and eventually things will work out how they are supposed to.

Pregnant for a Day

Today did not go exactly as hoped.  I knew it wasn't good news when I saw two missed calls from my clinic and no voicemail.  Then when I finally was able to answer the call (I was in the middle of a Starbucks shift) it was my doctor that answered, not the nurse.  So at least that gave me a bit of a heads up when hearing the bad news.

Basically, when they test for pregnancy, they are testing your HCG level.  These should continue to rise with each test.  However, mine decreased.  Not good.

She said she had it tested twice to make sure it wasn't a fluke and it came out exactly the same the second time.  Our options are to stop all medications now, or continue and test again in two more days, just to make sure the levels don't start rising again.  I definitely did not want to drag this out two more days for the super duper slim chance that the numbers could come back up, so I decided to stop the hormones.

We can try again in 5-6 weeks.

I'm not really sure how I feel at the moment.  I hate that I tested positive two days ago.  I hate that I had a glimpse of what that would be like, only to have it ripped away two days later.  But I've also always said that I don't know how I could handle having a miscarriage or carrying a child to term and it not surviving, or a hundred other terrible scenarios.  I would so much rather lose it early on, before I would, in any other circumstances, even know I was pregnant.  So I guess that's a blessing.

This gives us more time for more tries.  I only will have the Starbucks insurance through March (at the latest) so if I need to do multiple tries, they need to be as close together as possible! 

I'm grateful for the chance we have to do this.  And it gives me hope that it can work in the future.  But it does hurt a little more now when I get online and see all the baby and pregnancy pics.  For 48 hours I thought that was me.

September 5th

Today has been a long time coming!  I was finally able to take a pregnancy test this morning and I had my first blood test at the clinic today.  I did take a home pregnancy test a few days ago but knew it was probably too soon for anything to show up, even if I was pregnant.  But you can't blame a girl for trying.

Well I wanted to take home test this morning because if it was bad news I wanted time to process everything before the nurse at the clinic called with the bad news.

I took it as soon as I woke up and......pregnant!  WHAT?!  It's a little surreal.  At first, it definitely looked negative and I just put it down and went about getting ready.  I mean, I'm used to seeing negative tests and nothing ever changes with time.  Well now I know why they tell you to wait a few minutes before looking at the test because when I looked 2 minutes later, a faint little line had appeared!  I did not know what to think.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to wake Nate up to tell him or not.  I decided not to because I wanted to wait for the bloodwork to confirm anything AND I wanted to be able to surprise him somehow.  It's so hard with all this stuff because there really are no surprises...he knew as well as I did that I was testing that day. But I was going to try a surprise anyway!

I had to run to the office first before going to get bloodwork done but that was around 8:00 and then back to work to await the results.  The call came a little before 1:00.  It was my nurse, Julie, and she said "congratulations!" and then it all started to get real.

I'm really pregnant.  All of this worked.  I'm going to be a mom.  These stupid, painful shots weren't for nothing.  I took five minutes to just go sit in the bathroom at work and have a little happy/ overwhelmed cry.

I didn't get to surprise Nate how I wanted but that's okay.  Maybe someday I'll be able to.  I feel happy but also not too happy, because I won't let myself get there yet.  There's still a long way to go.  This was just the first test of many but still so exciting to finally have a positive pregnancy test.  Here's to the future!

Getting Better

After almost 2 weeks of PIO shots they are finally starting to be better.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel!  I no longer feel like I'm going to die when I move, although there is still definitely some soreness.  Things started getting better on Wednesday and I'm hoping they keep on improving.