Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Cycle Day 8-Planning

Well, today was our consultation with Dr. James.  I would say it went well.  We discussed several concerns and Dr. James shared her personal struggle with infertility with us.

As I have said before, I love my doctor.  She is an amazing person.  I now know why she is so compassionate towards her patients.  She is one herself.  We found out that she has endometreosis and low quality eggs.  She is pregnant with twin girls, due in July.  These miracles from from donor eggs.  While she is treating me, and others like me, she is going through the pain and stress of trying to conceive.  It was an awesome experience to have her share that with us.

Our consultation was nice.  I was a little discouraged though when Dr. James said she thinks our case has been a case of bad luck.  She isn't ready to give up on the injections yet.  We are going to go another couple of rounds before seriously discussing IVF.  We know that I can get pregnant and we know the miscarriages have been from genetic defects.  It was nothing my body caused.  She does want me to start on a blood thinner though when I get pregnant again.  Because of my Leiden factor 5 issue, a blood clot could cause a miscarriage later in a pregnancy. 

There is a possibility before we do IVF, if we have to do IVF, that I'll have to have an exploratory surgery.  It would be laproscopic, but still, eek!  They would go in under my belly button and see if there may be anything wrong.  Dr. James doesn't think I'll have to have the surgery, but there is a very real possibility that I will.  It would be out patient and I'd only be off of work for a few days.

We also discussed that possibility that there is something wrong with my eggs.  She doesn't believe that to be the case, but we wouldn't know for certain until we do IVF.  In the case that I have 'bad eggs', we could use a donor.  There are a few options for this.  We could use a donor that is part of the pool that Dr. James uses or we could go through a private agency, much like an adoption agency.  The difference is, $4,000 with Dr. James or $10,000 for a private agency.  This is on top of the cost of IVF.

IVF, without insurance would run about $13,000 for us.  We are waiting on a call from the woman at the Dr's office who will run all the figures with our insurance.  Brad and I were doing a few rough estimates on what we know our insurance covers, like medicines and such, it would probably be like $4,000 less.  After we talk with her on the cost, we'll have a better idea of what we can do.

We are pretty certain, we'd give IVF a try if we can get the money.  We have been trying to think of the different ways we can come up with it.  There is the option of taking on second jobs.  We can finance it, but ugh.... 

I feel pretty positive about today.  Dr. James thinks we have a great chance of getting pregnant without IVF.  About a 20% chance each cycle.  But with IVF, she said she'd put our chances between 50% and 70%. 

My shots are going well.  No bleeding today from them.  I can't wait to go back to the doctor on Thursday to see how many follicles are there and when we'll trigger!

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