A Picnic

Back in June, the "other" clinic held their Annual Picnic for all past, present and future patients. I took this as an opportunity to meet the good doctor without that crazy $175/fee. I had met a patient of his on Twitter so I knew she was going to be there. When they sent out the invite, it said to bring the whole family including babies. I tweeted back, "Are furbabies okay?" They replied, "Absolutely!" DH had something going on so I loaded up the female furbaby (our princess) and headed to the park. Here we are entering the picnic:

We had a great time visiting with my new Twitter friend and her husband, found another patient that was from my hometown and found out she knew my dad, and had a good visit with the doc. He was so easy to talk to and informative! I could have spent the whole afternoon chatting with him but he was in high demand. All his patients wanted to show off their little miracles and he held and loved on each of them. Some of the ladies had shirts made that said, "Dr. S' Miracle." After having gone through IVF and be a part of the IF world for almost 2 years now (yuck!), I feel like I'm in a much better place to discuss treatments, other IF clinics in the area, reasons, etc...with the doc and other patients. It felt nice to talk to someone who knows what's going on and not have to explain what IVF stands for, that 8 embryos don't mean 8 babies and who knows why PIO feels better in the butt than anywhere else.

After lunch and visiting, the other clinic wanted to get a group photo that they were going to hang up in their office. Feeling like a party crasher, I tried to sneak out but when you've got a 60 lb dog with you, it's hard to go unnoticed. So here I am crashing their photo but by their demand:
I'm wishing and praying and hoping that we don't have to use the other clinic but if for some reason our FET fails (which I'm feeling REALLY good that it's going to work!), I think its safe to say that my decision has been made where we'll go.

Strike That

Saturday I checked the mail and had a packet from our clinic. It was all the legal stuff for the upcoming FET. It included the waiver saying that we wouldn't hold them liable, we understand the risk, no guarantee, blah, blah, blah...all that legal jargon. Then I got to the end of the document and it totally reminded me of "Sing You Home."

The last two paragraphs read:

"In the event of death of a partner, the surviving partner in accordance with The Center's medical policies and practice will make decisions regarding the utilization or disposition of eggs, sperm or embryos. In the event of death of both partners, The Center will dispose of sperm, egg or embryos, unless other directives are made available in advance.

In the event of separation or dissolution, The Center will use or dispose of eggs, sperm or embryos according to the terms of an agreement signed by both partners (to the extent the agreement is consistent with exisiting law), or according to the terms of an order of court. Pending the determination of use or disposition, in the event of seperation or dissolution, both parties understand and agree to remain fully responsible for costs associated with storage of eggs, sperm or embryos."

If DH and I both die, we don't want our embies disposed of so I have to strike that and type up another statement saying we want to donate them for use by another couple (not for research), then have it signed by both of us and a witness.

Gotta stay on your toes ladies!

Only $50!!!

I'm busy getting everything in order for FET this fall, getting my body ready, getting our finances in order, etc...Well, today I got WONDERFUL news...my insurance is actually going to help some!!! My first round meds for the FET will only cost $48.80 since they aren't necessarily "fertility" meds so insurance will cover. When I found out, I almost jumped through the phone and kissed the guy! So yeah $50 vs $2,000 for the fresh cycle...I'll take that!

I must say I'm feeling good about the FET...if/when it works, I'd deliver at 29 which is when my sister had my neice and my mom had me, the good news about the meds, AND I just found out that someone whose been waiting a year and a half to adopt just got a placement! Crossing my fingers...

Second Guessing and Freaking Out

UgH! I already typed up this whole post when stupid blogger effs up...Blogger I hate you sometimes. Let's see if I can word this just right and even remember what I typed...

First off, update on my last post. I called the second hospital and calmly and politely (both two very difficult things for me to do!) explained the situation about having to pay 2 ER co-pays when the doctor at the first hospital was the one who didn't know what to do and made us transfer. I then waited a week and finally got an email saying "as a one time courtesy" we won't charge you-WOOHOO!!! Moral of this story: 1. We will drive the 45 minutes to the main hospital downtown anytime we have an emergency and 2. It never hurts to ask.

Now to the meat and potatoes of this post...


Second Guessing
I'm getting ready to gear up for our FET this fall. When we did the fresh cycle back in December, I think I weighed around 215. I'm currently at 175-180 which has got to be a good thing, right? (Also, pretty sure another 10 lbs and I can qualify as an egg donor at my current clinic!!! This was a pretty big motivator for me so I can help pay it forward). During this weight loss journey, in an effort to not deprive myself and to stay on track, I "diet" for about 8-10 weeks then give myself a cheat week meaning no counting calories and no working out if I don't want to. I took FULL advantage of it this past week. Starting tomorrow, I plan on going into full FET mode so my body is in the best physical condition it can be in meaning no caffeine, no alcohol, prescription prenatals, etc...Now don't get me wrong, I take prenatals daily, just the cheap OTC kind (small effort to save up for the big bucks treatments). I can count on one hand the number of alcoholic drinks I've had in the last year and I really only drink soda when I'm totally over the taste of water. Well this past week, I've drank soda like it's going out of style knowing I won't be able to have it the next few (or longer!) months and I had two beers yesterday (whoa, I'm getting buck wild!) which is 2 more beers than I've had in the past 6 months. I've also eaten out 3-4 times this past week which is about the number of times I usually eat out a MONTH. So I know that's not too bad for just one week but why then am I freaking out??? Thinking I should have been gearing up longer, afraid all the work I did is ruined...ugh, I know it's ridiculous but I can't help second guessing...


Freaking Out

So this time around, I'm trying to do everything OPPOSITE than I did before...acupunture, losing weight and trying to be healthy, picturing my totsicles in my arms, not being afraid to dream of them. I picture telling people our exciting news, deciding how I'll deliver, what our house would look like with a baby (possibly and hopefully three!) and I picture getting the phone call about a BFP and then I stop. Because when I think of D-Day, finding out yes or no, I can't help but get that feeling of absolute, sheer panickness as I picture Mary calling about the fresh cycle, "Oh A, I'm so sorry..." My heart sinks to my stomach and beats really fast, I lose my breath and then I think about transfer day and how they may tell me we don't have any and that's when the tears come and I can't think any more because I don't know what we'll do then. Le sigh...


So there, that's what's going on inside my crazy, little mind of mine. Please leave me a comment and tell me to stop second guessing and freaking out...it'll make me feel a little bit better. :)

I REALLY Hate Bills

Came home today to a bill in the mail. It was for a $300 co-pay for the 2nd hospital I took DH to when we visited the ER. I called my insurance to see if we had to pay both co-pays...verdict: YES! Since he received treatment at both, we have to pay the $300 co-pay at both. UGH!!! So from now on, we'll just go to the one big, main one downtown 45 minutes away so we don't have to pay twice.

While I had her on the phone, I found out we have about $700 worth of MORE bills coming for the renal scan he had. Good news, we hit the deductible, bad news we owe about $1,000 and I JUST paid the last $1,800 for BFN IVF. Awesome...sometimes I wonder if this is God telling us that this is why we can't have kids. Long, rough day and did I mention I'm in my house SWEATING!!! I'm going to sit in front of a fan...

A Twitterview!

I got an email from Kelly with Resolve and MyDestinationFamily.org. She wanted me to pass on some information about a twitterview this Friday. Here's the info:

"I wanted to let you know about a new project you might be interested in—a Twitterview looking at the male perspective of infertility leading up to Father’s Day, this Friday, June 17, at 2pm ET.

Blogger Alec Ross, a leading voice on men’s infertility at Fertility Authority and on his blog I Want to Be a Daddy, will share his experiences through a personal, informative Twitterview with Barbara Collura, Executive Director of RESOLVE. We invite you to follow along at hash-tag #tvFD (for Twitterview for Father’s Day) to read the direct question-and-answer exchange between Barb (@RESOLVEorg) and Alec (@infertility_guy). If you can’t follow the conversation live, you can visit RESOLVE’s MyDestinationFamily.org Twitterview page for a full re-cap following the interview."

I don't think I can follow live but, dealing with male factor infertility in our situation, I will definitely be checking out the recap.

Here's to happy Father's Day to all the new poppas out there and to us still waiting, here's to surviving another one!

Half Mary Pics!!! Thank you Blogger for Working!

YAH!!! I finally got my pictures uploaded from my half marathon last weekend. It was my third half marathon, all ran within a year PLUS I did a full back in October! I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments if I do say so myself! Now on to some fun photos (but still annoymous!)...

The race was about 4 hours from where we live. I rode up with 2 bloggie friends (okay, they are no longer bloggie but IRL friends!) and headed to the expo. What a surprise when I see the banner and my face on it:

Want an even BIGGER suprise? I was on my very own billboard!!! Yes, I was somewhat of the poster child for the race. My first half was this race exactly one year ago.

It was a VERY hard race!!! It was over 90 degrees and VERY HILLY!!! I'm so thankful I had DH meet me every 1.5 mile for water, Gatorade and a wet washcloth...he was (and always is!) a godsend!!!

I beat my time from last year's race by 9 minutes which I was pretty stoked about that BUT I was *only* a minute slower than my half 4 weeks ago. That half was VERY flat and perfect, cool running weather so I feel like I should have been way faster than a hot, hilly course! Then again, I did have a 7 hour ER visit, minimal sleep and stress, stress, stress playing against me. Anyways, hope you enjoy the pics! It was a great weekend because we got to see some wonderful friends and running half marys=burning LOTS of calories=indulging in deliciousness!!!

UPDATE on DH: I never really followed up on him after I posted we went to the ER. He's got bladder stones. He's not in major pain so the doc is letting things go and then will see him to inspect in July if they're still there. Never a dull moment...

UPDATE on Bill: Remember I posted that I got a "past due" bill from the hospital? I called to pay and told the lady, "I know you won't make note of this and probably don't care but I just wanted to let you know that I never got the first notice." She said it wasn't a big deal, but to OCD me it was. She goes on to take my payment and then goes to confirm my address...yeah, my DAD'S address that I haven't lived at in 10 years! I said, "Well, no wonder I never got the first notice!"

Big weekend for us! I'm trying out CrossFit in the AM (wish me luck!) then haircut and wedding (I only get my haircut on day's I have something going on). Sunday is MIL's birthday so church, then DH and I are bike riding then MIL birthday dinner. WHEW! Never a dull moment with DH and I...