I'll spare you the details and just let you know up front that my September insem did not result in a pregnancy of any kind, but I didn't feel any type of way, so I didn't really think it would by the end of the tww.
Aaaaannnnnyhooooo....Here we are. This week has been insane, logistics-wise, and today was particularly frustrating and tear-inducing. It was only just a moment ago when I sat down to write this that I realized it's Friday the 13th. (The Universe clearly got jokes.) Okay, so I told you about my awesome new gynecologist. After I didn't get knocked up in September, it was holiday after holiday, and I didn't want the stress of ttc again. Also, after having used two vials for that insem, I didn't have the capital to ttc again before Holiday Bonus Season. So, I chilled. I saw my family for both Thanksgiving AND Christmas (I know, I'm so brave, right?!). For Christmas, I bought myself another 3-month subscription to The Bank's database so I could have full access to all information on all of their donors. I was on the hunt for a potential new bachelor. I found TWO new donors that I liked a lot (and Indian guy and a Black guy). I decided to go with the Black guy and move forward for a January insem. Start the new year off with a bang, right? WRONG! I had a follow-up appointment with my gynecologist on January 6th (a Friday). I needed another Metformin Rx, and also wanted to get a higher dose of Clomid (my September cycle I was on 100mg and didn't feel much going on. When I looked over my medical records, I'd been on 200mg when I did the IUI in Thailand in 2012). Now, I'd just spent the afternoon wistfully looking over my prospective new bachelor's profile and info, waiting for this gynecologist visit to get the go-ahead before putting the order in. I got home on Friday evening and went online to put in the order....
THEY RAISED THE PRICES BY MORE THAN $100 PER VIAL. WHAT IN THE ENTIRE FUUUUUUUCK??? I'd been on the site quite a bit since I'd gotten the 3-month subscription and didn't see anything about raising prices anywhere. And I know they were still normal prices on that Thursday, but sometime after the close of business on Friday, the price hike went into effect and I was screwed.
I was in full-on panic mode. There was just no way for me to afford insem with even just one vial in January and still have anything leftover to try again the next month, or put something in storage for a potential sibling if I did get knocked up. I Googled prodigiously and asked around on the FertilityFriend home insem message board, and I was pointed toward Midwest Sperm Bank (MSB) as being very affordable. Looking at their site, I wasn't that jazzed about my prospects. They had a short list of donors and almost all of them "Caucasian". On top of that, many of the donors didn't have any photos of any kind available (not childhood, nor adult). They had exactly ONE Black donor, and one mixed race (biracial Black & white) donor. I spent $5 to get the long profile of the Black donor, then realized that he also had a childhood photo and audio interview available for purchase. That was unexpectedly good. I wasn't sure what their whole registration process was like or what medical hoops I might have to jump through yet though, so I decided to wait until I'd made contact and had a few questions answered before spending more money. Things were looking more promising though. While I was looking for contact info to ask about which forms my doctor would need to sign if I were doing home insem instead of clinical, I noticed something on their front page. There were four donors on sale during the month of January...and the lone Black donor was one of them! I could get one vial for $375 or two vials for $600. Hell of a deal. Naturally, I was immediately suspicious. I mean, what if they were on sale so cheap because he had a low sperm count/motility and you need to buy a bunch just to up the motility percentages for each insem? Didn't want to take any chances. I sent a couple of inquiries through their online inquiry request form.
When Monday rolled around (and my cycle started) and I still hadn't heard from them, I emailed them directly (as opposed to using the online form) and went into more detail with my questions. Instead of just answering my questions via e-mail, they responded on Monday night (via e-mail) that I should call. Grrrr...If I had time to be on this phone to get an immediate answer don't you think I would??? So frustrating. I put that on the back burner and called the pharmacy to see if my Clomid Rx was ready. They didn't have a new Rx in the system. WHAT??? Greeeeaaaaat! More bullshit. Just what I needed. Called the doc's office to check up on it. Apparently the fax didn't go through on Friday and no one had bothered to re-send it.
Niiiiice. She re-faxed it right away and it went through. Called the pharmacy a few hours later. They now had the new Rx, but they'd call me when it was ready for pick-up. They were waiting on insurance approval. Swell.
Tuesday came around and I had to make it my mission to somehow get someone from MSB on the phone to answer my questions so that I could get this show on the road. Thankfully, I got both work babies down for naptime in a timely manner (and neither of their parents were working from home that day), so I called as soon as I came down from their bedrooms. The person I spoke with was lovely, but it was as if my e-mail hadn't been read at all. Fine. I laid out my questions about the documents needed and got satisfactory answers to my questions about the donor himself. Though they have several forms under the "Printed Forms For Physician" menu, my doctor only needed to fill out
one short form in order for me to purchase spermcicles to inseminate myself with at home. I hung up with MSB & called my gyno office right away. I explained my situation and that my cycle had already started and that I needed the doc's signature on this form in order to get my samples on time to inseminate this cycle. She gave me a fax number. I asked if I could e-mail it instead. She gave me an e-mail (why isn't e-mail the default in 2017? c'mon, people!). I downloaded the form to my phone and saved my printed name at the top. Then I emailed it to the doc's office at 3pm on the dot. Pleased that I'd gotten all that taken care of, I logged on to The Bank's site and purchased the rest of the available info on my donor (childhood photo & audio interview). He had five or six childhood photos (cute kid) and his audio interview was nice. Later that night, I got a call from the pharmacy that my Clomid Rx was ready to pick up. End of CD2, and I was getting excited for the start of the new year.
Wednesday (CD3). Didn't get an e-mail response or phone call from the doc's off nor The Bank, so I called the doc's office in the afternoon (after I'd gotten the work babies to sleep). It was normal business hours, but I got the answering service (it's a small practice and they all take lunch for an hour each afternoon). It wasn't a medical emergency, so I left a message detailing that I had e-mailed the form with my name in the e-mail subject line and that I needed the form faxed over to The Bank by the end of the week. I filled out all of the forms that I needed for myself for The Bank and e-mailed those over. I had my ASL lesson that evening, so I didn't pick up the Clomid Rx after work. No worries though because I don't start taking it until CD6 (Saturday). Side note: A friend on my cycle charting site said she used MSB, and she just gave birth to her THIRD child conceived with home insem. AND she said she'd been with Fairfax for a couple of years before that with no luck, and then got pregnant with her MSB donor right on the first try. AND that for her second and third babies, she did it with just one insem with just one vial. She says that MSB has atypically high sperm counts per vial (she's had one over 100mil). This gives me great hope! She's a Black single mother by choice who conceived all three of her beautiful children via home insem, and she's also a newborn photographer. Obviously, she is my hero.
Thursday (CD4). Called The Bank to see if they got all my paperwork and whether or not they got the form from my gyno. Yes to my paperwork. No on the fax from the gyno. DAMMIT. Called the gyno office and got someone on the phone (obviously, they can't be trusted with leaving a message). Despite my telling her I was e-mailing the form, no one over there had actually checked for it. Sweeeet! She literally opened the e-mail and printed it while I was on the phone. I stressed to her that I was starting Clomid in two days and that the doctor MUST get this faxed over to The Bank by Friday (the next day) in order for me to be able to buy the sperm to insem for this cycle. She said she understood and would make sure to put it in front of the doc. Stressed, but at least I got through to everyone that I needed to speak to and all would be well. Then I got to the pharmacy to pick up the Clomid Rx after work. He ran my insurance card again and kept saying that it should be cheaper and he doesn't understand why it's not showing the discount. He goes back and forth with his supervisor and his computer screen, then finally turns to me and says the insurance declined and I'd have to pay the full charge of $47 and some change. Obviously, it's too late for me to do anything about it when I'm supposed to start taking it in two days, so I pay it. I'm pretty pissed though because my premium is going up in 2017, but I'm getting less coverage. What the hell is up with that? Grrrr....
Until Friday (CD5). Called The Bank and they still hadn't gotten the form from my doc. Called the gyno office at 10am sharp and was assured that the doc would get to it today. Called The Bank around 3:30pm (after both work babies were sleeping - their mum was working from home, so I literally took the baby monitor with me to the basement to make the call so I wouldn't be overheard). They STILL hadn't gotten the form from my gyno. What. The. Fuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhck????? And they could not ship without the doc's signature on that form. Called the gyno office. Guess what? The form is still sitting unsigned on the doc's desk and she's left early for the day. Oh, and she won't be back until Tuesday because their office is closed Monday for MLK Day. Now I'm freaking out on the phone because I'm about to start taking these Clomid pills that are gonna mess with my hormones and give me who knows what kind of side effects (as per the gyno's own orders) and it could all be for nothing because I may not even be able to get the fricking sperm! The receptionist asks me to ask The Bank if they'll take the form with just the doctor's info and her license stamp on it. Umm....prolly not. But what do I have to lose at this point. I call back The Bank. They'll accept the form to let me place the order, but I will need the completed form signed by the doctor before they will ship. By now, I'm looking at the baby monitor. I've already had to go back in and put the baby back down to sleep once and now the toddler is looking wide the fuck awake in her bed after barely sleeping. I'm still trying to deal with this mess that my gyno's office has left me with, and now I'm literally in tears. I just gave myself two minutes to pull myself together. I tell the toddler it's still naptime and she needs to lay back down (through the monitor). I call back the gyno's office. The receptionist says they've faxed the stamped-but-unsigned form over to The Bank. I tell her that that's a temporary measure and that the doc HAS to sign it and fax it over first thing when she arrives on Tuesday. I ask what time they open on Tuesday. 10am. I let her know that I will be calling at 10:01am and every half hour thereafter until I get confirmation that the deed is done. I thank her for "trying her best" and wish her a good weekend. Go back up from the basement to finish making dinner for the kids, and then bring the toddler down from her not-a-nap. A while later, the toddler and I go upstairs to wake the baby from her nap-in-three parts (her big sister's naptime shenanigans woke her up twice, but she settled herself back down (bless)). We run into the mum coming downstairs from her office. She gonna make cookies with the toddler before dinner. So I keep the toddler with me for baby wake up time while Mum gets all the cookie making stuff together downstairs (p.s. Despite my own personal naptime hell and the fact that she hadn't slept for more than 15 minutes, the toddler was super adorable: "Good job waking up, Baby!" I mean....seriously. Best job ever.). While we're all in the kitchen, I get a call from The Bank. My baby making plans are total secret at work because there are no guarantees in life and I'm not ready to put everyone on stand-by for something that may or may not happen in any specific time frame (I mean, if I'd been an open book about it when I first started, I'd have disclosed myself right out of a job and never moved to HK with my other work babies). So, obviously I couldn't take the call. I sent it to message. I checked the voicemail a minute later and MSB said that they got the stamped-but-unsigned form from the gyno and they could accept it to put the order through, but that I'd still need the signed, completed form before they could ship the spermcicles, and if I called her back in the next 30 minutes, she'd start processing the order (It was already nearly 6pm at this point, so thank God for the time difference between my location and The Bank). After prepping the cookie dough, Mum took the toddler down to the basement to play for a little bit (it's finished and has a play area with all her "other" toys...and a giant tv for watching Paw Patrol - a thing she only does with her parents because I don't hate myself). It was just me and the baby upstairs and the basement tv was loud enough that I took the chance and called MSB to set up the order. Because it was just the order process, I was able to be vague enough for discretion on my end of the line. (MSB: What donor? Me: #xyx. MSB: To ship Wednesday and arrive Thursday? Me: Mmmhmm. Yes.) Still figuring out some finances, but I ordered two vials to ship overnight on Wednesday for a grand total of $780. My mind still boggles at this bargain of bargains. And after I get a couple of transfers in from other accounts, I'm going to order another 2 vials while my donor's still on sale to keep in storage (they have the first three months of storage free, and then only $250 for a year after that). And I'm hoping to shift some things around so that I can order two more before January ends.
Got home Friday night and started typing up this blog....and that's when I realized that it was Friday the 13th! This explains so much about my day. Like, sooooooooooo much. LOL.
Wait, it gets better (like, really better, not sarcastically better). Remember how mad I was that my insurance had declined to cover my Clomid Rx? Yeah, I don't even know where the pharmacist got his info or what he was reading. Yes, it cost me almost $48 for my new Rx...BUT I compared the package for the 200mg Rx with the one I had at home already for 100mg. It's not higher dosage pills (like 100mg tabs instead of 50mg tabs), it's just MORE PILLS. So I have a pack of 10 50mg pills for 100mg daily dosage from my last go round. And I have this new Rx in a pack of 20 50mg pills for a 200mg daily dosage. It cost me twice as much because I was literally getting twice as many pills. AND right on the packaging label with the printed prescription instructions, it tells me the manufacturers cost, the cost I'm paying out of my pocket, and how much my insurance saved me. It's the same manufacturer's cost and insurance savings on both. I'm not paying more for meds. I'm just getting more meds. The US healthcare system is still a giant clusterfuck, but so far it's the same clusterfuck and not a worse one than it was a few months ago (Congress is working on screwing that up some more real soon though).
So....anyway. Here I am on CD6, starting my Clomid (the doc didn't say whether or not to take it all in one dose, so I've decided to take it twice a day in hopes of spreading out any possible side effects). Feeling good about my donor and my chances of getting knocked up this round (and good about actually getting the spermcicles shipped on time because I fully plan to call the gyno's office every half hour until it's done on Tuesday).
Now I'm just taking deep breaths and working on cleaning and decluttering my living/working space in an effort to help me clean and declutter my mind/spirit space. WoooSaaaaaahhhhh....
*Stay tuned...
