IF Testing & Treatment 4/25

mambo5-2

@optimistgardener insurance literally makes me want to rip my hair out about 10 times a day. 

optimistgardener

thank for all your sympathy on the insurance front. on the one hand, i feel like i shouldn't complain because i finally, for the first time in my life, have absolutely excellent insurance coverage. but on the other hand, it makes me mad that it is this hard. what if i weren't the kind of person to chase every last little thing down? what if i were intimidated by phone people who tell me i've done things wrong and i won't get coverage? i wonder how many people wind up not accessing the insurance coverage they are owed, just because it's confusing and intimidating. i really hate insurance so dang much.

anniemarie887

@optimistgardener I literally have those same thoughts every time I have to deal with some multi hour/phone call insurance debacle. 

optimistgardener

@kiki047 forgive me for not seeing your message earlier about how you're doing a lupron down reg protocol for fet. of course! i just have retrievals on the brain i guess. i really really hope this is your cycle. have you done the microdose lupron before? i know you've thrown the kitchen sink at it a couple of times, but i can't remember the specifics.

kiki047

@optimistgardener first of all, WTAF about the insurance debacle and your PCP. Ugghh I'm so sorry you had to deal with that crap at all, especially after your clinic was like "whoops, this shouldn't be your problem, we'll handle it" AFTER you spent all that time trying to coordinate everything. // I'm 100% good with adding benched as an option, it's distinctly different from TTA. // I've done microdose lupron as an agonist instead of cetrotide in my first 2 IVF cycles, but haven't used it in this context as of yet. We'll see how it goes. 

@tryingktogku I'm going to try to say this as gently as possible because I'm extremely triggered by your comment, but I don't think you can consider yourself "benched" for 90% of the last 16 months when you're 16 months post partum. That's a real slap in the face to the women here who are legitimately benched for medical reasons like testing HCG out of their system after a loss, or because of a cyst de-railing an IVF cycle, or because they're a SMBC and need IVF in order to conceive in the first place. I understand that you're here for the same reason as the rest of us because you have an infertility diagnosis and you're currently undergoing treatment, but you don't count TTC from the moment your last baby was born. That's not how this works. 

Edited to tone that down, but not by much. 

optimistgardener

@kiki047 thanks for what you've written. @tryingktogku i hope without sounding like I'm just piling on here, I want to insert a little note saying that i hear loud and clear what kiki is saying, and empathize with her. Spoilering to keep this as tidy as possible and because tw stuff re LC.

i understand that it can seem hard to know what might trigger someone else; our journeys are all really different and we each face hurdles that are entirely our own. still, the issue of time spent TTC is a particularly thorny one, since each failure and each loss, and each month spent watching the days tick by helplessly, represents so much piled up emotion (and for us DOR folks, an ominously ticking clock in our ear, chiming down the last few minutes of our reproductive potential). for that reason i think it is important to be really honest about time spent on our journeys. as kiki said, being benched is a status not applied lightly, which is part of why i think it is good that we're going to start including it as a distinct category for our check-ins. it is one thing to be 16m pp and 2 or 3 cycles into IF interventions, and another to be years into expensive and invasive procedures, traumatic losses, etc. i understand that being anovulatory sucks, and that untreated, it equates to being "benched," if and when you would otherwise be actively trying. but even if you felt ready to jump back in the ring let's say 6 months post-partum (which seems like sort of the bare minimum, but what do i know), the math here is 10 remaining months minus however many cycles your doc has actively been intervening w/ meds, and what's left is a bit more than half a year in which you were actively wishing to conceive but unable to do so because of an uncooperative body. that is an important distinction.

i want to reiterate that you should please feel welcome to participate in this thread. just a lil heads-up about your audience, i guess.

mambo5-2

I really hate when your period starts like late afternoon, is that CD 1? Is the next day CD 1? I will call the RE in the AM. 

inthewoods23

*lurking*
It may vary from clinic to clinic, but my RE said to call for our CD1 if it was before 4pm. Otherwise call the following day your CD1. No scientific reason. They just used that time because that's when the clinic closes.

optimistgardener

what @inthewoods23 said. my clinic arbitrarily says full bleeding after 8pm means start cd1 the next day.