An unconventional journey through assisted reproductive technology (and hopefully pregnancy and parenthood.)

About Me

My photo
They say 30's are the new 20's. My wife and I have been together for over a decade now. We both work in the fast paced world of academia. Our state (and recently all others across the country) have finally allowed all marriage so we made that happen October 2014.

I'm a pretty big nerd, I'll be the first to admit. I love video games (yes, as a girl and yes, at my age). I have lots of other nerd hobbies and since I was unceremoniously banned from RuneScape, I've been playing Civilization and Skyrim. My real first nerd love is Magic the Gathering. 10,000 cards and growing, but that's an expensive hobby when you have two babies.

I have other grown-up interests too, especially reading. I like reading so much I have 3 Kindles and I also used to be a martial artist (one belt away from black belt. I'll finish someday.)

But now I've got twins and I have a feeling a lot of those hobbies are going to change.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The Next Chapter

There's been a lot going on and I've been waiting to post until everything is settled. Which it is now, plus I've got some downtime since my students are taking state tests. And I figured out how to get around the Internet filter at work so I can actually access Blogger now. So here's what's going on now.

I've kept saying that as long as the doctor is willing to work with me and try different things, I'd keep going. Or at least until we go bankrupt. Originally I thought the doctor wanted to try something with the regular daily Lupron, but it turns out she wants to try something new with the monthly super-Lupron combined with something to way suppress estradiol. They submitted a prescription, which was promptly denied. I called to find out why since they paid for it before. They said they need a diagnosis code for authorization. Fine. I have the nurse send one, wait a couple of days and call again. They have no record of it.

Fuck. So I write the nurse again and she calls them while she's e-mailing me. She worked her magic and got them to approve it. You have to understand, this is the difference between a $700+ bill for three months and a $60 copay. The problem is that this didn't finally get sorted out until yesterday, which happened to be day 1 of my menses. And the shot needs to be given on days 3-5, but the closer to 3 the better. They are shipping it today overnight and I have to go tomorrow after work to get the shot.

That's what I've been dealing with the past few weeks. But it's happening again, finally. At this point I feel like it's a personal battle between my doctor and my uterus. Who will be victorious?

I'm not looking forward to the side effects again. Particularly the weight gain and the loss of horny. But it will be nice not to have a period all summer. Our pool opens next week.

And there's just a few more weeks until summer vacation, so it will be much easier to get to appointments and just nice to have some time off. It's been a very long and stressful year.

Oh, god news though. My lady will be starting a new chapter in her life this fall. She got her dream job! This will be great for both of us and will open a lot of doors financially for us. It's really exciting to be starting something new.


Monday, April 1, 2013

Latest News

We expected to hear from the doctor much sooner but didn't until today. Wasn't good news. The protein is still missing.

The nurse said that sometimes it still doesn't even appear even after six months of the super Lupron and we've done three. But the doctor wants to try something else next month. I'll call again with my period, which I just finished so about 3 weeks. Then I'll start regular daily Lupron again. I'm guessing another 2 week kit, but it could be more. In addition to that I'll be taking letrozole daily. I'm not sure but I think it's another injection.

I'm disappointed, of course. I don't even know what to think or feel otherwise. I feel like we're starting to run out of options and we're just grasping at straws now. But I've always told myself that if there was anything to try I would because I don't want to be left wondering "what if".

So I guess that's it for another month. If there are any doctors out there that want to study me or something, I have three months off starting in June...