A weekend to remember and forget

This weekend I decided to celebrate my boys’ joint birthdays (2 and 40, respectively) with a pair of parties. One Saturday for family, one Sunday for friends during what was to be the Steelers 7th Super Bowl victory.

Saturday was great. Party great. Everything great until a call at midnight from my husband. On the way to the emergency room. He fell. During his league curling match. Yes, that shuffleboard-on-ice Olympic sport.

He dislocated his shoulder and was pretty sure he broke his knee.

The x-rays confirmed it.

A fractured patella.

His 19th fracture.

His first in 22 years.

And a wake up call to me. The girl who desperately wants a second child. Who was briefly thinking maybe we just play the odds and try naturally.

This is too painful. For him. And me.

And if we can prevent it, I don’t ever want my child to endure what he is.

He’s on crutches and in a brace that keeps his leg completely straight. He can’t yet drive. Pick up O. Go up and down stairs. Clean up. Cook. Put on his shoe. So it all falls to me. Which I get. But I can’t tell you how exhausted I am. I’ve yet to go to work this week as O woke up in the middle of the night with a 102 degree fever. When it rains it pours, so they say…

I am trying not to freak out about him not being able to work, his upcoming surgery and whether it will fix his knee, how we will pay bills, his six weeks of recovery, robbing a bank finding money to try IVF again, how much his accident scared me… You get the idea.

And I really am trying not to freak out about what I did to really piss off the universe.

That said, I look at my 2-year-old and am amazed by what a wonderful little man he is.

What a weekend we’ll always remember…

Thanks for nothing…

I was hoping for some good news today. Or maybe just a little hope.

Instead, I feel like I got a punch to the gut.

I am not quite sure where to begin.

Thanks to the number of embryos we’ve put back in (8) and the number of live births(1), Dr. G. suggests we do chromosomal screening. So we can do CCS with PGS, it is just the CCS we would do is PCR. I’ve yet to figure out all acronyms but it means we would test all 23 chromosomes for abnormalities, taking half of what they biposy for OI, the other for the CCS/PCR thing (they no longer do micro array or CGH).

Mind you, all I heard in my head was what a failure I was… He was talking about usually at day 5 we have 6 unaffected embryos but with our less-than-stellar success at pregnancy with healthy embryos that we might have 2, 1 or none to transfer doing the new testing.

Then he had to mention when we started this whole thing, who’d have thought we’d be talking chromosomal testing, we were just doing it for single-gene testing.

So at this point I am not only thinking what little odds of success he seems to be giving me but also that I am going to have to come up with $25,000 somehow to even try.

Apparently, PGD disqualifies me from EVERY clinical study. And insurance? My secondary insurance covers up to 15k . The billing gal explained to me what they can bill to insurance from the cycle. A whopping 3k.! (And I’d have to ditch my primary insurance for them to bill directly my primary…) Nothing done on the FLC side is covered. I can send it after its all said and done and out of pocket, but who knows what would be paid. So what is the point of insurance with coverage at CCRM? And we are still finishing off paying the shared-risk loan we have so getting another isn’t feasible to cover the costs…

As well, I loved them telling me that I will be grandfathered in but they don’t do single-gene testing transfers anymore. That’s right. The clinic we used to do the testing would do our transfer. If you start with CCRM now, you go to Chicago, where that lab/clinic is, for the transfer. Really? At least that is one good thing to come out of today, I don’t have to fly across the country for transfer and bed rest…

I am just speechless. I don’t know what to think or to feel.

Obviously my ranting shows that.

I was hoping to come out of there feeling positive moving forward. Now, I am left with more questions. More worries. And really not feeling that moving forward will result in the sibling we want for O.

What other option do we have though?

None. And that’s maybe what sucks the most.

 

Tissue please…

So I finally made my follow-up/what the hell/why me appointment with Dr. G today.

And I started to cry when talking to the receptionist when I said I needed a follow-up to a chemical pregnancy.

You’d think it’d be easier by now. And that all the hell I’ve gone before this would make easier. But it doesn’t.

So I am psyching myself up for Tuesday. Trying to come up with really good questions to ask. And getting all the waterworks out of the way.

I don’t know what to expect either. Before it always was try, try again, it’s just been bad luck. Now, it’s how much will this cost, is there a problem that I keep getting pregnant with bum embryos, what can we do, what should we do, why us?

Let’s hope Tuesday gives me more hope and more answers.

 

Figuring it out…

So I got the dreaded/anticipated follow-up call from Dr. G. I tried very hard not to cry but frankly I couldn’t keep it in. He was very patient and understanding considering.

So he wants us to come in and talk. I think we will do it after the new year. I am not sure how we can afford a fresh IVF but I just can’t give up. At least not yet. I still have Powerball/robbing a bank or two hopes…

I did ask about protocol for this potential IVF and throwing in chromosomal testing. He said it wasn’t unreasonable to do it thanks to my hell of ectopic, blighted ovum and chemical. And he said that we could do the chromosomal as well as PGD. I thought it was one or the other, so we will have to clarify that… But it would be the fresh cycle and then the embies would be frozen and then thawed. He said the new way of freezing results in a 98 percent thaw rate, far better than what our embies were frozen at.

So I do have little embers of hope burning. How we accomplish this, I have yet to figure it out. But knowledge is half the battle right?

Until then, I am trying to enjoy the holidays and be thankful for what I do have. Which is a lot. I just need to remember that more often…

Officially over…

I got the call earlier today from my nurse, my levels fell to 1.1. So, officially, it’s over. I am thankful that i don’t have to be in beta hell but there was just that tiny bit of hope still in me that it was just late late implantation.

My nurse mentioned that Dr. G likely will give me a call Monday. I’m not sure what he can say that he hasn’t before but…

This just sucks.