Something to Think About

Yesterday Brian and I went to our follow up appointment with our RE. I had already played in my mind how it was going to go down. I imagined him saying something like this, "Your eggs are rotten. Either move on to donor eggs or get on with your life". Imagine my surprise when the conversation didn't play out like that.

Instead, he said that he was very pleased with my cycle up through retrieval. I responded better than he thought I would and there were more follicles than he thought. Also, each follicle retrieved had an egg in it, which just amazed him. However, since not all of the eggs were mature he thinks I could have gone another day on stims. Most importantly, he was quick to point out that my eggs aren't necessarily rotten. I've still got some good stuff to work with. Apparently, it went well enough that he thinks it warrants considering trying it again.

Of course he did talk about using donor eggs. However, that (at $50,000) is so seriously not a viable option for us, I don't care what kind of financing options there are!

But back to my eggos. There are a few tweaks to the protocol that he can do to shoot for an even better number of mature eggs. He was quick to point out that if an any point it looked like the response wouldn't be as good as last time he would cancel the cycle and convert us to an IUI.

After we were this far into the conversation we mentioned our insurance changes taking place in January. Which means, he told us all of the above before knowing that there might actually be a financial way we could work this out. That makes me feel better. However, our doctor is not on our insurance company's list. So, he is having his office manager work on Brian's insurance company including our doctor.

Oh, and the fact that coverage doesn't kick in until January? No problem, my doctor wants to give my slovaries a chance to rest and recover and wouldn't want to start anything until about then anyhow.

You may recall that I said, once upon a time, that this whole IVF thing wasn't so bad. That it was, in fact, not as hard as I expected and that if not for rotten eggs and $18,000 I could do it over and over again. (Mind you, this was before I lived the week and a half it has been since my negative beta.) So here we are, money won't be as much of an issue. And rotten eggs may not be much of an issue either. So where does that leave me? With considering another ride on the IVF roller coaster.

I say considering because the doctor gives me hope, yet the past week and a half gives me great fear. Fear that next time it will be even worse after a negative beta. When all hope truly is lost.

Luckily a decision does not need to be made today, or even tomorrow, or next week. We have time to mull it over and think about just how far we want to push. But it does make me wonder . . . a few days ago I saw our impending insurance coverage as added insult to injury. And now it is starting to look like the makings of a second chance. A last chance. The question will be whether I have the courage to take it.