Friday, September 30, 2011

Class is in Session



At the moment, I am verklempt. Yup, verklempt. Apparently, I speak Yiddish during overwhelming times such as this. The box I have been waiting for has arrived today...the medicines! The pic includes all the meds I will be taking in the next month. Yes, all this in ONE month. Yikes. (I blurred out some of it so my address couldn't be seen bc you never know about creepers!)
I had the IVF class last week. I met with 2 RN's and went over all the meds I'd be taking, when to take them and how they will be given. I have a sheet of paper filled with all the instructions. Both of the nurses have been through infertility treatments (or at least they said they were), and this was oddly comforting. Although I don't like to be ignored, I also don't enjoy pity parties. These women were receptive, informative, encouraging and eased the worries I had and made the copious amount of information comprehensible. I honestly think it helped that they had been in my shoes before. Because I can't seem to enter a doctor's office without taking off my pants or being stuck by a needle these days, of course I had a lab draw while I was there. The meeting made me feel competent about the next month's activities.
Shortly after my meeting, I got in contact with the specialty pharmacy the clinic uses. You have to use a specialty pharmacy because your neighborhood Walgreen's won't be stocked with these meds. They overnight the meds to your house (how convenient!) so this gives you enough time to scrape yourself off the ceiling after they tell you the total cost of the medicines. We had leftover HMG injections from our previous cycles, so this saved quite a bit of cash. Despite this "savings" we still dropped over $1,800 for the rest of the medicines. You heard me right. Yowza. I think we're lucky(?), because our insurance paid for a portion of all the meds with the exception of the Follistim. The Follistim came in at a staggering $1671! Ah!! Talk about sticker shock...
Anyway, the meds have arrived. A nurse called me today from the pharmacy and went over each of the meds, side effects, etc. This was a nice touch. The main side effect for each of the drugs is "emotional instability." She warned me I may have frequent mood swings. Oh boy. I am seriously considering locking myself in our bedroom for a few weeks. I've been on meds before that have made me "emotionally unstable" and it was a harrowing experience to say the least (Poor Collin). I need a cocktail, but since I'm quitting cocktails (and caffeine) I can't even find solace in a brandy old fashion.
All of this makes me feel guilty. It's not fair to put Collin through this...I dislike that his wife has a wonky uterus. I wish there was something I could do. Life is just not freaking fair. I could think of a lot of things to do with $1800 and none of them include shoving needles into myself.
Anyway, the countdown has begun. 8 days until we officially start our first (and hopefully last) IVF cycle!

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