Delays and Insurance

"Breathe Breathe Breathe"

That's what I was telling myself when I got off the phone with my doctor yesterday afternoon. I went into the doctor's office that morning to have my mock transfer (and SHG) and blood work done. The blood work was being done to get the last requirement in for our IVF insurance approval. I didn't realize how big of a thing it was. More on that later...

The mock was fine. I will NEVER get used to having a speculum shoved up my vag. That's always the worse part. I asked the doctor to talk me through what he saw as he completed the mock/SHG. After everything was in place he showed me on the monitor what the catheter looked like (which was inside my ute at this point). That was pretty cool. Then I watched him fill my uterus with water (saline, whatever). That was very cool (yes I realize I'm a dork). The best part was that everything looked great! No polyps, perfect shape, no obstructions. My doctor even said "your uterus is beautiful!" Let me just say that never in a million years would I expect to hear that in my lifetime, but I did, and words can't describe the relief I felt. So all was well and I was sent on my way to enjoy the feeling of all that water leaking back out. Looooverly.

Oh, and not that the doctor was too concerned but I have a nice sized cyst on my left ovary. Why might you ask? No, I haven't been on any stims in about 2 months and it wasn't there when my last day 3 blood work was done. So why would I have one? Because my body likes to fvck with me thats why. Thankfully this time it doesn't seem as earth shattering since I'm already on the the pill and my date to start stims is still a few weeks out.

I didn't really expect to get a call in the afternoon because I already knew the results and because I'm on birth control. The next thing we need to do is get the consents signed (which we planned to do that morning but they did the mock 2 hours before I anticipated and J wasn't with me yet). Then I get to have my "pre-IVF" blood work done and start stims. Right?... WRONG!

My DOCTOR called around 5pm. I was leaving my weekly Friday afternoon meeting looking forward to my weekend. I picked up the phone and it totally didn't register "this means bad news" when my doctor himself was on the line to talk to me. He explained that the blood work I had done in the morning wasn't accepted by our insurance as day 3 blood work because I'm on the pill which meant that it was denied. I apparently didn't understand what he meant because when I pressed the issue of coming in for blood work because THEY said to and I'm NOT paying for that my doctor just said this "No, you don't understand, they didn't approve your IVF cycle." I think I managed to choke out "oh". He was on damage control and already had a plan. Hopefully this plan will work and my insurance company will accept this and approve the cycle. I'm pretty confident about that part. The part I'm not confident about is it not delaying anything.

So the plan is to discontinue the pill. Get AF and then go in for true day 3 blood work. Once the insurance company gets that and approves the cycle I'll go back on the pill. He said that we should be able to keep the same timeline because he doesn't think I'll have to do a full month of pills again. He'll just have me do a week (or whatever's left before the 25th) and start the cycle as scheduled. Phew... good plan. I didn't take the pill last night and hopefully AF will show up ASAP!

The wrench... and you should have seen it coming because there's ALWAYS a wrench. Remember that cyst we weren't so worried about that morning? Yeah well by going off the pill that means the cyst could grow instead of shrink. Which means that when I go back on the pill, there might not have enough time to shrink the stupid thing before I'm scheduled to start everything. Which could mean that I have to stay on the pill for longer and delay everything. That scares the crap out of me.

Now to most of the world (and that includes J) a couple of days/weeks delay isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But to me, it's earth shattering. This process has already been a good year longer than I anticipated it being. I want everything done NOW. I am not more of a patient person because of this process though if I would just learn some patience my sanity would certainly benefit from it. I can't help it. And now I can't help but think that our insurance won't approve things. If they had such a bullshit reason not to approve it this time, I'm sure they can come up with something else too. (I mean seriously... they have EVERY day 3 blood work record from EVERY period I've had for the past year-- why exactly is that not enough??)

So thats where we are. I'm waiting around for AF to show up and praying that this is only a week of pills I'm missing. I pray that there are no more delays and I pray that my insurance gets its act together and just accepts that I NEED this. Nothing else has/ or will work.