Paid our cycle fees today. Yep, that's good fun. Here, take this chunk of plastic and just charge it. Watch that debt load increase instead of decrease.
Sigh.
One of the things that really burns my cookies about infertility is the cost. And I'm not talking about physical, emotional, mental or other costs. While they do certainly exist, they're bills that are much much easier to pay than the financial one we're saddled with.
My fertility drug coverage expired with our last cycle. That's right - a $9,000 lifetime max, gone.
Poof.
Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.
So now, everything, with the exception of estrace, is out of pocket.
And these pockets are looking mighty empty these days.
Adding Menopur to the mix really shook things up. All of the sudden, we needed to come up with an additional $750 - and that's if I only stim for 10 days and the doc doesn't want to increase my dosage at any time. I have no flippin clue what we'll do if we need to add more of the expensive stuff at the end - but at this stage of the game we're just going for it. We'll figure out how to make it work somehow.
Somehow.
I think I really took my coverage for granted with past cycles. I needed the meds? I went to Shoppers and picked them up. Who cared how much it cost? It was covered. Now, I have no coverage and all the extra stress that comes with trying to find the cash to pay for it all. Just what we IVF gals need - more stress!
Double sigh.
But for now I can rest knowing the cycle fee is paid, the consents are signed, the Gonal F's in my fridge, and I now know how to mix Menopur (which is very onerous and cumbersome - can't wait!). Another wild and exciting Monday, wouldn't you say?
Monday, August 17, 2009
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4 comments:
Yup, the cost totally sucks. Scares me actually every time I think of it and the cc bills that they go on.
At my FC, they don't give you your schedule or put you on BCP until you paid. Way to make you feel special...lol
Yup the cost is hard (and working with a surogate - add 70 grand to the total - so really expensive) but I just try to ignore the costs and keep looking at the end goal!
I thought it was interesting that Dr H is putting you on a little menopur too. I told him I'd had a feeling my LH was running too low during the crummy egg quality cycle #1, and wondered if not suppressing me and adding in some LH activity might help out. I don't know if he would have suggested that on his own, and I'd never had trouble on gonal-F injects/IUI cycles with super low LH, but I emailed him my ponderings after the cancelled cycle, and he ended up basically suggesting what I thought I needed for cycle #2. Only I was on 150 Gonal-F and 150 Menopur a day instead of the 187.5 Gonal-F I'd been on the first time around.
Are you going to go to http://www.glenshieldspharmacy.com/ for the meds? They gave one of Dr H's other patients the Gonal-F or Follistim or whatever she was using in 300IU amounts so that she could get more bang for her buck via the extra in each cartrige/pen. And that was despite the fact that he'd ordered at 900IU pen. Shoppers wouldn't have done that for me, I don't think. Plus no dispensing fee is a huge bonus. If I'd had less than 100% coverage last time around (alas, it's long gone now) and a car, I'd have been there in a flash to get my meds.
Hey Kate, interesting indeed about the menopur. I'm hoping that really makes a difference for me, helps with the maturity. I was on 267.5 of the Gonal F and now I drop to 225 plus the 75 Menopur. My biggest hope is that it doesn't make me need the orgalutran earlier, but we shall see.
Yep, I'm currently debating Glen Shields...I already have my Gonal F, it's just the other stuff I need and I don't necessarily know how MUCH I'll need. So I'm torn...
No Shoppers though...they're more expensive than my clinic.
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