Tuesday, December 11, 2018

IVF #5

Back when I was a member of the web site/group Fertility Friend (GREAT site by the way) I remember seeing posts from a woman who had done 6 IVF cycles.  I found myself judging her and thinking things like, "Why would you do that to yourself?" and "Obviously something isn't working! Why keep trying?" Well...I get it now. I'm right there with her. I wish I could go apologize to her for thinking those things. I've officially begun IVF #5.

I started BCP's to suppress my ovaries (I've done Lupron in the past for this) 6 days ago. Hats off to all of you that routinely do hormonal birth control.  I HATE it.  The side effects for me are usually awful.  Granted, the only times I do BCP is for IVF cycles so my body never really has a chance to get used to it before stopping.  I will say that taking it at night has lessened the nausea but my boobs are now pretty sore and getting worse. I was told in the beginning that I'd only be on BCP's for 8-16 days.  Well, with Christmas it made sense to take them longer so I could line up appts for after the holiday.  Unfortunately, I'll be on them for 4 weeks (all active pills).

*sigh* My kidney infection came back 8 days since stopping my last round of antibiotics. NOT COOL. I'm now on stronger/longer antibiotics to kick it for good this time.  As much as I really try not to do antibiotics, I didn't see a way around it this time.  At least I'll be done with them before stimming.  I do blame the Metformin and have since stopped taking it.  I talked to my pharmacist and she confirmed that a "common" side effect (NOT rare like I had once believed) is infection that passes through urine.  My kidney hates me right now.

I'm concerned about egg quality issues, esp since stopping the Metformin.  I'm on Dr. B's supplements but is it enough? I'm just not sure. I was told Myo-Inositol (kind of like an OTC form of Metformin) could possible help.



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The latest drama:

I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where to get Follistim and Menopur at a "reasonable" cost. Reasonable is in quotation marks because seriously, fertility medicine isn't cheap or affordable. It's downright awful. I've actually started losing sleep over this and that's not really like me. I'm attempting for the first time ever, to try and have our base pharmacy special order the medicines. I *HAVE* been on these in the past (albeit, under different circumstances) and had Tricare pay for them so I'm hoping they will see that in their system and approve them.  I was told today it should only be another 2 days or so before I hear if they've been approved or denied.

I'm also looking at ordering them through from the UK. The problem with that is:

1. My clinic won't send the prescription overseas (I get it but still annoying)
2. Shipping time from the UK scares me, esp with all the holiday mail right now. It can take over 2 weeks and I don't have that much time.
3. The UK meds don't come with any of the needles so I'd have to get a prescription for them here-so they'll know I'm using a UK pharmacy-which they don't approve of.

The one MASSIVE advantage to using the UK pharmacy is the price difference. It's over a 50% savings and when we're talking thousands of dollars off, I want it to work out.

I need to let this go and wait out the next couple of days waiting to hear from the base pharmacy before deciding our next steps.

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Well, the base said no. I'm not surprised in the least. I've gone ahead and ordered medication from the UK. Ordering from there is saving us over $2500. That's a LOT of money!  Now, I don't think I'll be able to relax until they are in my hot little hand but my favorite Montgomery nurse calmed me down a lot this morning. She offered to help me in any way she can.  What a blessing to me! Her hubby just retired from active duty and she's done IVF several times in the past. She gets me! She's putting in an RX for needles and said they can spot me meds until my order comes in if it's late.  My heart might explode from gratitude and I told her as much. God's got this! Oh, what a great reminder for us all.

I'll keep you updated....