12 Things not to say to someone with infertility

You have no idea how many times I've heard most of these things! I know people truly mean well, but unless someone has walked in your shoes - they have NO idea. I usually take these with a grain of salt...but they truly do hurt when spoken. Just the other day my sister said to me "Some people are just not meant to have kids". That one stung like a bee and pissed me off so much.

12 Things not to say to someone with Infertility

LIT round 1 completed...

What a whirlwind weekend trip to Toronto! We got back late last night around 10pm and were exhausted! We woke up early Saturday morning around 4am and left the house around 5:30am. Toronto is about an 8 1/2 hr drive from where we live near Washington, DC. We made it to our airbnb place around 3ish and settled in. It was a very cute little place! Served us well during our stay!

Once we were settled in, I had reservations for dinner at 5:45pm in the CN Tower. What a disaster that was! Long story very short - we got to the top, I got sick and had a panic attack due to the height and revolving floor, and we left 5 minutes after we were seated. What a disaster. So that was a total bust (and pretty embarrassing too) but fortunately I have the best husband in the world and comforted me the entire time. He calmed me down and we ended up finding a nice restaurant/bar down the street from our place and ate there. It was more our speed anyway. The CN Tower was ridiculously expensive and I am sure you are paying moreso for the experience vs food. So I wasn't totally devastated about the whole situation. 

  The next day we bundled up (it was freezing up there) and decided to tour the town. Everything was within walking distance for us so we walked everywhere! It was cool to see the little shops and visit the local mall. Since it was sunday, many places were closed until like noon, so we missed a lot of things since we left early to walk around. We will note that for next time! But we did find this amazing place right on lake ontario called Amsterdam brewery and the food was amazing!! I had one of the best pizzas ever! So delicious! They brew their own beer, and I am not a beer drinker, but my husband says the beer was very good so I will just take his word for it. Below is me in front of Toronto's City Hall. The pool was frozen over! 

                                          

 After walking around much of the day sunday, a snowstorm was expected to start rolling in so we made it back home just in time for that to start up. We bundled up on the couch that evening and watched the season finale of The Walking Dead. What a great way to end a great day!! Perfect!

  The next morning we gathered all of our things and checked out of our airbnb. We headed up to the fertility clinic which was about 40 minutes north of Toronto. The clinic was very nice and clean, and everyone was super friendly. They withdrew 18 vials of blood from my husband to begin the procedure. After that, we had about 3 hrs to kill before I had to go back and have the white blood cells injected into my arms. So we went and got some breakfast, and drove around Markham, Ontario which consists of pretty much nothing. Haha. They just had residential areas and a small little strip mall. And of course, the hospital. So not much to do at all. After we killed our time, we headed back and I got my injections. OUCH. You get 4 injections in each arm and they feel like bee stings. Each one got worse and worse I felt. But the nurse did compliment that I was the "most laidback patient she'd ever had!" haha! I guess others scream, cry or squirm from the pain. I took it like a champ, even though inside I wanted to scream, cry and squirm. But my motto is, just get it over with...the more you interrupt, the longer it's going to take. So just suck it up and get it done. Here are my arms after! The swelling has gone down a lot, but man do they itch!

                                           

 The itching is supposed to get worse as well. Usually by day 3 you want to rip your skin off they say. Great. But you can't itch and you cannot use any medicine or creams to relieve the pain. I can apply a cool towel every now and then to help but thats it. She did say if it got unbearable I could take a benedryl. But I think I will just suck it up and deal with it, since I don't want to do anything to interfere with the treatment. 

  After the treatment was over, we got in the car and headed home. We got in around 10pm and I went straight to bed. I'm back at work today and I plan on relaxing for the rest of the week/weekend. My ass probably won't move from the couch much. haha! But since these next couple of weeks coming up are going to be so crazy, I don't feel guilty at all for being super lazy. I think my husband feels the same way! ;)

  Well, that's it. 1st treatment down....3 weeks we will be on to round 2. Hope this all works! Time will tell!

A positive post for once

Whenever I get on here I am either venting about something, or just received bad news. So this blog has really took a turn for the negative lately. And, yes the crap I am going through sucks no doubt...but I am not always in this negative state of mind. Which is why I decided to write a post when I am actually in a decent mood! haha!

  Things aren't really much different with me news wise. Only my amazing nurse Sarah is going to talk with my doctor about potentially administering the infusion and steroid treatments on me herself, instead of having to go through an infusion center. It would save me SO much money, since half the cost is for the nurse to come to your home and do it. She volunteered and is going to tell my doctor she really wants to do this for me as a courtesy. I really hope my doctor allows it, since they do not do that kind of thing at their office. I will know what she says later today.

  But even if she says no, it's really nice to know that someone on my medical team is batting for me. That's not just out to screw me, or take advantage of my time and money. So that really made me feel so comforted that I have someone like her that would do that for me to help me. There really are great people in this world, you just have to find them!! haha

 Anyway, we are heading to Canada this weekend. I am excited! I already booked dinner reservations in the CN Tower on our first night there. Should be really cool! I will post pictures of our trip! The procedure is on Monday the 4th. They only had an injection time for me at 2:30pm so that kinda sucks because we will be heading down back to Virginia right after the appt. So that will make for a very long day/night of driving. Fortunately my boss has been really cool about the whole thing and will let me take the next morning off if I need it.

  Speaking of my boss and nice gestures, my boss is giving me the time off to go to Canada for these procedures. Meaning - I do not have to use any of my personal days for this. How nice is that!? He knows my issues and has been very understanding with me. He's never questioned my constant doctor appts and blood draws. He's been really supportive and that's such a great thing, because with all of this mess, it really has caused me to take a lot of time from work. He has even allowed me to work overtime to help me financially. As much as I like to bitch about working, it's nice to work for people who are compassionate. I'm very lucky with that.

Anyway, like I said, today isn't bad. It's just a normal day, and most days are like this. I feel fine, (even though I started my period last night), but other than that...just another day. I wanted to post this so my readers don't think I am some manic depressed woman who is on the edge of destruction! Because I look back at some of my posts like, wow....I really was down and low that day. But most days are normal days. And most days I am fine, I am laughing, I am smiling and I just go on about my day. :)

I will try to get on here as well when I am in good spirits, vs only writing when something is wrong or I am sad. I don't want this to be the most depressing blog ever posted for people to read. That's definitely not my intentions here! Good days, bad days...we all have em! ;)

Another treatment shot down

I just received a call from the infusion center for the Intralipid and steroid infusions, and they told me that my insurance, once again, will not cover the treatments. The cost of the treatments cost $450 per treatment. Which isn't that bad considering how expensive the IVIg treatment was, but the problem is that I would want to do a trial run to make sure these work before I even try to conceive again. And then I would have to do more cycle I try to conceive. Unfortunately just starts adding up and I just don't roll like that financially. 

   I really don't know what to do here. I'm going further and further in debt on something I have no idea will even work. I'm just starting to lose hope. I need to figure out a good way to decompress my stress. Because that's not helping matters either. I'm just so over this whole thing, it's total bullshit. This has consumed me for the past year and a half now, and I see no end in sight and unless I just want to throw the towel in completely and just accept the fact that I just might not be a mom. That reality is starting to become all to real. 

Negative

Got some VERY great news today! My retest for HTLV came back negative!!!! FINALLY something going my way!!! What a relief! Man that was nerve racking!! Going a whole week and a 1/2 wondering if you have some weird virus! As if I needed that additional stress in my life!!

  But I am so happy to receive this news today! I sent the results to the Canadian clinic so hopefully we can reschedule the LIT appts and get this train back on track! I'm bummed we wasted this weekend for nothing since I literally could be having the procedure as I type. But it is what it is. Honestly, this past weekend, I did nothing. I vegged out and completely took the time to just unwind and relax. So it really was a nice chill weekend which is exactly what I needed.

 I guess everything happens for a reason - so maybe we just weren't supposed to go this past weekend. Who knows. Anyway, I will keep you posted on when I reschedule my appt!

Today is a good day! :)

***UPDATE***

I rescheduled my LIT appts. My first round will be on April 4th, and the second round will be April 25th. Once that is done I have to wait 3 weeks to retest the LAD and see if it worked. Fingers crossed!

LIT cancelled.

Unfortunately, my LIT appointment has been postponed until further notice. One of the required test results that I had to do for the procedure came back "indeterminate" for a particular virus HTLV. It means that I may or may not have this virus. Which, if I did, would be utterly insane. But I am thinking this has got to be just a mistake. I don't know anymore.

  Yesterday hit me like a ton of bricks. Everything I was hoping to try to get done that made me hopeful for my future, came crumbling down in an instant. My entire Canadian trip for this weekend has now been cancelled due to this. I go in to get retested tomorrow. If it comes back ok - I can proceed at least with the LIT. If not, well, looks like I'm up shits creek.

  Maybe this just isn't meant to be. Maybe it's just not in the cards for me. I am so tired. I am physically and emotionally drained. I don't think I have much gas left in my tank to continue this nightmare. I just feel like it doesn't end.

Insurance shmimshurance

I just got off the phone with my Blood specialist dr. who was to try and build a case for me to submit to my insurance to see if they will cover the IVIg treatments I need to help bring down my high TNF. Guess my results didn't provide much of a case because they just informed me that my insurance will not cover it.

  Warning: I am about to use a lot of curse words after this message.

Why the FUCK is it acceptable that insurance companies feel infertility is not a medical necessity!? I have serious fucking issues going on that can lead to a plethora of other serious medical issues beyond infertility - but throw that fucking word in the mix and it's an instant NOPE. Sorry bout your bad luck there, missy!

  So smokers and fucking people who ate krispy kreme donuts all of their life can get coverage for their poor health conditions after their poor life choices - but a woman who is trying to have a baby but can't because her body is being an asshole cannot?!? I simply do not get it!! I have 3 blood clotting factors!! I have a hyper-immune system that is being triggered by SOMETHING going on internally - that is also attacking my embryos! But nope - not important apparently!!

I fucking hate this stupid system. It doesn't give a shit about you. I put so much money out of my pay for insurance - and when I really need it - I'm denied!!! Fuck that shit.


end rant.

Ok I'm sorry I got a little foul mouthed there. I am just so irritated at this entire situation! I feel I cannot catch a friggen break here!! I'm about ready to throw in the damn towel and just go through life childless because I can't afford to treat my internal issues to have one.

Thanks a lot, health system! Assholes.