Injectables

So yesterday I blogged a little about the emotional aspect of fertility treatments. Today I'm going to blog a little bit about the physical and financial situation we're in right now. If you're rolling your eyes thinking "can't you ever talk about anything else?" don't worry. This whole fertility treatements thing is a big part of my life right now, but it's not my entire life. I have lots of hilarious and akward teaching moments from the past two weeks to share with you this weekend.
There are many routes of treatment for couples who are unable to conceive, depending on what is preventing conception from taking place. Most infertility (like 40% or something like that, I think) is due to the woman not being able to ovulate. I fall into that category. As previously mentioned, my ovaries are in bad shape. The doctor actually used the words "brittle" and "hard" to describe them. Those are not good words to hear about your ovaries.
In my situation the first thing that most doctors will suggest is the Devil's drug, Clomid. Clomid is an estrogen blocker. It comes in pill form and basically it tells your brain to stop making estrogen. The theory is that if you stop making estrogen, you will start making FSH, then LH in larger and more regulated quantities. Side effects include hot flashes, massive weight gain, adult acne, and dimentia. I took the maximum legal dosage of Clomid 7 days a month for six months in 2007. I will never touch it again. Incidentally, if you don't have insurance it can also cost as much as $20 per pill (as many as 3 pills a day). Luckly, my insurance covered part of it. I only ended up spending like $250/mo.
My doctor does not recommend Clomid for me. Since I never appear to have responded to it, the next step most baby doctors will usually take is to prescribe a few rounds of injectables. That's where I'm at now.
This is much more hands-on than Clomid, though. First, the doctor gives you two weeks of birth control pills. The supposed purpose of these is to force your cycle to restart and put you back in neutral. Two weeks of pills is usually enough to do it. On Cycle Day 2 or 3 you start shooting up FSH subcutaneously. That is a very complicated procedure involving vials, powders, multiple needles, mixing, and stabbing. I have to take a mini class some time soon to learn how to do this.
After about a week-ish of doing that, I go in and have an ultrasound to see if I have any follicles that have been stimulated by the FSH. Depending on how successful the shots were, I may or may not be instructed to go home, give myself a shot of HCG to trigger ovulation, and do the baby dance. Maybe I'm preggers, maybe not.
If the FSH shots were not successful, or if they were TOO successful and I have way too many follicles to be safe, then we just cancel the whole thing, take pills again for 2 weeks, and start over.
Every step of this process is invasive, expensive, and a little bit painful. It's better than IVF, though. The doctor's visits, ultrasounds, lab work, and consultations are more or less covered by my insurance. Last time I went in, I only had to pay $250 for the visit. It could have been up to about $550. The super expensive part of this is the meds. I have two options- either pay full price and run up my INSANELY high deductible, after which they will pay 80% of the medication and 60% of the doctors bills OR take the pharmacy's discount plan and pay about 60% of the medication right now. It doesn't count towards my deductible that way though.
We picked the discount plan. I paid $550 for this month's medications. Otherwise, I would have had to pay over $900 for this month. I've heard that's pretty good, actually. I know multiple women who have spent in the tens of thousands over the course of a few months to get pregnant with injectables.
That, more than anything else, is why I've waited so long to do this. I feel so guilty paying that much money for a procedure that in any given month has less than a 20% chance of success. Luckily (or should I say hopefully?), though, injectables have about a 75% success rate after 6 months. I'm crossing my fingers that this takes the first few times around, just for the sake of my bank account.
This is pretty personal information to share, I know. But if you are contemplating doing this sort of thing, it's good to know up front how much it could cost. Plus, as I mentioned in my last post, I want to be as honest as possible about what I'm going through. Maybe it can help remove some of the stigma from the situation.
If you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to do this sort thing, again thank the Lord right now for your functioning reproductive tract. Feminine hygiene products and birth control aside, you are saving a LOT of money getting pregnant the old fashioned way.
As for me, I'm pretty okay with it, although obviously not super excited. Thanks to our financial windfall this June we have a bit of money in the bank to pay for these sorts of things, and thanks to my job I don't have to worry too much about scheduling in all the appointments. They give us 15 sick days a year, so hopefully (cross fingers) that will be enough to cover all of the appointments.
Hooray for science!