Approved!

That is all.

Revving up -- or rather, revving down

We're underway! Prescriptions have been ordered; the doctor's office will get the pre-approval from the insurance company; and my first appointment (suppression check and payment) is July 13. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes more smoothly this time around. I'll start the birth control pills for suppression this Thursday. And if I'm properly suppressed (no follicles, no cysts), we're looking at the last week of July for retrieval and transfer.

I've finally made contact with the insurance company. No results yet, and probably not for another couple of weeks. But I have a human being with a name who answers the phone, so that's progress. And the doctor's office is being reasonably patient.

The waiting game

The official letter of complaint went in the mail to the insurance company yesterday, in the hope that they might agree to pay some of the outstanding charges. I've been fortunate; this is the first big medical situation I've had to deal with. I guess this is just the way they do business; right? They deny, deny, deny, then only pay after you put up a fight. The gamble is that most of us won't fight. Silly me, I thought the business model was about pooling risk so that we got the coverage we paid for. Some people pay in and need little care, taking out less than they've put in. And some of us, pay in and take out more than our share. But I left out the profit-making piece.

I know, I know that I should be grateful that the insurance covers any of it. The meds alone were a huge chunk that we didn't pay for. But the frustration stems from the fact that I am paying the entire premium out of pocket. That $9000 would nearly have covered a complete IVF cycle without any of this hassle. So now it feels like I am double-paying.

I'm also waiting for my cycle to rev up again. More than once over the last month I've thought we were just about ready. But I've been temping and using OPKs in vain ... no sign of ovulation, much less my period. If nothing's happened by the end of next week, I'll put a call in to the doc, and see if they'll do an ultrasound and bloodwork to figure out what's happening in there.

In the meantime, the pool is open, and I am going swimming this morning!