follicle what?

Sad Saddy mcSadness. No mature follicles this month. About 3 or 4 little ones on the left, none on the right. This means no insemination...again. We're upping the clomid to 100 for next time. Who knows, maybe it didn't work at all last month and I just got lucky with a nice big follicle. That's what it seems like to me, so I'm just hoping upping the dose will be all it takes. If we get to try next month, it will probably be around solstice, which is cool.

Insurance...

Well, I'm happy to report that the insurance company has decided to pay for one follicle scan and one insemination per month. Well, at least they decided to pay for one of each last month. After talking to them on the phone, I thought it would be necessary to ask our doctor to submit another request for pre-authorization, and I also thought that it would be denied. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the doctor's office submitted a new request without any prompting from us, and apparently it was approved. Yay! Happy. We'll go in for our *free* follicle scan on wednesday. It should be too early to inseminate that day. Since we did get a positive OPK last month, we're going to wait for a positive this month and plan our insems around that, since it looks like we were early last month. If the pattern holds from last month, friday and saturday are likely to be the days. And the pattern is pretty likely to hold, seeing as it's drug induced anyway!

Preemptive Jealousy?

Well, again today I awoke at 5am to a doggie needing to go outside. Since my normal time for temping is 7:15, this is about the worst time for this to happen. It is too early to meaningfully adjust up, and too late to get 4 consecutive hours of sleep before waking for the day. Could it be that our wizard, genius dog is trying to sabotage our attempts at conception? I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it past him!

more clomid

So, today I start the clomid again. I'm a little nervous this time around because the side effects should start getting noticeable around Thursday, when I will have to attend a meeting in the Chicagoland area. This means I have to ride in a mini-van with 6 men for two hours in the morning (when I will be tired) and another 2 hours in the evening (when I will be tired again). Also, I have to actually attend the meeting, most of which I will be completely glazed over for, since I simply am not a hydrologist. Near the very end of this meeting, I will probably have to demo my program. Now, I'm still just now getting the program to the point where it won't have any glaringly obvoius bugs. Normally I could skip over this step and only demo things that I know work (this is the norm for in-progress demos, btw) but this time around I am meant to leave an installation disk so that they can experiment with the program. This means it basically has to be at least pre-release quality. Are you getting the picture at this point. I'm super stressed this week, the stress is only going to increase, and is going to culminate at the time of peak emotional side-effect from the clomid. I have never *ever* so looked forward to Friday. I took it off so that I can recover. At least that means three weeks in a row of partial work weeks since last week we had veteran's day off and next week is Thanksgiving. So, at least there's that :)

The Waiting is Over (for now) and Insurance Woes

Well, at least no more waiting...I'm definately not pregnant. :( I'm quite sad, but at least I'm not still in the clinging to every last hope stage, which is really hard for me. So, since we will be trying agin next month, I decided to call the insurance company about a letter they sent after our first visit to the doctor. Here is an excerpt:

Based upon the information provided on August 4, 2005, the documentation provided dies not indicate Ms. K has been unable to obtain or sustain a successful pregnancy through reasonable, less costly, medically appropriate infertility treatment for which coverage is available under their plan. Thus, based upon this medical review, it does not appear Ms. K is eligible for the infertility benefits acailable through the ---- plan provisions.

Ok, we were expecting it not to be covered, especially right at first. What I wasn't expecting was the subtle implication that fertility treatment would be covered, just not the treatment we chose. So, today I called the insurance company and talked to R who was very nice, although completely unhelpful. He said that my doctor also got a copy of the letter, and therefore I would have to ask him (although she's a she) about what other treatments would be medically appropriate. When I reiterated that the letter doesn't say what would be covered, he said that she would have to determine what other treatments were appropriate and send another request for predetermination of benefits. To clarify, I said "So basically, we just have to guess what might be covered and wait for someone to decide whether it will be covered or not?" And he said (and this is the good part) "Yes, basically" Ok, so, there are LOTS of things you *could* try to get pregnant. I can't think of many other options that would work for us. I guess I will ask about it at our next appointment, but I don't have high hopes. My best bet is that since I seem to not be ovulating on my own, they may be able to re-request benefits on that basis and perhaps then at least the follicle scans and clomid might be covered. It's worth a try, but I *hate* that they make you keep doing more paperwork over and over again instead of just telling you what's covered. I mean, I realize that they can't cover every possibility in a set of strictly followed rules, but how about some general guidelines?! Ugh!

the waiting game...

So, I should have gotten my period yesterday. I didn't. My temps are still in the ambiguous range, especially given that we don't really know what differences can be attributed to the clomid. Today, I see a little spotting and think my period has started. I almost never spot before starting. It's insanely heavy from day 1 usually. Again, could this be a weird unexpected effect of the clomid? Sure. Could it also be that I'm pregnant? Sure. Could it be the universe screwing with my head? Definately. So, more waiting then. Hopefully just until tomorrow.

uhh, Joe?

In case you haven't figured it out, the previous post was meant for another blog. In baby news, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm really trying to prepare myself for the inevitable arrival of the unmistakable negative.

Back in the swing...

We will be meeting Tomorrow at the usual time and place (see Meeting Info to the right).

and then...

OK, so yesterday's faint faint positive disappeared after the 10 minute read window. One would think that this should be ok, but no. Apparently this is a negative result. A repeat test this morning was also negative. gah! Well, we're still hopeful that it's just a bit too early still, so we will be testing again tomorrow morning (with a different brand of test). If I'm pregnant, I would think it would be positive tomorrow, but I don't think I will believe I'm not pregnant until I actually get my period.

world's faintest positive!!

I don't want to say too too much in case it turns out to be untrue, but we got the world's faintest positive today. I'm 10DPO and my period isn't expected for another 3 days, so faint is ok. I'm just really really excited!! :)

testing....

I woke up this morning and REALLY wanted to test. Don't ask me why. I hate testing early. It's always negative and it always makes me feel bad to see a negative, even if I know it's too early. I think it's going to take a lot more effort this time around to make it to the testing window. I'm totally convinced this is the month. Of course, I'll be totally convinced this isn't the month in an hour or so, and back to be convinced it is and hour or so after that, so obviously my gut is not an accurate predictor of anything at this point!

Nothing to do with ttc,pregnancy,birth,or parenting! :)

I'm sure I will regret this, but I'm going to try this.