Getting Started...A Rough Ride

So it's been a couple days since my first post.  Some days are harder to talk about things than others.  Some days I feel like letting everything all out and others I don't want to talk to one soul about it.  Already though the blog has helped so much.  To see the support that we have all around us really does go so far.  Words can't even describe the joy and peace I received when I saw all the people rooting us on.  It definitely is a push to keep going and carries me through the hard times.

January came along and I had expressed a lot of my terrible feelings with Bailey.  I could tell that the thought of a child was hard for him also.  I mean really, who is it not hard for? This is a huge life change!  I could tell that he was stressed with work and worried, as all men are, that he would be able to provide.  He had just started hauling water for my dad who had a leaser truck to a company called RNI in the oilfields.  Many of you might know that the oilfields can be booming one second and down the next.  It's hard to think of taking such a big step when we weren't even positive that all this would last even another month.  It is so hard to take the step of IVF.  There is so much unknown, there are always the what-if's and then the thought if we were actually ready to take such a huge step.  It is super hard to make such a huge decision that really, we could put off as long as we wanted. So through many hard discussions we felt like we just needed to do it, almost like it was forceful.  Sounds terrible I know.  But we knew that if we just kept waiting and waiting that it was too easy to put off.  So with the thought of it really happening I became more excited and felt like it was the right thing to do. The Fertility Center told us both that as soon as my cycle starts that I needed to call and report it.  So I called and was sent to some answering machine.  I never heard a call back....not all weekend.  I was freaking out.  Boiling mad.  We had made up our minds, decided to do this, and now I am thinking that I am going to have to wait another month.  Well the following week I called again and no one knows how the message was missed or even where it was sent.  But I talked with my nurse and everything was going to be OK. As directed, I started taking birth control pills and a prenatal vitamin and was to take them every day.  It was important not to forget, not even once or that would mess everything up and we had to start over.  At first I was so confused as to why I was on birth control pills but later found out that it was so they would know exactly when I would be ovulating and such.  Timing with all of this was key. We showed up at our appt to see how everything looked.  We first did our financial consult.  We met with a lady to get all of it settled.  It was then, in that meeting, that we were told there actually was NOT a payment plan.  There were infertility programs that you could do payments through but of course they were not through the FC and had certain things that threw us off, such as, you get 3 tries of IVF and then a discount on all 3.  We still have hopes of miracles happening.  You know, the ones where you hear from people who after they adopt they miraculously have their own child.  So my heart sank when she told us there was no payment plan.  That the $8,000 was due up front at our Baseline appointment which was in about two and a half weeks.  Not only that but there would be medications that would be between $2,000-$6,000 and other things such as blood work and anesthesia. I looked at Bailey, tears filling my eyes.  He looked at the secretary and told her that there was no way then that we would be able to do it this time.  She left to go look at the Dr's notes from our first appt to see if he had said anything about a pymt plan.  She came back to tell us she couldn't find anything.  My heart was broke.  Once again I thought I was going to be getting pregnant and was going to have to put it off, for who knows how long.  I sobbed, embarrassingly, as she awkwardly apologized.  We still had other things to do at the appt other than our financial consult. So we somberly left to go get an ultrasound in another room.  All of my ultrasounds were done vaginally so that was definitely something that I got use to.  During the ultrasound the nurse told me that my uterus looked beautiful.  Um...I never thought that being told that would make me feel so good!  I was healthy and everything looked great. After the ultrasound we were to go meet with our IVF nurse who would help us through every step of the way.  Once dressed she stepped in the room and told us she heard that we wouldn't be doing the February transfer.  Through tears we told her that we had understood that there was a payment plan and that we just couldn't afford to pay that much money upfront.  We said we could get a loan but then we would obviously have to get another loan through somewhere else for the medication.  We didn't want to have several loans all in different places.  She then asked, "What if I could get all your medications for $1500?" She told us about a program we could apply for that would give us two medications for free and then how we could get a bunch of samples.  Bailey said that we could of course do that, that $1500 was something we could pay upfront and then get a loan for the IVF.  My heart lept and I felt overwhelmingly humbled.  Yet this day was seriously sending me on an insane emotional roller coaster.  So once again we were on track for the February transfer.