Loving my Insurance Company (at the moment)

Well, it was bound to happen at some point, given the sheer number of claims and dealings I have had with our insurance companies over the years. I am finally H.A.P.P.Y. with my insurance company for one brief singular reason.

For someone unknown reason (and although they are covering zilch of the actual invitro process), they have decided to cover ALL of my drugs and paraphenelia. (minus, of course, the appropriate co-pays).

I cannot tell you what a tremendous blessing this is. We were anticipating being out of pocket A LOT (I'll leave out the specific number - but if you've done this before, you know how ridiculously expensive it is just for the meds.) Well, and now, it's considerably less than that.

I heart Freedom Fertility Pharmacy. Seriously.

The woman who initially called to go over all my medicines was so incredibly patient with me, as I painstakingly had her spell out every single med she was giving me, dose, cost and all. Even though I know I will get a detailed list from the doctor when we have our "learn how to inject Meagan in the butt & stomach" consultation, I still wanted to have it in hand to do my proper research prior to that appointment (meaning "Google" everything on list and cross-check with webmd)

I know you all are shocked by that little admission..

Actually, I have a love/hate relationship with web.md. Whenever I am experiencing any type of weirdo illness or symptoms, I go to web.md and immediately am hit with some sort of terrible, debilitating diagnosis and so starts the paranoia - until I go to the dr. and he gives me the much less upsetting news of "acid reflux" or "gas". ha.

But actually, if you need to look up drugs, it's quite handy. As I am allergic to all sorts of meds as I have previously mentioned (and half the time, doctors and/or pharmacists don't seem to complete their due diligence in checking my patient records (no offense to anyone, but that has been a common experience for me), I have often taken to web.md to search for my prescribed medications and ensure that I won't be swelling up like the Michelin Man if I take an antiobiotic.

However, freedom.pharmacy beat me to it this time. They called this morning and told me they couldn't order one of my drugs because I could potentially be allergic to it. Sure enough, I looked it up and it's a tetracycline and a derivative of "Minocycline" -- which provided me one of the worst allergic reactions in recent history. We are talking n.a.s.t.y. I'll spare you the graphic details but I wouldn't go through that again, even to have a baby. That's how bad it was.

And now that I have completely bored all my readers (all 4 of you) this morning, without further ado, may I present the list o' meds that I will be injecting, swallowing, inserting, patching, or shoving in my body in the upcoming weeks. You can tell I am thrilled. Honestly, when she gave me the list, I was just blown away. My rather simple synopsis of the process in the previous post was pretty misguided. I knew I was simplifying it - but darn, I didn't know just how much this was all going to require.

As I told the pharmacist on the phone, I feel it was somewhat (ok, a lot) snarky for my fertility doc to only order one Valium to take on transfer day.

Because after getting this list and the retail price tag associated with it, it only seemed fair that they should immediately overnnight an extra Valium for me so I could recover from the shock. In fact, they probably shouldn't call you until you have the 2nd Valium in hand with a glass of water on the side.

And I believe that's why people become drug addicts.

That, and the fact that out of this entire list, the Valium tablet registered as the 2nd lowest in cost (only to be trumped by the ONE 800 mg Motrin) - and rang in at a whopping 95 cents. Pretty cheap to become addicted to I guess (relatively speaking) -- I'm not real up on the going price of illegal or legal drugs these days.

Oh, the list...here ya go... in no particular order.

1. 8 pre-filled Ganirelix syringes

2. 1 Gonal F 900 unit pen

3. 20 vials Menopur

4. 44 qty, 22-guage syringes

5. 2 qty , 1 1/2 27-guage needles

6. 20 tables Vibramycin (to be subbed for something that won't cause me to look like I have leprosy)

7. 1 vial HCG

8. 12 qty, 1/2" 27-guage needles

9. 3 vials progrestorone in ethylfoliate (50mg)

10. 30 qty, 1 1/2" 25-guage needles

11. 90 tablets F-Trace

12. 16 patches Vivelle

13. 16 tablets Medrol

14. 1 lone tablet of Valium

15. 1 measly Motrin (800 mg) tablet

16. 1 Sharps Disposal Biohazard needle/syringe drop box thingie so I don't accidentally injure any of our hardworking garbage men.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that b/c of the quantity of meds ordered, freedom is nice enough to "throw the needles in complimentary".

Which really is lovely of them.

Considering that drug addicts can find "needle exchange" programs and get clean needles to continue to inject illegal drugs into their collapsed veins, it really only seems right that I should get "complimentary" needles when we are just trying to ensure the family tree on our side doesn't completely collapse from the weight of infertility.

Happy Monday, y'all! I'll do my best to give you a non-infertility related post later this week. Outside of just calling an insane number of 1-800 numbers to talk to all sorts of reps from insurance companies, talking to my fertility nurse, crunching numbers in my online checkbook to figure out payment options, oh yeah, and working - these past couple of weeks have been really fun - I've just been lazy about writing the stories and uploading the pics. But they're coming.

B/c I even bored myself during this post. I'm so sorry you all were subjected to the infertility babble that sometimes takes over my mind when I go to write this blog. If you read this entire thing to even make it to the above apology - then good for you - and you must be a good friend :) (or you are my mother)