Sometimes you just want to scream

That was me yesterday, I wanted to scream and hit something hard.

I am not a violent person, but yesterday hopped up on hormones, I surely felt as though I could get physically violent with someone if I continued to get the run around.

I was trying to get my medicine ordered for this cycle of IVF. We had some left over from the last cycle and thank god we did. My insurance covers the meds (I am not complaining about the fact they cover it, I am grateful) however, their procedures to get it approved and shipped leaves something to be desired.

When I went to the RE's office to get the baseline blood work and ultrasound showing things were a go, they sent the information to my insurance to get their approval for the cycle. Okay, kind of annoying, but not a huge deal. However, they have to approve it and then send it to the specialty pharmacy for them to get it in the system to then set up a delivery of the medications. This shipping is done overnight due to one of the meds having to be refrigerated. BUT - the issue comes that the day you go in for the blood work and ultrasound, you need to start the shots THAT night and the earliest you can get your meds if the system is working at its finest is the day after the RE visit. Why doesn't this system coordinate with the cycle set ups????? This is the million dollar question.

So, yesterday being 2 days after my appt with the RE, I still had not heard from the pharmacy about setting up delivery and was getting awfully close with one of the medicines to running out. So I called them to get a status update. They say that RE's office needed to send them a particular form that was not included with all the other papers before they could set up shipment. Called the RE's office and they sent it right away. 2 hours later, I call back to the pharmacy and am told the same thing, still waiting for the form in order to get through the approval process. I started to freak out because I cannot start and stop this medication on a whim. We tried to see if we could get it locally, as long as insurance would approval an override since they were not going to be able to ship it for me to have it before the medication would run out. The specialty pharmacy finally had all the approval, but it was past the time for me to get shipment the next day and there wasn't anything they could do about it. I was really ready to lose my mind and was struggling to make sentences because my hormone-filled self was seeing bright red. I was having to work very hard to maintain my composure and I was just completely defeated with the whole process. Really, I just wanted to cry.

Needless to say it took 6 more phone calls after that to the insurance and RE's office before they magically resolved the problem. Even though I was told I was being "rude" to their customer service person who was just following their procedures and that their hands were tied due to those procedures. Well a total of 8 phone calls to the insurance pharmacy and 5 calls to the RE's office would cause anyone to be frustrated with the situation. Let's add several days of hard-core hormones to the situation and then you may be close to where I was at that moment.

Oh, and while all of this is going on - our dishwasher decides that time is the perfect time to not drain and back up.

When it rains, it pours.

While our area which is currently in a severe drought needs rain, this is not what I would have wanted it to be in terms of a downpour.

The meds were here this morning and we are set for the rest of this cycle and man do I hope it works so I do not have to go through all this again with this stupid pharmacy. They are too much hassle! This process is very complicated as it, why add insult to injury and make something more difficult than it needs to be???

I have another appointment on Saturday morning to do an update to the follicles and I really hope they are growing large and in charge so we can get through the retrieval as soon as possible.

Some people make me angry with all of this. Ignorance is not an excuse to be hurtful.

I received this as a response to a post I had on Facebook about the medication costs before insurance:

Have you thought about going to a new specialist. No offense, but if they haven't helped you, do you think the more expensive drug will benefit you, simply because it cost more? I am sorry If this is crass, but I feel for you and worry about the effects of said drug. I hope something will give for you two. Mother nature works itself out. My thoughts are with you!

My angry response:

My meds are only $75 a piece with insurance. There are not many drugs that do what they need to do and some of them are actually more expensive than those. I am friends with people around the country and they are paying more than those costs for the same medications and are having to do it without insurance helping them out. The meds are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in the protocol for IVF - there is not a magic cure to make the embryos implant and there is not a medicine to take to make that happen. These meds are carefully monitored to see how they are affecting the growth of the eggs to make them grow without growing too quickly which can cause permanent damage. My specialist and the other 5 in her practice are amazing, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. We are fortunate that my health insurance covers over 90% of the procedures and that I am only paying $75 of a $1900 medication. Some women I know have paid over $20,000 for the procedures themselves and nearly $4,000 for the medications.

As for mother nature working itself out, that's not going to happen. I have undergone more testing than I care to think about over the course of the last 6 years and on our own, we have less than a 1% chance of conceiving on our own. And the 1% is a high estimate to the situation. We cannot just wait for mother nature to take over and handle this because it is not probable to happen that way. These doctor's have given up a 56% chance of conceiving which is nationally the best average for someone in my situation - 1% to 56%, I will take those odds. 

Make sure you have the facts people, please before saying something. If you don't know - ask. Don't assume you know anything unless you have asked or experienced it yourself. 

Now, I really want to scream...