Time to fork over the cash

We got our first bill from the urologist this week. First of many, since everything we have done so far has been denied by his insurance. I know all this testing is necessary but I almost want to just skip it and go straight to IVF. I feel like there is going to be nothing we can do to change our diagnosis so why bother? I guess I am just being pessimistic. Maybe they will find something that is fixable and we won't have to go through IVF. I refuse to get my hopes up. Even though no one has officially said it yet, I am currently believing that IVF will be our only option. S seems to be still holding out hope that they will find an answer for us. He had more testing done today. The financial worker at Dr M's office called and said they cleared it with his insurance, but I am still worried about it because I know they are expensive tests. We won't have the results for a while because they need to be sent out to a different lab.

In other news, we are planning a mini vacation to Vegas this summer! We plan to wait until after that to pursue IVF so we can both fully enjoy it. One last good time before we are completely broke. It also gives me 5 more months to lose weight before then, in addition to the 15 pounds I have lost so far. Its nice to have something to look forward to for once.

Blogger Award

I got my first award! From Jen at Discovering Joy in the Storm. She is a fellow blogger dealing with MFI. Here is how the award works:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 other bloggers.

4. Contact the bloggers and tell them about the award.

Seven (random) things about me....
~ I've never broken a bone, had a surgery or even a single stitch, and never been admitted to the hospital as a patient
~ I hate talking on the phone and will avoid it if at all possible
~ I feel like the area of nursing I am currently in is causing me to lose a lot of the skills I learned in college
~ I am an extremely picky eater, and hate things normal people love such as pizza
~ I have nightmares or bad dreams pretty much every time I fall asleep and wish there was a pill or something I could take to keep from dreaming
~ I love to play instruments and have played the piano, drums, flute, clarinet, saxophone, and trumpet. I also love to sing and had a scholarship in college for the choir
~ I am obsessed with the TV show Vampire Diaries

I am new to the blogging world so I don't know 15 blogs to give this award to, but here are the ones I do try to keep up with:
~  My Ramblings
~  Is it my turn yet?
~ Their Bun, My Oven
~ Trying to get a bun in my oven
~ The Glamorous World of IVF
~ The Gameplan: How to Make a Baby
~ Hoping for a Baby4678

Color me surprised

S got a call from the urologist today, turns out his insurance will cover the blood tests they want to do! They haven't covered any of his testing so far so I am shocked. The tests they want to do are pricey so we probably wouldn't have been able to afford them otherwise. Finally a good piece of news for once! Apparently they are sending the information in the mail and once we get it S will go in for the test.

We are still waiting to see if they will cover the other tests they want to run on his SA and waiting to hear about our referral to the RE.  Hopefully we hear back about those things soon!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my amazing husband! He has been my rock through this all and I don't know what I would do without him. I love him so much!

Defeated

Yesterday we had the follow up with the urologist. He basically confirmed what we had already figured, the SA results were bad again. There is one more test they want to run but first they are trying to deal with our insurance to see if they will pay for it. We are pretty sure that they will not pay. Dr M is also referring us to the fertility clinic in town (MIF). Once we hear back from them we will set up our initial appointment. He also suggested we see the only urologist in the state who specializes in male factor infertility. The only problem is that this urologist is 2 hours away and I'm not sure its possible for us to get there with our work schedules.

I am hoping we get some better news when we meet with the Dr at MIF. Dr M did not seem very optimistic for us. I ended up losing it in the office, and that made S cry as well. The poor Dr had to comfort us. This is all just so difficult and overwhelming. I would love some good news or some glimmer of hope for once. This whole thing is making me feel so defeated. Why is something that people do every day so freaking difficult for us? What did we do to deserve this?

Dr M brought up the subject of donor sperm. This is something I've been avoiding talking about. I am honestly not sure how I feel about it and S isn't really sure about it either. I am hoping it ends up being something we don't have to consider, but we may have to eventually. S said if we had to he would want one of the men in his family donate. I honestly feel weird about that. I personally would rather have an anonymous donor. I feel like if it is someone we know we will always have that reminder. Plus, if we use a random donor, no one ever has to know. Hopefully if it ever comes down to that S and I can come to an agreement.

No news is bad news

The nurse from the urologist office finally called us back. She would not give us the specific results but simply said everything is low. Now we need to meet with Dr M again on Friday to figure out where to go from here. S said he just wants to move on to IVF and stop with all the testing and waiting. I would love to do this but I really want to lose weight before we do IVF. I'd like to lose 50 pounds and so far am down 13 pounds. Obviously we will have to see what Dr M says but I feel like we might as well try whatever he suggests to get better numbers in the meantime while I am losing the weight. After our appointment on Friday I will probably give the RE a call and set up an initial consultation with them. This sucks. We were both hoping the original SA results were a fluke, even though we knew the odds of that were small.

In addition to that, I hurt my back yesterday. No exercise for me for a few days and I had to take 2 nights off work. I currently have no PTO so that is two days unpaid. Which really sucks because we need to start saving money for IVF. On the plus side, I get to be on Vicodin which is lovely :) lol

Frustrated!

S had his repeat SA two weeks ago and we have not heard back with the results. We have called 3 times now and not received a call back. This is so frustrating! We can't do anything but wait. We had the results from the first SA my ob-gyn did in 2 days.  This one went to the same lab so the results should be in. The urologist just hasn't called us back. I had been pretty impressed with them so far but now I am just ticked off.