I knew this would happen

Yesterday I was checking S's insurance website to view our claims. The claims for the most recent round of testing came through and they were all denied. That's over $1400 of testing. Testing that the financial woman at the clinic stated she got approved. S called and she gave him the proper codes and is having him call the insurance company to follow up so hopefully it will get straightened out but I have a feeling we will end up having to pay it. It makes me so mad though because we were told it was approved. We might not have done the expensive tests if we had known they might not have been approved. It is just so frustrating. We have already paid close to $1000 for testing not including this current $1400 and we still are no closer to any answers or getting pregnant.

We also got the last of the test results in, all negative. So we have absolutely know idea why we are dealing with MFI. I just wish we had an answer! I hate that "sometimes these things just happen" is our reason for not being able to have children naturally. We still haven't been to the RE and honestly I am thinking of waiting a bit. I just can't take more bad news and I am to the point where I am no longer expecting any good news.

I am so down in the dumps today. I am ready for a vacation. I just need to get away from it all and stop thinking about it! August cannot come soon enough.

Another blogger award!

Here’s how it works:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave me this award. G at My Ramblings presented me with the award. Thanks so much!
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Award other bloggers (you determine who and how many)
4. Contact these blogs and tell them about the award

As I said with my last award, I don't follow many blogs and most of the ones I do already were nominated so I am only awarding this to one blogger: Jen at Discovering Joy in the Storm.

Now for 7 things about myself:

~I have severe social anxiety. I even have anxiety talking to family and friends. The only person I am 100% comfortable talking to is my husband, and I love him so much for that.
~I treat my dog like she is my child. I don't know what I will do once we have children, I worry about how that will effect her.
~I watched all 6 seasons of Lost during an 8 day stretch off work a few weeks ago :)
~All my life I wanted to be a doctor or a surgeon. The reason I am not is because of my first thing in this list
~I cannot sleep unless I am laying on my stomach, and I have to have an extremely flat pillow. I do not understand how people can sleep with more than one pillow or fluffy pillows.
~I used to be anorexic, though you could never tell by looking at me now. I went from one obsession (not eating at all) to the extreme opposite (compulsive overeating). I am currently trying to find some balance in my life. I have a very compulsive personality.
~I have never had a pedicure

Maybe we'll never know

We got more of S's blood test results back today. They were testing for chromosomal/genetic issues. The results were all normal. Which is great news, of course. We are still waiting for one more test to come back. However, this all has gotten me thinking, maybe we will never find an answer. S has hoped all this time that there will be a reason he has MFI that can be fixed. I have been less optimistic, as I tend to be pessimistic by nature. But as each and every test result comes back normal I am really starting to believe we will never know why this is happening.  As much as I didn't think we would be able to fix the problem, I was hoping for a reason to all this. Some sort of explanation as to why we have to go through all this. I just want to understand.

Our Dr is out of town for the rest of the week but we are hoping to get the rest of the results when he gets back. S also asked the nurse to have him set us up with the fertility clinic finally. I am ready to move on and truly find out what our options are.

People are stupid

This post is a vent, so take that as a warning.

I was at work last night and a fellow coworker and I were discussing our infertility treatments and plans. She also is dealing with MFI and is getting ready for her third IUI. We were discussing IUI and IVF. Another coworker was there with us and said "Can't you guys just have sex?"

Really?! So THAT is what we have been doing wrong. I had no freaking idea you had to have sex in order to get pregnant. We'll have to try that this month. I thought everyone paid around $20k just to have a baby. Who knew all we had to do was have sex. Or get drunk and have sex, which is what she did. I wanted to smack her across the face but just chose to ignore it since we were at work and just said that it doesn't work that way for some people. I hate people.

I need a freaking drink.

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