New Beginnings

Our first appointment at the new IF clinic was at 9am, with an 8:45am check-in, and bringing children is somewhat frowned-upon, (understandably!) So rather than waking up before the sun and then waking up the sprout to drop her off at Grandma's, we opted to spend the night at my mom's house and just wake her up before leaving. So naturally, Little Z refused to fall asleep before midnight. Argh. And woke me up. A lot. All. Night. So we opted to leave without waking her and hope for the best, since chances were good that she'd sleep until 10 or 10:30, and we should be back by then.
We met with the doctor, who I liked, and she kept asking if we have any questions. Like what? We've done this before. And I'm normally just waking up around now, so I need a little help jump-starting my brain here, lady. She suggests that we can do an ultrasound today, and some genetic testing and the FDA-required bloodwork for IVF (Hepatitis tests and such.) Wow! Moving things right along! Love it already!
She checked out my uterine lining, since I have been a little concerned due to my relatively light periods since my polypectomy a year ago. Looks good. She checks out my ovaries to see if I have been ovulating (looks like I have) and how many eggies are in the works (3-4 on the left, 4-5 on the right.) She says they wouldn't recommend IVF if the numbers had been lower than 5 total, so we're good. Whoop! And since we aren't going to fart around with Clomid or Femara and timed intercourse, or IUIs and other stuff, she says we can start with my next cycle! Holy crap, that's fast! They bang out a preliminary calendar, based on a projected cycle start of Feb 15, in a little over a week.
Start BCP on Day 4, 4 weeks of BCP before suppression check, 2 days after that, start injectibles! We could be doing an egg retrieval as soon as 7-8 weeks from now! FROM NOW! Part of me is super excited to finally be proactive again. And part of me is resistant, because it's all happening so fast! And yet a third part of me is frantic that we get this done, and that it's successful, since we don't know how long we'll have this IVF-coverage insurance plan, since they've been laying off a bunch of my husband's department.
After talking to the doctor and being whisked in to get an ultrasound, we wait for our blood draws before talking to our personal nurse (we get 2 actually, since they job-share. But they are the ones who will be contacting me and answering any questions. Which is a large part of why I chose to switch to this clinic. Already more personal service!)
My one concern is that this clinic only has a 2-week protocol with the medications, and my previous clinic had done a 4-week protocol. And I hadn't been developing as expected, so my dose stayed high. Hopefully this clinic will stay open-minded about trying it, if things aren't looking good.
Since the U/S and bloodwork has made us stay later than expected, and my mom has an appointment of her own at 11, we have them take my husband's blood sample first, then he goes to pick up Z, so my mom can leave. Then he comes back for me. So I get my blood draw, talk to the nurse and get a preliminary calendar, and such, then I'm told that they need another blood draw, since they didn't take enough for all the tests. Urk.
Then off to the financial counselor, who tells me that infertility isn;t covered on my insurance, and that my projected out-of-pocket will be around $15,000. Whoa, hold up, lady! I would have bee panicking here, except that I personally called my insurance, even though my husband already had, just to be clear on my coverage. So I told the financial counselor that my insurance does cover infertility, but that ours is the only plan they have that does. Ah. She looks at my actual file and sees that they, to, called and verified my coverage, and rattles off the same information I got, about it being covered at 80% after my $200 deductible. Whew! So then I ask her about the IVF coverage, since all the insurance could tell me was it's covered if I "can't get pregnant by other means." So I ask her if they'll be calling to get a prior authorization or whatever, since I don't want to be scheduling IVF appointments if the insurance is going to want me trying something else I haven't done yet first.
Apparently, they can't be bothered to call for me to find out. She says that since IVF is covered, it doesn't need a prior authorization. I don't know about you, but if something is only covered under certain conditions, that's usually what a prior auth is for. To determine that those conditions have been met. Argh.

So I call my insurance after I get home, to talk to the PA department, and they say they have to call my husband's employer to find out what they mean by "can't get pregnant by other means." Well. Finally. At least someone is willing to find out what I need to do to get this done! I wonder if that means that his employer pays the 80%...