Hello. My name is Lori and I am living with PCOS. For those of you who don’t know what PCOS is, I have explained it in my 1st blog. I decided to write this blog to see if there are any others on here going thru what I am. Unless you are in my exact shoes you can not fully understand the situation. You can not understand all the full blown heart breaks. I say this because if you have children, there is no way you can fully understand the pain of trying to have children for so many years to just keep coming up with failed attempts. Here is my story. I have been married to the same man for 19 years. We have wanted a baby from day one of our marriage. Needless to say, we are still without child. Most people tell us to adopt. That is a great option, but that still isn’t the same as having a child of your own. Feeling that child grow inside of you and having that child be a part of you and your spouse is something you can not get from adoption. Over the years I have tried 1 or 2 cycles of clomid. Clomid is a fertility pill. I do not respond to clomid at all. From clomid , I was then put on a medicine called Gonal-F and Repronex.. Gonal-F and Repronex is a fertility drug that is given as a shot. This medicine cost any where from $80 - $100 each vial. On these fertility drugs , I went thru 2 cycles of IUI. IUI is intrauterine insemination -- is performed by threading a very thin flexible catheter through the cervix and injecting washed sperm directly into the uterus. The whole process doesn't take very long — it usually only requires the insertion of a speculum and then the catheter, a process that maybe takes a couple of minutes (60-90 seconds to introduce the catheter, then sperm injection, and another 60 seconds or so to remove the catheter — going slowly helps reduce discomfort). Sometimes when the cervix is hard to reach a tenaculum is used to hold the cervix, which makes the process a bit more uncomfortable. We had insurance that covered this. Both attempts resulted in a negative pregnancy test. When both attempts failed, I was referred to an infertility specialist. The fertility specialist told us that our next step was for IVF. In vitro fertilisation[1] (IVF) is a technique in which egg cells are fertilised by sperm outside the woman's womb, in vitro. IVF is a major treatment in infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. The process involves hormonally controlling the ovulatory process, removing ova (eggs) from the woman's ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a fluid medium. The fertilised egg (zygote) is then transferred to the patient's uterus with the intent to establish a successful pregnancy. The thought of trying out IVF was very excting once I found out our medical insurance would cover this. The cost of an IVF cycle usually starts out around $15,000 and can cost much more. The only bad part of the insurance was that it would only pay $5,000 max for the medicines. Well our 1st try at IVF took all of the $5,000 and then some. We got 5 eggs fertilized from this 1st cycle and we put all 5 eggs in me. That try ended in a negative pregnancy. We were shocked to find out that after this 1st try at IVF we still have insurance cover that would allow 2 more tries of IVF. The only bad part was that I needed 80 plus vials of the medicine which is the $80-$100 price for each and my insurance was not going to cover this. So I gathered up all my collectibles and placed them on ebay to get money for our 2nd try at IVF. I was able to raise enough money to get all of my medicines needed for this 2nd cycle. This 2nd attempt at IVF also turned out to be a negative pregnancy. Our insurance would still cover one last try at IVF. This 3rd cycle would have to be done at the beginning of a new year. To our disappointment, my husband’s work switched insurance companies on it. With this new insurance, it does not cover inferility at all. So our dreams to try for a baby was shattered. There is now way we can pay for IVF 100% out of our pocket. It has been about 5 years since our last try to have a baby. Just last month we went to a seminar on IVF and we were the lucky winners of a free cycle of IVF. This is wonderful that we will be given one last try. The bad thing is that it only covers the 1st $10,000 of the price. We still need to come out with atleast $6,000 out of our pockets which we currently do not have. So we are doing a lot of praying and hoping that things will work out that we will be able to come up with the money needed to try for our dream of a baby one last time. There is nothing more heartbreaking than having your hopes up so high that you will end up pregnant to have them crushed so hard with a negative test result. Going thru all the things you need to with infertility is very emotional. You go thru so many tests, some which are very painful. There is just so much involved that so many people cant understand unless you are going thru this yourself. Well this is my struggle with infertility. Hope you enjoyed my story. This is just a little part of my life I normally do not open up about. Its not always easy to open up to people with this subject because so many will say, I understand and I know how you feel but unless you have been thru the things a person has with IVF and infertility you can not really understand fully.
