We finally have insurance approval for IVF! The insurance company isn’t requiring us to try IUIs or anything else first – which I suppose is an advantage of having the (now removed) endometrioma. I’ve been feeling crampy on and off, so I’m sure AF is going to arrive today or tomorrow. Once that happens, I’ll contact the nurse and tell her we are good to go! I’m hoping the fact that I have to travel every month until October won’t be an issue, but we’ll see. Most of the trips are short, but they all involve flying, and I can’t cancel any of them. I keep trying to figure out the possibilities on my own, but it’s too confusing, and I don’t completely understand all the variables. My RE said I’ll need to take bcp’s for 2-3 weeks, but I don’t know what determines whether it’s 2 or 3. If taking them for 3 weeks would work out better in terms of my travel schedule, would that be an option? Could we go for 4 if we wanted to? Instead of trying to figure it out myself, I think I’ll just email them when AF is here and see what they say.

The only other thing we have to figure out is payment. My RE’s office doesn’t use in-house embryologists. They have a partnership with a fertility lab, and that lab doesn’t contract with insurance companies, which means that we have to pay them upfront and will be reimbursed at a lower rate. I know we are SO lucky to even have insurance for IVF and to get reimbursed at all, but the amount we’ll have to pay them is around $4,000. While my insurance company is saying that we’ll be reimbursed within 2 weeks, the my employer is the one who actually pays the claims, and they tend to pay about a year late. So, it’s entirely possible that we won’t see that $4,000 until next year. If the cycle fails, and if we don’t have any extra embryos and want to try again, we’re looking at another $4,000. I’m trying not to mentally go down that road until we’re there, but it’s definitely an issue that we may have to address at some point. I don’t even know where we stand with medication costs.

So, we’re excited but scared – both about the process and the cost. We’re ready to move forward, though, and once AF arrives, we’ll be on our way!