Money Monster

Move over Bride of Frankenstein – there’s a new monster bitch in town and it’s the Money Monster!  Yours truly in case you were wondering.

One of the things that scares me most about facing our 6th big ART treatment besides the possibility of facing yet another negative result is the financial outlay we are going to have to commit to yet again.

I’m sure you’ll all agree with me wholeheartedly on this one.  Fertilty treatment is DAMN EXPENSIVE!  I’ve always been of the opinion that it will all be worth it in the end, when we hold our child(ren) in our arms that no amount of money would matter.  But the fact is that you are spending huge amounts of money on a slight chance that you might at long last pull the long straw.  We have been so blessed in the last 6 years of our journey because we have been lucky enough to have financial help from family but if I’m really honest I can see how this pipe dream is seriously making a dent in our lives (and pockets).

Those of you who know me in real life will know that I used to have the philosphy of “it’s just money” however in the last two years through a series of events that have occured I’ve become “the money monster”.  I watch literally every penny that I earn and budget it down to *the* last cent in order to ensure that we can afford IVF.  If it’s luxury it’s quite simply out of the question.  I gave up an extremely well paying  job (but a highly unsatifactory one) to work where I am working now but that came with a pay cut.  I’ve cut all luxuries in my life out so that I can still carry my load of the bills and put a small (very small) amount of money away to afford a chance at being a mother.  No more pedicures (can do that at home myself), no more painting, no more unecessary food stuff, no more constant entertaining, not a lot of eating out allowed anymore, no more, no more, no more…  We rely on tax refunds, bonuses etc to pay for our treatment and I watch every cent like a freaking hawk cos I.cannot.be.in.the.place.of.not.being.able.to.afford.another.treatment.

I hate being this person, this money monster who is so hectic about money.  I saw what worrying about money does to a marriage first hand with my folks.  I don’t want to be this person but I also can’t help myself.  When I look back at the nearly R200 000.00 we’ve spent on treatment alone not counting the probable R50 000.00 to R60 000.00 on therapy, reflexology, acupuncture etc I want to vomit. 

But I also know that if we do ever get this right that money will be worth nothing in my life.

Now here is where I need advise.  The husband wants to spend a substantial amount of money on a trip for the two of us.  He will be taking part in a mountain bike race and I will be waiting for him to come in and we’ll maybe have one or two nice dinners while we are there. 

I just cannot get it out my head that this trip, while it will be really nice, is a luxury.  We can go away to nice places locally that won’t cost us as much and will be just as nice, in fact nicer cos we’ll actually be spending proper quality time together.

I’ve suggested he go on his own.  He wants us both to go. 

I feel that flights for both of us are complete luxury and just can’t bring myself to spend a quarter of a treatment’s worth of money for 3 days.

So, if you have a moment please take part in my very first poll and also leave any wise words of wisdom for a “money monster” on how to find the balance in this all below in the comments.

The WTF Appointment

We had our WTF appointment with our wonderful FS yesterday. 

He was so apologetic about the fact that I had to find out that my cycle had failed on the same day I fetched my Dad’s ashes and kept on saying how he could not believe how much more I could take in terms of life handing me lemons (not in those exact words but you get the general idea)…

It just goes to show that when my gut tells me that I have a right to be worried about something, I need to trust it.  I was very worried about my 4 eggs that never made not even one measly embryo in the lab after my GIFT and well, after seeing my fert reports yesterday at our meeting no wonder I was anxious and “knew” there was something to worry about.  On day one of fert we had zero cells – that means that we never even had fertilization people!  Day two had a measly one cell on three of the eggs and then they arrested.  My FS’s theory (and it is just a theory but one I completely agree with) is that what happens in the lab often mirror’s what happens in the tube.  They have had cases of GIFT where the ferts in the lab were not great which still resulted in a pregnancy for that patient but the defining factor was that there WAS fert… We both felt that with zero ferts in the lab that more than likely not one of our eggs even ferted in my tubes either. 

And this has taken us both completely by left field.  There is no way that we would have even done GIFT if we felt that there was even the remotest chance of a zero fert.  My previous ferts have always been EXCELLENT.  Like 95 – 100% excellent. 

But now that it’s happened it’s opened up a whole new can of worms for us moving forward.  Our FS is no longer willing to take a chance on zero fert so any future treatment we do will be half ICSI half normal fert.  We discussed ZIFT briefly but we both feel that for us it’s best to keep me out of theatre and to go back to IVF/ICSI and from there we’ll see how embryo’s develop to decide whether we do a day 3 or day 5 transfer.

Cliff was also worried that perhaps his sperm is the issue at play here, and although all looks great on paper our FS said that often sperm looks wonderful on paper but there might be an underlying issue with it.  In order to cross this off the list we are going to do two things relating to sperm.  The first one is a relatively new procedure called HPA testing which will determine if his sperm have mature DNA or not.  The second thing we’re going to do depends on how many eggs we retrieve.  If we get 12 eggs or more (we’re definitely going to shoot for 12 and stim me a little more aggressively to try to get them) we’ll do a diagnostic donor sperm cross over comparison.  So we’ll take 2 or 3 eggs and use donor sperm on those and let the rest be fertilized by Cliff’s sperm and see the comparisons in the embies.  The theory is if there is an underlying issue with Cliff’s sperm this is where we may see it come through.  Personally though I don’t believe that there is an issue with sperm in our case.  Cliff’s samples have always been good and I don’t see that being an issue, but we’re doing it anyway just to ensure we’ve crossed it off the list of possibilities.

I brought up donor eggs and he categorically said that he would not take that course of action at all yet.  Our embryo’s have always looked really good and of course there was that chemical pregnancy which leads us to believe that there is still hope for us to conceive with our own genetic material.

Our wonderful FS also said that the challenge with our case was that there were no clear indicators for solution.  It was not a cut and dried case of saying “ok donor eggs are the way forward” or “donor sperm is the way forward” or “your uterus is too damaged you need to look at surrogacy”  and so on and so so forth. 

So that’s it.  The POA.

We’re taking a break from ttc though for quite a while.  We’re both exhausted by this journey now.  I need to take some time to re-connect with my husband, deal with my father’s passing away properly, and to just live my life a little.  Cliff needs some time to re-connect with his wife and to just live his life a little.  We’re going to start exercising together and will be getting ourselves back on track with a healthier lifestyle again.  We’ll go away for a couple of long weekends to just chill together. 

And actually I’m quite looking forward to that.

What about the GIFT?

A few people have asked me what we plan to do about our upcoming GIFT in light of the recent events in my life.  

Now I’d like to ask that those of you who don’t agree with our decision, not try to convince us otherwise.  The decision of what to do is mine and Cliff’s and we’ve made the decision and we’re sticking to it come what may.  No amount of trying to convince us the other way will change our minds and all that will happen is that I’ll get upset, so please I know it will be coming from your hearts but rather bite your tongue if you feel the need to try make me change my mind.

Consensus seems to be that we should delay treatment. 

That I’m too fragile, that I’m too entrenched in my grief over my Dad’s passing, it will be too stressful doing treatment and living through the local memorial service… those are a few of the many reasons we’ve been given by others to delay.  Which honestly are all reasons that I’ve thought about long and hard.

But if I’m honest the next treatment will be stressful no matter when I do it.  I’ll still be in some stage of grief over my Dad’s passing.  My heart will still be tender and will be for years to come I think.  There are people in the world that go through treatment and deal with way worse additional stress than I’ll be under who still fall pregnant so it’s not like the added stress will have any impact on the final outcome – which is in fact already decided.  It’s either going to work or it’s not – no amount of utopia surrounding me will change that.

Cliff asked me if (it sounds nasty but was not meant this way at all) if I was emotionally stable enough to go ahead as planned.  And having thought about it I really feel like I am.  Whilst I am still sad over the loss of Dad, I am emotionally stable enough to work every day, emotionally stable enough to drive everyday so realistically I should be emotionally stable enough to stick needles into myself daily and have a date with a dildo cam every 2 days (even under normal circumstances most people would consider the process a tad weird and ironically would think me emotionally unstable to go through with it).

The thing is this. 

My Dad is gone.  His life has been lived.  And delaying my treatment will not change this ONE IOTA.  His soul will still be gone from us, and all that I’ll feel is that I lost out on the chance of my theory being proved.  I’ll feel like I’ve failed yet again in a very different way.

And I know that my Dad, who loved me so much, would not want me to delay this treatment cos of him.  I can just hear him now.  “What on earth are you thinking Dungfunnel?  You need to move forward.”  He was big on moving forward.

And so, that is what we’ve decided to do.  We will be moving forward with our February GIFT.  In an odd way, I’m hoping that my Dad has spoken with the boss man upstairs and that he’s already met the child or children we’re going to have. 

So GIFT in February it is.  I think it’s gonna be a wild one – hang on if you join me for the ride.

Popper no more

I popped what I hope is my last ever birth control pill this morning. 

Which would normally have meant eagerly (for once) awaiting AF’s appearance at my house but considering that I’ve been bleeding/spotting for 21 days straight now, it means that I’m going for a “CD2″ scan on FRIDAY.  A mere 48 hours away and we’re heading into fresh IVF # 3 territory.

And I’m honestly so excited at the possibility that I might be celebrating a pregnancy sooner rather than later.  I know I keep harping on about this, but I have SUCH a good feeling about this treatment.  It feels right.  It feels like it’s going to be the one.

The Conundrum

So I’m sitting with a pretty little conumdrum in my head right now.  Before I got the amazing new job (which is still amazing btw – wheeeeeee) we were planning on doing a September IVF.  We thought that the whole spring, start of new life season would help us get a new life going on inside my tummy.  But at the same time before I got the amazing new job, I was honestly pooping myself to do another treatment while working in hell.  I knew that the environment I was in and the hours I was working would not be condusive to a relatively stress free treatment – I mean lets face it IVF is stressful enough right?

So now I’m at amazing new job and we’re thinking of starting again in November.  And I feel…. guilty stressed confused about this decision.  I REALLY want to move ahead with our plans, but at the same time I feel bad about starting treatment so soon after starting a new job.  When we kick off the treatment I’d have been working here for just on 3 months.  And if we should be successful (please God let our next one be successful) then by the time I told everyone (only at 12 weeks) I would have worked here for just on 6 months.  If we were successful by the time a baby actually came I would have been working here for just on 1 year.  I just don’t know how my new boss will react if I tell him I’m pregnant just on 6 months into my new job.

On one hand I look at it from a manager’s perspective, and I realised that I would not be too impresssed with a member of my team announcing a pregnancy so early in their work like to me, but in the real world people fall pregnant all the time and I would suck it up and deal with it.  On the other hand I think with my heart and my desires and I’m like “lets just do it and if we get a pregnancy out of it I’ll handle the consequences”. 

I guess I’m just tired of putting it off for a better time.  Cos honestly?  When is going to be a better time?  When I’ve worked here for 2 years? 3 years? Never?  And if I’m really open about it, a large part of the reason why I found the new amazing job was so that I would have more of an opportunity of treatment working…

Gah, I’m so torn today about this decision, but on other days I’m steadfast with what we’ve decided to do.

If in my shoes, what would YOU do??

Still stunned

I played golf on Sunday with my hubby and his brother in some seriously windy conditions.  Man alive, my poor little balls did not stand a chance against the might of the bluster of Mother Nature!  The boys still managed to put in a decent enough score despite the wind but what really has me stunned is the amazing blessing that Cliff and I got from his brother and his wife that day…

In as much as we are on a ttc break, we are still in the very real process of paying off IVF and FET # 1 and are also considering how we are going to pay for IVF # 2…  The good thing is that I pay my last car repayment in the month of October (yeeha!!) and whilst I at first had visions of going on a HUGE shopping spree with the addtional cash that would give me, I put on my “big girl panties” and thought about how that would really help us start up our IVF fund.  I am also trying to get myself a stand at a Christmas fare where I can sell my ceramics and add that cash to the IVF fund as well… but even with this extra cash coming in we’ll still be a few several thousand rands short when push comes to stimulation, and that shortfall was most likely going to have to come out of our mortgage.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m the person in our house who feels that money is just money and that we’ll end up paying it off in good time and it will be money well spent once we get our children, and that God will provide no matter what, but the fact is that I also have to be a mature adult about it and know that if we can save money elsewhere to plump up the fund, then that this is what needs to be done… BUT, I digress…

So at the halfway house during our windy golf game on Sunday while I was eating a boerewors roll that had clearly seen better days, my brother in law casually pipes up that when Cliff and I are ready for our next treatment that he and his wife would like to contibute some money, and that it in no way is it a loan and that one day we’ll be in the position to help someone else in the same way or they will need us to help them out and so on and so forth… well I immediately felt the tears rush to my eyelids and nearly choked on my road kill food when he told us how much they wanted to contribute. 

Suffice it to say that it is a really substantial amount of money and I am literally still stunned…

We had dinner with them on Sunday night and thanked them both profusely, but I am still at a complete loss as to how we are going to Thank them for this blessing that we have received.  I know that this is God providing for our needs next year and I am so overwhelmed with grattitude that I cannot express it well enough…

How would you thank them?