Former Egg Donor Undergoing IVF

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Friday, March 9, 2018

Former Egg Donor to IVF patient: The Other Side of Things

It has been three years since last egg donation process. After my fourth egg donation, I decided to call it quits. I hyper stimulated on my last donation, and no amount of money could tempt me to do it over again. Unless, of course, I was doing an egg retrieval for myself.

My husband and I had been trying to have a baby for two years without success. I hadn't even had a miscarriage. At my age, I would not be considered a "geriatric" patient, but let's just say in a couple of years, I would have been.

During one of my egg donations, I had seen an IVF doctor in my home state for monitoring, and he was very kind. I had worked with several in and out of state endocrinologist reproductive specialists, but they all had treated my like a number, and not a human being--except this doctor in my home state. I told myself at that time, if I ever needed IVF, I would contact him.

After two unsuccessful years, I looked him up, and made my first appointment. Looking back now, I was very fortunate because he now has a wait list for a year.

Being a four time egg donor, I have had the chance to do ALL the injection medications. My doctor chose the Gonal-F 250 units at night and Menopur 75 units in the morning. I did these medications, until the last few days, where he increased my Goal-F to 300 units two days, and 375 units on my last day. During the last five days of my stimulation medications, I started taking Centrotide/Ganirelix every morning in addition to menopur.  From what I understand, this medication helped to prevent me from ovulating until the procedure.

To give an idea of how quickly the medications act on estrogen, here are a few of my numbers that I kept record of so that you can see how quickly the medications take effect:
Feb. 27th, my first blood draw with stimulation medications: Estrogen level was 124.8pg/ml
March 1st:  Estrogen level was 303 pg/ml
March 3rd: Estrogen level was 467.6 pg/ml

On the night of my trigger shot, I was instructed to take 10,000 units of Pregnyl which contains the human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg) intramuscularly at 12:10AM on March 6th.  Once I took my trigger shot, I was instructed to no longer take any of my stimulation medications. Pregnyl is time sensitive, and it is very important to take it exactly the time your doctor tells you to.  The egg retrieval was scheduled for 12:10PM on March 8th.

I was also prescribed Doxycycline 100mg twice daily to start taking the night of my trigger injection. Doxycyline is a tetracycline based antibiotic used prophylactically prior to egg retrieval. As a medical provider myself, I like Doxycyline, It has little GI side effects, and I don't think it has a lot of resistance yet. Mankind is still abusing the z-pak (azithromycin) for their "sinus" infections or "bronchitis" that is probably a virus anyway. #AntibioticResistance But that is another story.

The cost of just my medications was $3,020 (which is actually cheaper than most that I have seen and read), which I paid for in February.

I want to mention that getting my blood drawn and ultrasounds so frequently in the mornings was really rough on me. I work 12 hour shifts (8am to 8pm), where 8am is my fertility clinic's first appointment. It was extremely hard for me to get other providers to cover for me for the first hour, and when I couldn't find coverage, embarrassingly ask my bosses if I could come in late. It may not sound like a big deal, but it was. I was so embarrassed to always ask my company to work around my medical appointments. I don't know how working women do this, unless they work from home, or they don't work at all. It's hard to imagine a woman not working in this situation though. IVF is so costly and I can't imagine that we could ever afford this if both my husband and I weren't working bringing both incomes.

While on the topic, I should also share the decisions I made before IVF, knowing that I wouldn't be able to hold down a full time job practicing medicine. I gave my 60 day resignation notice to my old job back in December for various reasons. Firstly, I knew already they wouldn't work with my schedule going in for frequent blood draws etc. I knew, being a donor, that they can schedule additional blood draws or ultrasounds last minute based on your levels, and there is no way my old job would have allowed me to miss work even with 24 hour notice. Secondly, my medical insurance was a nightmare. Because their health insurance was THAT bad, I chose to only cover myself, and purchase accidental insurance for my husband. The deductible for just ME was approximately $6,500/year. It was terrible insurance. It covered 3 IUI (intrauterine insemination), but it was a personal decision for my husband and I not to do IUI. My doctor did suggest we should try that before IVF though. My new company's insurance does not cover for infertility treatments, but the health insurance had a lower deductible of $3,000 for just myself, with an HSA. I could have chosen the $2,000 plan, but I wanted the HSA to help cover for infertility costs. Thirdly, my company wanted me only full time, and would not allow me to be part time. My new company had only a part time position open, so it worked out perfectly. I feel like I am not a mom yet, but I am already making a huge sacrifice of cutting back on my career to allow time for all of my IVF appointments, egg retrieval / egg transfer, plus recovery time, and potential complications (I've had OHSS before).

I feel like I made the right decision going to this new company. They have been understanding through this all, but I am GLAD my chaotic schedule is over (for now). I don't want to abuse their kindness any longer.  How do these mama-to-be's do it while working??

2 comments:

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