Does life ever get back to "normal"?

I just about ripped someone's head off yesterday.  Between not having internet (even though we've had people out to install it three times - today will be the fourth (and hopefully last) time), being billed for the wrong procedure for my January surgery, not hearing from the fertility clinic, and dealing with everything that comes with moving, I'm running out of patience.

So yesterday, I called Kaiser billing and was told (by a customer service representative, NOT a medical professional) that if I had fibroids removed, I definitely had a laparoscopy.  I wanted to reach through the phone and shake the guy and shout, "you know there's a natural opening to the uterus right?  It isn't necessary to cut through my abdomen to get there!  I had the exact same procedure in October, and I wasn't billed for a laparoscopy then!"  But I refrained, and just repeated that I did not, in fact, have a laparoscopy, and I knew I didn't have one by the simple fact that there was no incision.  OMG.  This is getting ridiculous.

I called the fertility clinic again yesterday, and talked to a different person.  Instead of being snippy, this person transferred me to the case manager, who basically said that no one had even tried to get the doctor's notes so they could call me.  I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't kept pushing - my file would have languished in limbo forever?  It's not like I'm not offering to pay them thousands and thousands of dollars for their help.  I don't get it.  Supposedly, she was going to email me yesterday afternoon or tomorrow morning.  It's still early this morning, but I haven't received anything.

Negative

After the shortest period ever, I decided to take a pregnancy test just in case.  It was negative.  Of course.  I'm not sure what to think about my "period".  It lasted, at most, a few hours.  I'm calling the clinic today to find out just when someone will call me about an appointment.  I'm getting quite irritated.  Why can't I just find a doctor who will work with me???

And Mother's Day is this weekend.  Luckily, I have an out-of-town wedding Saturday evening, and even though we'll be back Sunday late morning, at the moment we're not planning to do anything.  Not surprisingly, I'm not really feeling like celebrating.  My sister is doing something with my mom on Saturday, since she didn't start planning early enough to get a reservation for Sunday.  My sister and I are both pretty low-key people, and neither of us would necessarily want to go out for a fancy Mother's Day meal (not that I'm a mother, but she is).  Our mother, on the other hand, always wants a nice meal at an expensive place, regardless of what anyone else wants.  Now that my sister is a mother, you would think my mom would take that into consideration, but she really doesn't care what my sister wants.  She only sees what she wants, and what her children aren't doing for her that they "should" be doing.

I've sort of been avoiding calling her, partly because I don't want to get suckered into driving out there for Mother's Day (and we NEVER spend time with D's mom for Mother's Day - that would really make my mother angry, because as far as she's concerned, she's more important than D's mother), and partly because we're planning to visit my brother for Memorial Day weekend and my mother wants to get a ride with us.  My husband has flat-out said that a 14-hour drive with my mother is NOT happening, but my mother is not taking no for an answer.  She insisted I think about it and let her know, and obviously my answer has not changed (still no!) but I don't want to argue about it anymore.

Ugh. 

We moved!

Moving sucks.  It really, really sucks.  My husband's brothers did not show up to help, and we really needed the help (I was not surprised).  We were supposed to be out by 3, and we left with the final load at 2:40.  We're not even close to being finished with unpacking in the new house, but it feels really good to be all in one place.

I thought I started my period yesterday.  I had plenty of cramping, and a bit of blood.  Then the bleeding stopped, but the cramping didn't.  This morning, there was a lot more cramping and a tiny bit of blood, and this afternoon has been pretty quiet on the camping front, with no blood (the cramping died down a LOT after I took four ibuprofin and had a bowel movement).  So did I get my period?  It seems like it, I guess.  But who knows?  I'm tired of this whole situation.  No one has called me from the doctor's office to schedule my saline sonogram.  I don't even know what to tell them about when my period started.  I'm incredibly overwhelmed right now.

My husband is being difficult too.  He got home last night, and I informed him that the internet company never showed up to do the install, and I called them and rescheduled for Saturday.  I also told him I couldn't find the dog beds we wanted, so I got a different one, and only one, so the dogs could try it.  He was extremely angry about the internet, even though I'm the one who was supposed to be working from home and he only uses it for video games.  He was also annoyed about the dog bed, I have no idea why.  He spent most of the evening in a bad mood.  I went to bed early, without him.  I don't know why every day I'm always so happy and excited to see him, and then he's always in a bad mood and drags me down with him.

As you can see, the dogs like the bed a lot:

First consult with donor doctor - and A New Hope! (Not the star wars kind)

I had an awesome conversation with the doctor today.  He not only went over the donor embryo program with me (which works completely differently than how I thought), he went over all of my options.  He had looked at all of my test results before calling, and had a lot of information to give me.

For one thing, he said that even though I'm 36 but have the AMH levels of someone in their 40s, all it really means is that I produce fewer eggs.  He said the quality of my eggs should be the same as any other 36-year-old, and if we can use medication to help me produce as many eggs as other 36-year-olds, there is no reason why I couldn't get pregnant without resorting to IVF or donors.  He suggested starting with a clomid cycle and seeing how my body responds and go from there.  I'm really excited about that.

He also went over different options for using donated eggs with my husband's sperm, some of which aren't that much more expensive than the donor embryo program (but there is no money-back guarantee), so we will be able to consider those as well.  He mentioned (which I already knew) that using a donor program isn't age-dependent, so if we wanted to try to have our own, we should try that first. 

So!  I have to go in for a saline sonogram on CD 6-10, which will be coming up soon (today is CD 22, so I'm expecting my period to start sometime in the next couple of days).  And then we can get started!  Yay!  And if things look really, really bad on a medicated cycle, we can always start a donor cycle of some sort right away.

Speaking of donor cycles...  I assumed a donor embryo program would be comprised of embryos that had been donated, such as in the case of a couple who produced numerous embryos, had finished building their family, and didn't want to destroy the extras.  This is not the case.  Apparently, they take donor eggs and donor sperm and create embryos that are then matched with multiple couples, which is how they keep costs down.  So they're not embryos that have been donated, they are embryos created from donor eggs and donor sperm.  It sounds kind of weird, but I find that I'm not as excited about that.  For one thing, my husband's sperm are (mostly) fine.  It seems weird to deliberately use donor sperm when we don't have to.  It's one thing if the embryos had already been created (waste not, want not and all that), but that's not what's happening here.

Anyway, following the doctor's suggestion, I tried calling to schedule my saline sonogram, and they woman who answered was super short with me.  She informed me that they haven't received the doctor's notes yet, and when they do, they will be calling me.  Apparently, I shouldn't be bothering them.  I hate it when a doctor us super helpful and the support staff is the opposite.  Don't they realize that if I'm coming there as a patient, I'm probably not in the best frame of mind?  I'm starting my period any day now!  I need to schedule this test ASAP!  I don't have months to waste, my AMH is dropping incredibly quickly!

Hospital bills

Ooooh, but first: house news!  Technically, our house sold today!  We're renting back through Saturday so we can move.  We signed the papers on the new house yesterday, and we should be on track for keys Friday, I hope.  The best part about it all is that we won't have a house payment until July, which is the most reassuring thing I've heard in quite some time.

Now to move on to what is frustrating the hell out of me.  I got a second bill for my surgery in January (the myomectomy to remove the fibroids that were supposedly preventing pregnancy, even though my AMH was plunging, unknown to everyone).  I had assumed that the first insanely high bill that we got covered the entire surgery.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Apparently, the first bill was just for physicians services, it didn't include the hospital charges, which are much, much higher.  The bill doesn't show what portion will be covered by insurance, so that will be a nice surprise when that bill arrives.

But here's the kicker: I dug out the first bill, which I had been planning to pay as soon as our house sold, and I noticed that I was being charged for a laparoscopy.  I didn't have a laparoscopy, I had a hysteroscopy.  So that's just one more thing I need to take care of.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will lower the cost of the procedure.  I really don't understand why we can't have simpler healthcare billing in this country.  It's just mind-blowing to me.

Anyway, today is my telephone consultation for embryo donation!  Yay!  I'm really looking forward to getting the (very expensive) progress started.

This week is going to be crazy

We begin moving Friday (I hope!).  I still don't know for sure when we're signing papers and when we get keys.  We spent the weekend packing.  I'm very concerned about the amount of stuff we have.  I was raised as a pack-rat, but I yearn to be a minimalist.  It's difficult trying to reconcile the two.

So I finally made my husband log in to Kaiser and get the results of his semen analysis.  Not all of the numbers were in the ideal range, but I honestly have no idea what any of them mean, or how important it is for those particular numbers to be in the ideal range.  We were filling out the questionnaire for the donor embryo program, and it asked for the date of the test and the results.  My husband wanted to write "everything was fine" under results.  I don't know if he just doesn't believe that his numbers weren't ok (I mean, they were close, but they were NOT in the ideal range), or if he's in complete denial.  I suggested he email the doctor to find out what the numbers meant.  He refused.  I'm still a little upset about that.  I could probably email the doctor myself, but I'm not sure he would tell me anything.

Anyway, we sent in all the paperwork, and I have a phone consultation with a case manager Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to getting started.  At this point, I'm about a week past ovulation, and no pregnancy symptoms whatsoever, so I'm assuming this cycle, like all the others, was a bust.  And, as these things are wont to go, it seems likely I will start my period Friday or Saturday, which are our two big moving days.  I'm not really sure, since my period has been awfully strange since all of the surgeries, but the last two cycles were 22 and 24 days, and today is day 19 of this cycle, so really, any time after Wednesday is fair game.  I'm going to have to start loading up on 800mg ibuprofen starting Wednesday night and hope for the best, I guess.

I also want to talk a wee bit about Kaiser and their programs.  On the one hand, having 50% coverage for everything other than IVF is pretty nice.  On the other hand, I never talk to one person who works on both sides - if I want to do IVF, I see this person.  If I want to try other things, I see this other person.  I never talk to someone who can tell me what my best options are.  It's driving me a bit batty.  Obviously, we're pushing ahead with donor embryos, but I wish I had seen someone before my AMH dropped so low who could have helped guide me to the best decision.

It's the little things

I ovulated over the weekend!  Yay!  It's definitely a little thing, but it was pretty awesome.  It was CD 12, so not bad at all, really (and I totally could have tested the last two cycles, but whatevs).  Obviously, it doesn't mean I'm going to get pregnant, but it makes me feel better to see the smiley face.  And today I got an email from the donor embryo program to set up my first appointment for next week.  Hooray!

And, for an added bit of cheer, a picture of my new kitty Nymeria:

We had to have our house re-inspected on Monday.  That was quite a pain.  The buyer requested that so many stupid little things be fixed, many of which were broken since before I bought the house (so it was the previous owner who caused the damage).  Since they have an FHA loan, I didn't have much of a choice, which was really irritating.  Despite arguing a LOT with my husband, who wanted to fix everything with some electrical tape, I manged to get it all done and we passed the re-inspection with flying colors.

Yesterday was the house and pest inspection for our new house.  Other than some possible problems with the roof, everything looks good.  We'll have a roof inspection to see if we need to try to ask for a credit for repairs/replacement, and then hopefully we'll be done, which I really am looking forward to.  This whole situation is really stressing me out.  We still don't know for sure what day the buyers will close on our current house, what day we'll close on our new house, when we'll get the keys, and when we'll be moving for sure.  I have a plan, and I'm hoping it works.  I'm already arranging things to make it work, so if things change, that won't be fun.