Monday, June 27, 2016

#MicroblogMondays: HSG Expenses

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

Today, I called around to find out how much we need to budget for an HSG.  The good news is that because we have a diagnosis that can be tested and treated by an HSG, it is covered by insurance; the bad news is that we have a high enough deductible that we still have to pay for it out of pocket.  I first called the hospital system that was close to me and got a quote of $900 (though they later called back and said it was actually $1200).  I was starting to panic, thinking we would have to wait till next year, when I got a call back from the main fertility clinic on this side of town, which does them in house.  Self-pay cost of $621 and cost for my insurance plan of about $350.  MUCH BETTER!!!!!  I told Papa Bear, and he told me that he had been looking at forums about costs but hadn't told me because he was seeing multiple posts about costs over $3000.  I'm glad he didn't tell me that until I had an actual answer, but I'm also very glad to be married to someone who wants this enough for himself as well as for me that he goes on infertility forums to do his own research.  (Heck, it still amazes me that he figured out I probably had endometriosis multiple years before doctors took the concern seriously or diagnosed me)

Saturday, June 18, 2016

I hate feeling so worthless as I stand still, accomplishing nothing, while everyone I know who had a loss at the same time as me or after gets pregnant except for the one person who is now single.  I want them to have their miracles, but it highlights how I'm just going nowhere.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Triggered

This post basically is one big trigger warning, so do with that as you will.

Wednesday was a weird day because it was the anniversary of the surgery and it was the last day of me seeing clients at one agency, so I was saying goodbye to them.  I mostly spent the day running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done.  On the way home after my last client, though, I started falling apart in the car.

I texted one of my cousins who has also experienced loss, and that helped.  I was physically feeling like crap, but I also had a meeting that evening that I needed to drag myself to, and that was another distraction.  When I got home from the meeting, though, I was still feeling awful and I lay down with a book.  I love fantasy, and I love being able to escape into another world.  My husband suggested going to bed after all the kids did, but I wanted to read for a few more minutes.

Then I picked up my phone and flipped through Facebook.  Big mistake.  Wednesday was the day that alligator took that little boy in Orlando.  That little boy that's the same age as my son.  There's a post going around by Melissa Fenton or something like that that one of my friends had posted.  DON'T READ IT!!!  Not unless you can handle your heart breaking into a million pieces.

When it was talking about cases from the past, it was okay.  When it started talking about the boy in Orlando, in graphic detail of that family's experience of the loss, that's when it got to be too much to take.  I started shaking and crying.  I wanted to blog about it, but I couldn't.  I was up for another hour because I couldn't face the thought of going to bed and I needed to escape into another world again.  I'm tearing up again now just writing this.

I'm sure part of it was the timing and the day I read it, but it would have still ripped me apart at any time because the baby was the age my son is and that'll be the case any day of the year.  Any time I look at Facebook on my phone or the computer, I'm actually scared and tentative now, looking to make sure that I'm not seeing the beginning of that article again, clicking away fast if I do.

I don't feel like everyone needs to be protected from everything that could possibly be thought provoking or challenge their beliefs or anything like that.  And I'm not saying that it was the author's responsibility or the reposters' responsibility to put a trigger warning in place.  But for me, I needed one, so this is that warning for others.

Monday, June 13, 2016

#MicroblogMondays: Surviving

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too

I don't really know what to say.  This is a bad week.  I hadn't been blogging for a while both because of being crazy busy and because I didn't really know what to say because of how much I was dreading this week.  This past Friday was the anniversary of when I found out that Otter was gone.  This Wednesday is the anniversary of the surgery when so much changed.  Friday sucked hard.  I was really glad to have an excuse not to be seeing clients that day, and during the day was okay, but the evening brought up all my feelings of hopelessness and rejection.

Talking about it later with a friend of mine helped, as she pointed out that with having my son's birthday party on Friday, it became a dual celebration between celebrating his life and the fact that I lived through the surgery.

I'm still scared about Wednesday.  It's a major transition point for me career-wise as well, as I stop seeing one set of clients and say goodbye to the last of them.  Then I have a meeting along with the older kids that night and we go shopping for Father's Day presents.  I hope that will be enough to shut my heart down until after the kids are in bed that night, but I'm so scared that it won't be.