David Raynes

Jenn's Journal: Help a sister out

This is her last chance and only hope. Please visit her website and read her story. There is a link to donate anything you can to her to help her and her husband out. If you know of anybody who could help out, feel free to pass this along.

A friend of my wife, blogger, and fellow sufferer of infertility needs help. We both know that awful feeling of sticker shock when first adding up what the total costs for a treatment like IVF will be, especially when health insurance will cover little, if any, of it. Infertility treatments have tapped Katie out completely, and while she and her husband have managed to find a grant from the state of New York, they need to come up with 15% of the cost themselves to get that grant. Unfortunately, however, they have just over one week to come up with that 15%. So, if you can spare anything, please head on over to the dropcash campaign that Katie setup and leave a little something. Every little bit counts.

There is a special place in hell for spammers, and even then, there is a special place in that special place for the jerk who keeps sending me trackback spam with links to "baby names." That's just damned cruel.

Maybe I should expand upon that title:

• Will code for money
• Will use said money to pay for babies

We had a consultation with our RE today to go over what we will be doing next in our infertility treatment. To date, we have been actively treating the situation for a total of four cycles, and we were trying the "normal" way for about eight to nine months prior to that. For the first two cycles, we used clomid alone.

The first cycle, Jenn took 50mg of clomid for five days towards the beginning of her cycle. Followed up with visits to the fertility center to have an ultrasound wand shoved inside her to monitor her progress and some homework (which was checked, I might add). She ended up being pregnant... for about two or three days, give or take, though the way pregnancy lengths are normally calculated, she was just short of five weeks. From what I understand, it is usually referred to as a chemical pregnancy, which means that it is only visible by checking hormone/chemical levels and not with an ultrasound. She miscarried. We have not managed to get her pregnant since then.

The second cycle, we used just clomid again at twice the dosage, along with all the visits and homework, but that did not end up working well.

The third cycle, the clomid dosage was adjusted again, to 50mg per day over seven days instead of five. This time, we opted to go for IUI, which is commonly referred to as artificial insemination (or what I like to call the turkey baster method, but don't tell Jenn I said that). We still went in for all of the ultrasound visits. We even went for four ultrasounds in four days at one point. When Jenn's ovaries were ready, she was given a shot to induce ovulation. I came into the fertility center the next morning to leave my deposit (I am sure you can figue out what that was). It was prepared over the next couple hours, at which point Jenn and I came back in so that the folks there could pour what was leftover into a syringe with a long catheter attached to the end meant for going directly up into the uterus. Given all the magical medical technology of the day, it does seem rather primitive, doesn't it? Once again, no luck.

So we did it again for a fourth cycle. This one was looking really good. Everything was developing well on her side of things before the IUI itself. And about a week after the IUI, her levels were looking the best they ever have (which unfortunately is not saying all that much). We were both trying very hard to balance optimism and realism at that point, but we had to wait for another week before finding out that, no, she once again was not pregnant.

So here we are, starting a new year with a new treatment plan. Clomid is out of the question now, and we are moving on to more powerful (and expensive) drugs. Drugs that Jenn, along with probably her mother (who is also a nurse), and possibly even myself, will be injecting her with. She will have to visit the fertility center pretty much every other day when she is taking these drugs to check her blood levels for hormone progress, and also to keep an eye out for ovarian hyperstimulation. That last bit is the nasty part. It could put her in the hospital for up to one week.

And speaking of being out in the hospital for one week, did I mention that both Jenn and I have drawn the wells of vacation from our respective jobs dry? Most of the doctor visits, the ultrasounds, we are able to schedule in the morning, so lateness is really the only problem there, though the company Jenn works for can get a little upset if you come into work late too often. Then, of course, right before ovulation, Jenn tends to get pretty uncomfortable thanks to those overly stimulated ovaries.

"How would you feel with a pair of bowling balls inside you," is often heard around our house those days. The disturbing thing is that, if her ovaries were to get stimulated to the point where she would require hospital care, they would be about 10cm-12cm in diameter, which if my memory serves me correctly, is about the size of a duck pin bowling ball.

So she takes time off work to rest if she can, and then we both take time off work the day of the IUI and often the day after because she still is not feeling all that great. We have been forced to consider FMLA leave because we have just run out of options. Any leave she takes for that will be unpaid, but at least it will not count against her in the eyes of her company. That is, if they will let her have it.

The forms were filled out by our doctor at the fertility center, and sent along to the relevant folks at HR for her company. They had some questions.

"What will the duration be?" they ask.

"Until I get pregnant," Jenn would reply.

They apparently need a more concrete number than that. I told her to tell them ten years. That should about cover it.

"What does five to six days monthly mean?"

"It means five or six days each month."

"Are those days consecutive?"

"We don't know. It's completely unpredictable."

Heck, we consider it advanced notice when we know about an appointment more than about two days ahead of time. The best we can usually say is "sometime next week." My bosses and co-workers have gotten quite used to that line. Often, nobody I work with thinks twice if I am late to work, which is both a blessing and a curse as one of them pointed out about a month ago.

Dave could be dead in some ditch at the side of the road one day, and we would just think that he's fine; he's probably just at the clinic.

So, here we are, trying to figure out how we are going to pay for all this. Jenn had one thought:

I'm thinking of getting a bucket with a picture of my uterus on it and patrolling intersections for donations.

Let me just throw some numbers out there to put things into some perspective.

• Our insurance, which is provided by the company I work for, covers infertility treatments ( not drugs, just treatments, and did I mention that we have been paying about $100 per cycle for clomid and the ovulation stimulation drug? ) up to $2000 per year.
• One IUI cycle with injectible medications cost approximately $2500-$5000. Per cycle.
• IVF, which would be the next step up for us if the next two IUI cycles don't work, costs approximately $6000-$12000 per cycle. Though it does get a little cheaper in the following cycles if we manage to produce enough good embryos that can be frozen.

As things stand now, our first IUI cycle will wipe out our insurance for the year. Before the end of February. The next cycle will pretty much wipe out our savings. After that would come IVF, which would probably mean selling off or refinancing the house or something.

And you know what happens after that if these do not work out? We will probably try to adopt. But guess what? Adoption will cost just as much, if not more. And it will take us years to adopt, assuming our finances (and even our relationship) will manage to survive that long. That is, of course, assuming anybody would want to give a pair of nutcases like us a living, breathing person to take care of.

So where am I going with all this? Well, as I am sure you can see, we are in nothing short of dire financial straits. But I am certainly not asking for money or donations or anything like that.

What I want to do is, as I titled this entry, code for babies.

What I mean is that I want to ramp up my side consulting business as much as I possibly can. Do you have a Movable Type site that needs some custom plugin work? Please consider me. Are you curious as to whether or not Movable Type is the right system for you or your company? Get in touch with me and I would be happy to analyze your situation. Do you want to integrate Movable Type with existing in-house systems? I have no problem interfacing with your team to get the job done. I am even willing to consider doing paid installs, which would normally be beyond my normal services. I charge rates I consider quite reasonable based on the type of work and my level of expertise with the system and with Perl. You are unlikely to find anybody, outside of folks at Six Apart themselves, who knows Movable Type better than I do.

If you could pay me with actual babies, I would probably be a little concerned at first, but with our current situation, I would probably also get over that concern fairly quickly. Beyond that, the usual monetary method if payment is quite allright, as money can be used to purchase treatments that will hopefully provide us with a baby of our very own.

Now that I've got the comment situation under control, or so it would seem at least, I am now back to actually thinking about my blog and what I will be doing with it.

Here are some of my current thoughts:

• Incorporate what Jenn has been writing in her journal blog about what we have been going through with the infertility treatments into the main feed for this site, like I have already done with the main index page
• Possibly splitting my blog into two: a Movable Type-only blog, for all my plugins, hacks, experiments, and so forth, and a personal, diary or journal blog. Do any of you folks out there (other than my mother.. Hi Mom!) have any interest in what I'm doing outside of the MT realm? Or maybe want to hear some of what I've been thinking about the infertility stuff, which I have been meaning to write about more?
• I am also trying to find a way to ask folks that have reaped huge benefits from the major time and effort I have put into writing and testing my plugins, which have all be released freely, for maybe a small donation via PayPal, or perhaps a purchase from my Amazon wish-list (or, for you gamers out there, my Games Workshop wish-list). Asking is not the main issue though; asking without sounding like an ass is.

Waiting Game

I started back on the Progesterone the next day and now we just wait. And wait and wait and wait. We will reach the one year mark of trying before we know if this cycle worked. Never thought it would take this long. I'll have a pregnancy test right before Thanksgiving. It will either be one of the best holidays, or one of the worst.

Jenn wrote about what we are going through in the latest cycle. We decided to start trying Thanksgiving week last year.

What we've been through so far

Dave set this journal up for me to detail our adventures in infertility. We both feel it's important to put our experiences out there for a couple of reasons. It's not something a lot of people talk about, but 1 in 6 couples experience infertility. If we can help one person feel less alone in the journey, we've done something positive with it. Also, it's consuming our lives.

Doing it better than I ever could, Jenn has officially started chronicling our experiences with infertility in her own blog. We both agree that a lot of if, in telling our story, that we can help even just one person out, we will do it. There is so much out there concerning the medical aspects, the treatments, procedures, and drugs, but there is little to nothing (that we have seen) that talks about peoples' experiences with infertility. One of the best books we bought in the last year talked about it from that personal level and it was the only one that actually helped us out and had any serious impact.

Jenn went in for some tests today, and we got the results about an hour ago. Looks like we were somewhat successful this cycle; technically, she is pregnant. Unfortunately since her hormone levels were so low, it probably will not last. We will be going in for more bloodwork on Wednesday.

To be blunt, my wife and I just had sex. Appointment sex. We did not do it because we wanted to or we were in the mood. She has not been feeling well at all for the last few weeks, and we are both quite stressed out between work and things here at home lately. We did it because yesterday the doctor at the fertility center instructed us to have intercourse (they call it "homework") between four to twelve hours before our next test tomorrow morning.

My wife and I have been trying to conceive for nine months now. Needless to say, we have not as yet been successful. We are certainly not in as bad a situation as many others are, but neither is ours a happy one.

So, after some discussion with her over the last few weeks, I have decided to write about the experiences we have had and will be having. Part of my reasoning, I imagine, is to help me deal with the situation, and I am sure another part of it is to share the experience with others so they can get a closer look at what some couples have to go through to start a family, if they can at all.

The first step will be putting together an entry detailing much of what we have been through so far and our reasoning for deciding to try and start a family together. That should be coming in the next few days.