It's a Go!

The repeat blood draw at the other lab came back at 0.2, so RE's office says the cycle is still on. I still had a small bit of doubt, because how do we know it's the first test and not the second that's wrong?

But then I called the place that ran the first test (it was a local RE's office), and they were great. They got someone on the phone with me right away, and she explained that their office uses a different assay than the other lab, so in their lab anything less than 6 is equivalent to 0.5. So she was also very confident that I hadn't ovulated and that it was fine to proceed.

Why their results sheet doesn't make that clear, I don't know. And she said that our RE's office should know the less-than-6 rule, because they do monitoring for a lot of our RE's patients. The nurse at RE's office said she had never heard of that, but as long as everyone is in agreement and there is a valid explanation, I'm not going to have any "what if's" lingering in my mind over this.

So that was great news. Then the IVIg infusion coordinator called and said "um, I just checked in with your insurance and there's been a change...call me back."

I was afraid she was going to say they reviewed the preauth again and denied it. If so, we'd be paying about $3,500 out of pocket.

Well, it's going to be $3,000, but for a different reason. When she originally got the authorization, it was in May. My company's benefit year runs from June 1-May 31, so this year's benefits took affect on June 1, which means a new, $3,000 out-of-pocket requirement before insurance will start covering anything.

Fortunately, last fall when we signed up for R's benefits (which run from Jan.-Dec.), we knew we'd be doing IVIg and figured it wouldn't be covered, so we did the maximum contribution to his FSA account. So while we'll have to pay out the $3,000 up front, we'll be able to get it back pretty quickly through that.

Now that we're sure we're going to the clinic, I've got to figure out a place for us to stay. We're both going to be working all week, so we were hoping to get a 1-bedroom suite for the separate spaces while we're both on calls.

However, something major must be going on in Denver next week, because we can't find even one hotel anywhere vaguely near the clinic that has anything other than a studio available. (Well, maybe we could if we were willing to spend $300-$400 a night, but that's just not in the budget.)

Wish me luck, in more ways than one. :-)