Aryiana

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Post Date: 5/4/09 12:32 pm
Bottom line -- was ready to submit to insurance for revision April 17 (after NUT visit) but found out on April 21 that our insurance was going to change from Empire BCBS to Aetna as of May 1.... so we had to hold off until last Friday.  Friday came and after bitching on the phone to my DH (who is a saint to put up with me) he was able to get an ID number.

I went to Dr. G's office (because I couldn't stand being home and doing nothing) and gave them the last of the paperwork showing I had a gym membership from 2004 until currently, that my infertility treatments the past 5 years "could cause weight gain" and that when I had my son in 2007 I had a grand gain of #7  and was then down #20 at my 6 week visit (all showing i didn't intentionally eat my way out of my RNY).  June said my paperwork would be submitted either today or tomorrow,.

Because I have oh so much patience, I called Aetna today.... and they have the information "pending" (it was received today).

I am going to try and hold off until Friday before calling Aetna again to see if they have any more info.  The customer service rep said there is no policy on how long they have to approve or deny.......

Patience is not my strong suit.  I set out, all  my extra stuff in hand, and went to pick up Maddie and head down to Dr. G's.  I gave June all the info I had - the group number and my DHs social security number.  About 20 minutes into my trip (total travel of 3 hours getting Maddie and then to office) DH calls with the ID number!!!!!!

We got to Dr. G's and June had called and got the same ID number from Aetna by that point. The number was the same as the one DH gave me (always a good start if the numbers are the same....) and I gave her the rest of the paperwork to submit.  She said their end would be done by Monday or Tuesday and so I will call Aetna to start bugging them this coming Thursday or Friday.  I guess I can use the excuse of finding out if they have everything submitted...

If my approval goes thru quickly I am hoping for a July date.

Keeping fingers crossed...

Here we are... May 1 and we are NOT on the Aetna website.. After about 45 minutes on the phone with various levels of the totem pole, I was told that my husband's work hadn't uploaded the info yet and it would be merged hopefully by the end of the day.

Meanwhile I put a call into Dr. G's office to see if they could start the ball rolling and if they received any of the faxed info I got from the infertility ppl, my ob/gyn (re: weight gain when I had Arik and my gym with the proof of payments.  Left a message there too....

I can't just sit here and wait anymore.  I'm ready to drive down to Dr. Gs office and hand deliver the stuff.

Had D&C on Tues and Wed my left  ear wouldnt stop humming.  I thought it may be from anesthesia or the morphine hits I was getting in recovery, however, when I got vertigo on Wed night and almost passed out from blowing my nose I knew it was something more than med reaction.

Called the Dr. who had me take antivert (which I did have in the house) and I went in Thursday morning.  I had an ear infection in the ear that WASNT bothering me.  Started antibiotics and went to work overnight on Thursday ( did work my admin job during the day) and then Friday ran up to get Maddie and we went back to Dr. G's office for her initial visit.

We met a girl there, Jenny, who is 19 and thought she wanted RNY.  By the time we left I think she is more leaning towards switching :)

Spoke with Tina and she suggested getting together any info I can regarding attempts at weight loss since my RNY.  I had the gym fax me a statement of payment from May 2004 - present and called my infertility people that wrote a letter stating since May 2005 I have been in thier care and taking injectable gonadotrophins which have a side effect of weight gain.  I have to get in touch with my OB/GYN and get a statement from them showing my beginning weight and end weight when I was pregnant with Arik ( I only gained like #3 the entire pregnancy).  This is the only info I have but it does show that the weight gain was not intentional.

Still waiting for any insurance info from Moshe's work - a group number would be ideal to start with.... and hopefully Dr. G.'s office will get stuff in by the end of this week and I can be scheduled by July.  

I want to be switched and well on my way by the time faire starts in August so that I don't have to worry about beng newly out .  Also I am hoping by the end of faire in September I will be able to wear one of my smaller bodices.  The fact that I have 4 in different sizes doesnt really make me happy and I hope to be in the smallest (or needing a new one) in the 2010 season!!

I'm starting this week to work all my regular hours (40 hours between Mon and Wed then admin work on Thurs and Fri) as well as adding a Wed and Sat night into the mix.  I can use the extra hours to start putting some money away for when I have surgery and dont get paid while I am in the hospital.

I'm trying not to get all worked up and too eager.  Gotta just relax and at least wait until May 2 before getting bent out of shape about the insurance info :).

Friday we had the nutritionist visit at Dr. Greenbaum's office (this after I was up all night working and actually up from 5AM the previous day).  As many have told me, we learned nothing new, altho Olivia was a bit more informed than the nut I saw before my RnY.

I am going to have to start evenutally looking at vits -- they tend to confuse me at the moment (I am just not concentrating I think).  Also, I had the attitude after my RnY that I was not going to take them and pee away money until I saw my labs were trending down at which time I would take what I needed.  That never happened -- my labs were always good.  Malabsorption?  I don't think so much.

Went for an ultrasound this morning.  No cardiac activity so I will have to have a D&C.... soonest the reproductive people can do it is a week from today.  I called my regular OB/GYN who told me to come in today before 5PM and he will have it scheduled for tomorrow.  That's what I did and I am scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Today I got a bombshell after I called Dr. G's office to have them send in the paperwork to Empire BC/BS.  As of May 1 we have NEW INSURANCE.  Holy F*ing Crap!!!!

Once I calmed down a moment I started looking up our new insurance -- it's Aetna -- I realized that not only do they cover bariatric surgery, but they also cover revisional DS and it looks like they don't have as many hoops to jump through as Empire.  I don't have a group number or anything at this point, but by the time I go back on Friday with Maddie I should have a group number so we can start getting info as to where to send all this info to get me approved ASAP.

::Big sigh::

Thursday went for an ultrasound.  The embryo didn't continue to grow.  Seemed it stopped at 6 weeks 2 days.  Still had a heartbeat so now what.  We have to wait for the heartbeat to cease and then a D&C and in the meantime I have to start shooting up 1ml of progesterone in my thigh everyday to "preserve the products of conception" so that I make it to the D&C so we can test to see what problems this embryo had (we know it is chromosomal at this point).

Good news is my NUT visit is today (Friday) and that means that we can submit paperwork to the insurance company and hopefully my DS will be approved and I can be switched this summer!!

I hate my body -- I hate what I look like, what I feel like.  I hate that I can't walk up a few flights of stairs or play with my baby without becoming totally worn out. 

Had this party for my two older ones and I can't stand all the pictures of me.  I know I will appreciate that I have lots of befores... however, right now I wish I had decided to look into DS a year ago and then they would have been afters instead :sigh:

This morning I went for stupid-early monitoring and the embryo was measuring 6 weeks, and there was a heartbeat.  We couldn't hear it (altho supposedly we SHOULD have been able to), and my hCG is still appropriate.  Seems we have to take this week by week in terms of it continuing to be appropriate.

Passover also started last night.  For the first time in my 41 years we didn't have a family seder, and instead, we (my kids and husband) were supposed to go to our Rabbi's house.  I am so ashamed of myself -- of how I look and how I perceive everyone will be looking at me (at what I am eating) that I pulled the baby card and stayed home with Arik rationalizing that he can't start the seder at 8PM and eat at 10ish.  It's just too late for an almost 2 year old.

The real reason I bailed out is going to haunt me now as I realize I am alienating myself from any social situation and I have been doing this for months -- just didn't realize it until recently.  We were supposed to go to the Rabbi's son's Bar Mitzvah in September, and I bailed saying again I needed to stay home with Arik.  Real reason -- I felt like I looked like a beached whale in whatever I put on.  Same thing with a wedding a couple of months ago.

I thought I was ok last summer at faire, until I saw pictures of myself -- and my chins......

Maybe I'm taking everything out of proportion -- can I blame it on hormones??

Going next Friday for Nutritional consult and will have Dr. G's office submit all the paperwork.  Let's get the show on the road just in case.

Scary thing for me is even online here I am leary lately about posting anything -- as if someone is going to start saying (in that snide normal weight way) "Why is *she* here"...... Geez... maybe I'm getting a bit of a complex now that am just brain dumping and reading what I am writing....

Oh well.... it's me and Arik -- let me go crawl in bed with him.  Moshe is with Bethany and David at the Rabbi's for the 2nd seder.....

Haven't updated in a while and figured I should -- for myself anyway.

Went last week for an ultrasound and the embryo is right where it should be for 5ish weeks.  That puts it about a week behind where I think it should be.  Going back this week for another one.  hCG level was appropriately rising tho.... so I'm still not sure what is going on and if this will be a good pregnancy.  I am thinking more and more it will be a good one and bottom line is that it is better this way.  I would much rather be pregnant before going through the whole DS thing and then I can lose EVERYTHING I need to with no worries about screwing up plastics (again) or anything.

However.....

There is always a however, isn't there....

I hate who I have become physically. We had a combined Sweet 16/Bar Mitzvah party for Bethany and David on March 29.  We had performers from the NY Renaissance Faire come for entertainment and the kids loved it.  Already I feel like a big fat cow and I haven't seen the "official pictures" yet.  I have a double (triple??) chin again... and my body looks huge to me.  I did see one picture and all I wanted to do was cry -- while the person that took it was asking "isn't this a GREAT picture of you???"

Before anyone thinks it's all about how I look -- keep in mind I was a size 12/14 and had plastics ALREADY and was quite happy with where I was size wise.  This is back to being SMO and it is totally heartbreaking for me.

To add complete insult to injury, about a month ago I ripped the skin on my finger getting my engagement ring off.  It had to come off -- it was too tight (as is the wedding band but I refuse to be without that) and I was getting an irritation under the band.  It took a ton of soap and shampoo in the shower for it to come off and as I said, even then, I tore skin trying to twist it off.

I feel fat... I am embarrassed to go anywhere.... to meet anyone new.... my clothes are all getting tight (again) and not only will pregnancy not help that, but I know it will get worse...

I have wanted to post about the kids' party... maybe when I get some of the pictures.... and I will post my pix so that I have some before pix...

I am getting a bit down about coming to terms with having to wait 2 YEARS now to have this surgery.....

:sad:

Yesterday I had my pre-op physical with Dr. Levinson. I drove over an hour thru Philthy to get to the office in Cherry Hill.  It was relatively pain free and just symantics at this point. He asked me about my RnY and what recovery was like.  When I told him I was back to work in less than a week I had to re-iterate 3 times that it was OPEN not LAP :).

Told him about the pregnancy and that I am just plodding forward and will either get approval, then tell Empire BCBS that I am pregnant and putting the surgery on hold until after the baby is born, or it will give me time to work on an appeal if I am denied.  Also, with my history, if the pregnancy doesn't work out I will still be on track for the DS.  He felt this was a very good idea and cleared me with no problem.

The only thing that tweaked me a bit (other than having to fill out medical/surgical/social/family history AGAIN) was when he saw where I live asked why I didn't go to the Bucks County office!!!!  That would have been a max of 20 mins from where I live with no stupid long drive or anything.

Oh well....next up is the nutritionist - Olivia - at Dr. Greenbaum's office on April 17.  By then I should know a bit more where I am in this pregnancy as well.

When I married my husband in 2004 we immediately tried to have a baby.  We ended up going through multiple (14) attempts of IUI (intrauterine insemination), and had gotten pregnant once -- only to have miscarried at about 7 weeks due to trisomy 13, 21 (the baby never would have made it anyway).

We moved on to IVF (invitro fertilization) and got pregnant the first time.... 9 mos later we had my son Arik (5-7-07).  Almost a year later we decided to try again with IVF being that I am not getting any younger, and my husband's "donation" was having increasingly poor levels of morphology (normal shaped sperm - due to his age).  We had another miscarriage last May, again it was a trisomy 22.... attempted again in August and the embryos never made it to transfer (it was what I coinsider a crap cycle).  In September we decided to try for the last IVF attempt and used our last 2 frozen embryos.  Ended up with my first negative.  January of 09 we decided to go back to IUI for the final time, being that insurance paid for it completely.  Again it was a total waste of time and resources as it was all negative. 

I totally resigned myself to the fact that our family is complete and I was very happy with this decision.  This is the point at which I started researching revisional DS.  After all this trouble trying to conceive, I never in a bazillion years figured I would be where I am right now.

My period was late this month (which could be normal fluxuation for me by a few days).  When a few days went into a week I did a home pregnancy test this past Sunday and nearly had heart failure when it came up positive. 

I immediately called my reproductive doc who sent me for labs which showed that yes, I was pregnant but the level of HCG (pregnancy hormone) was not really up there.  The next step is to repeat the test in a few days and see if it is going up appropriately.  I honestly don't feel this will be a good pregnancy.  I don't have any of the signs and symptoms that I usually get when pregnant and with the level of hormone where it is -- I just don't have a real positive feeling here.

Now I am in a bigggggg conflict.  I have all the appointments set so that I can start the insurance dance and try and get this DS approved, however, if I am indeed pregnant with a viable pregnancy, that will have to go on hold for about 2 years until after the baby is born and I nurse for a year (my choice).  I now am in the position to wonder if do want to start all over with diapers and wee infants and 24/7 care (not that I don't do that now with Arik).

:Sigh:

Things happen in mysterious ways.... stay tuned to see what happens...