I thought I had worked through my feelings about infertility... until I started reading. Supposedly, there's so many programs to help with fertility for cancer survivors. What I didn't realize it that they are mostly geared toward adolescent and married women without children; two groups to which I do not belong. I also did not realize that freezing your eggs to produce children is a relatively new process. Apparently the pioneers in this field only have about a thousand births under their belt. My best bet would be to freeze an embryo, but since I don't have a paternal candidate, my options are obviously limited.
The fertility for cancer programs do not provide assistance if health insurance is willing to pay for any portion of the process. Logically, the first place I started was with my insurance. Lots of my co-workers have done cycles for in vitro fertilization with the help of our insurance. Since egg harvesting is part of that process, it's not a stretch to think that they may assist me with fertility preservation.
You would think that people who work in women's health would be sensitive to someone like me, but no. I spoke to a female call center agent to whom I explained my situation. I told her that I had lost my uterus to cancer, that I still had my ovaries, and I wanted to see if they could assist me with harvesting and preserving some of my eggs. She proceeded to coldly ask me a battery of questions. She wanted to know the first day of my last period. When I told her I hadn't had a
After she asked me a bunch of other uncomfortable questions, she was careful to inform me that my case would need to be closed if I became pregnant. Excuse me?!? I tried to stay calm and asked her what she meant by become pregnant. Instead of clarifying, she sighed and repeated herself rather quickly as though I was an idiot for not understanding. I attempted to clarify my question to this simple bitch because I had already told her dumb ass... I DON'T HAVE A COT DAMN UTERUS. I asked her if she meant when the egg freezing process was complete, or when my surrogate became pregnant. She was silent for a second, then repeated herself. I explained to her that I was confused by her statement because there is no possible way that I would "become pregnant" naturally or as a result of this process. She glazed over my statement like I hadn't even said it and ended the call.
I hung up the phone and cried for the better part of an hour. That exchange really knocked the wind out of my sails. I know that I have a letter from my insurance company in a pile of mail from my mother's house. I'm terrified to open it and possibly see that they denied my benefits. I'm trying to psyche myself up. It ain't hardly working.
WOW That was a crazy convo. Didn't realize you wrote on the regular but looking at the dates not so regular... but I'm up so may peruse through a few
ReplyDelete