We loved our clinic from the outset. The initial nurse that was assigned to us was warm and comforting, not to mention very responsive. That was huge for us – the ability to comfort to anxious TTC’ers is absolutely crucial to the process. I mention this because MY how things have changed…
The way our clinic operates is to give us an intake nurse that helps you complete all the testing and screening that I’ve mentioned and orients you to the TTC process. Once that is done and you are ready to begin the TTC procedures themselves, you’re passed off to a second nurse who sees you through the actual procedures and (ideally) through conception until you are ready for the clinic to pass you off entirely to your OB/GYN for the remainder of your pregnancy. This second nurse is responsible for coordinating all aspects of your TTC procedures: prep, medication, scheduling, coordinating with your assigned financial adviser at the clinic, monitoring you throughout your cycles, etc.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for us as we geared up to begin. T and I are doing reciprocal IVF, meaning she will carry an embryo made from my egg and our donor sperm, with a target “let’s try to get pregnant” timeframe (what we’re calling the “transfer” timeframe) of May. We originally intended to do a fresh transfer. All this means is that they would harvest my eggs, inseminate with the sperm, and – about 5 days later once they’ve sufficiently grown in the lab – transferred straight to T’s uterus. This, as you can imagine, requires quite the coordination and there is a very tight window to make this happen. If I missed my egg retrieval or it didn’t pan out for some reason, we’d miss our May target. That made us anxious.
Fast forward to my work schedule being crazy and us being more anxious and we decided, maybe fresh transfer wasn’t the way to go. Maybe it made more sense to take my eggs out as soon as possible and freeze them until we’re ready to transfer. We agreed this was the right course of action. At the end of February, I called the clinic to let them know we’d like to harvest my eggs asap in my March cycle, which was supposed to begin around March 22.
A week or so went by, no answer from our nurse. I left several voicemails and finally emailed the generic clinic email. A week closer to my cycle starting, she finally called back. I explained our thoughts and she was on board, said she would coordinate it all asap. Several days went by and I didn’t hear back. I finally got a draft medication protocol that was confusing and unclear. We exchanged several further emails, including about whether our insurance (which requires pre-authorization before it will pay for anything) had been notified and asked to prepare a pre-authorization. Despite my nurse not responding directly to me and delegating that to someone else, I was assured that all was in order.
Fast forward again to 2.5 frustrated weeks later, and we are on edge to say the least. The Thursday before the week my cycle is supposed to start, my uneasiness had sufficiently morphed into fury to cause me to send a Strongly Worded Email to my nurse and her delegate, letting them know that we felt like we were in the dark about the process and requesting that someone needed to call us ASAP. Friday at 6pm (single digits before my cycle is supposed to start), our nurse calls. She walks me through all my questions, assures me that my insurance is in hand and that she would fax my prescription that day. All was well, she said, and I hung up feeling like we were good to go.
Spoiler alert: we were not. This Monday, I hadn’t heard about my medicines and was getting nervous. I had also not heard from my insurance. I was in NY for work meetings, but got up early and decided to call my insurance. Turns out, no one had requested a pre-authorization. Also turns out, my medications had to be sent to a specific pharmacy in order to be covered by my insurance. All things our clinic would have known had they bothered to spend the 8 minutes I did talking to my insurance.
Suffice it to say, I went into Olivia Pope mode and just fixed it all myself. Our insurance is fabulous and, once I got them involved, they expedited everything for us. I started barking orders to the clinic and by the end of the day and in between travelling home from NY (all of this on my birthday, no less), we had a finalized pre-authorization, my meds had a delivery date for two days later, and we were only responsible for paying $1.66. #Handled
Customer service honestly just makes so much of a difference. Even in regular every day life but certainly in the TTC context. This – and I cannot stress this enough – is such an anxiety-ridden process. Even if you aren’t predisposed to anxious reactions, which both T and I are. Our nurse’s apparent inability to engage in basic customer service has only made this delicate and intricate process more opaque and emotional. I realize that these procedures are so old hat for these nurses and clinic and that there is nothing “at risk” or special about our process, but it is certainly our first time doing this! And I don’t think spending the time to run through some basic explanations of this very complicated process would be too much to ask.
I will say, we have learned a lot of lessons throughout this process. We will not be able to control or plan for everything that will happen to us during this process. And the best thing we can do is to support each other and help each other find patience as we guide ourselves through the darkness that is this process. Learning to let go of those things that cause us anxiety when we cannot change them or even know what they are is … difficult. But we start by focusing on the things we can handle, and to that end, we are already starting to gear up for what we need to do for the transfer process in May based on what we know from this experience. We ain’t doin’ this s*** again.
It is Wednesday now and I’m expecting my cycle to start today, which means it’s nearly go time. Our nurse will be on vacation (how nice!) for the rest of the week, so someone else will be delegated with my monitoring as we start the retrieval process. Here’s to hoping that nurse inspires more confidence…
Destination Family 
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