Long Term TTC & Assisted Conception - Feb 2008 #1

[tiggerlinda]

Welcome Shell and Abbie and will catch up soon

[Acacia]

Shel - welcome to BB Do you know much about the Medicare safety net? It is a system allowing you to recover some (or much) of your out-of-pocket, out of hopsital medical expenses. The threshold this year is (I think) $1,058, or something similar. This means that after you have paid $1,058 in out-of-pocket, out-of-hospital expenses from January 1st this year, 80% of any additional OOP, OOH expenses are refunded to you for the rest of the year. The threshold is lower for pensioners and those who have health care cards. You usually need to register with Medicare for the Safety Net, unless you are the only person listed on your Medicare card, at which point you are registered automatically. As an example, our OOP expenses, not including in-hopsital costs for our first and only IVF/ICSI cycle last year cost us almost $2,500. Of that, we got well over $1,000 of that refunded to us by Medicare (and some additional earlier OOP expenses before IVF). You can claim on the safety net as soon as you reach the threshold. The costs of each IVF cycle depend on the type of cycle you have (stimulated cycles are much more expensive than thaw/frozen embryo cycles as they are much more involved on all levels) and the prices differ between clinics all over Australia. I'm sure you could ask City Fertility Centre for a list of their IVF prices - most clinics make that available upon request. I'm not sure about private insurance for hospital expenses, but the Medicare Safety Net certainly helps with the other out-of-hospital expenses in IVF that build up. Hope this is helpful and apologies if I've gone into detail about stuff you already know about! Good luck with your IVF journey. I hope it is a speedy and successful one

Meredith - I'm sorry you're having such a difficult time at the moment :hugs: It takes a lot of strength, huge amounts of strength to go through AC, huge amounts of strength and courage to get started on the journey let alone continue on it, and that strength waxes and wanes according to your mental, physical and especially emotional state. But I've always found that there is strength and courage left to draw on when I remember what we are aiming to do. We are aiming to have a family. To have children in our life. It gets lost in amongst all the stress and concerns of AC, and lack of control about what your body is doing, but when I think about it, it helps bring my strength and will to go through it back. The lack of control on your body is hard, especially when it thwarts your efforts, but don't give up hope, hun. Just remember what the outcome is to be, in the end, and focus on that We're all here for you, too.

BecD - I haven't been around so much on BB since moving, so I hadn't heard the result of your cycle. I know it's a bit late, but I'm sorry to hear it was BFN Very glad to hear that your appointment got bumped up, so I wish you lots of luck for tonight, and hope that your FS has lots of good suggestions and that you can have a good chat and look forward to the next time round. Yay!


I had my BT today - my HCG level was 25, so it's a BFN-in-action for me. AF arrived properly on Saturday afternoon, and has been heavy and painful since, with no sign of let up yet. I have to go back for another BT on Wednesday to confirm my levels are dropping otherwise the clinic would be concerned about ectopic or a non-viable pregnancy. They were a bit surprised to hear that I've been bleeding heavily for 3 days, and that my levels were still 25. I feel like I'm in limbo now, as I don't know whether we'll be able to go straight on to a FET or wait until my body recovers from the chemical pregnancy - all will depend on whether my HCG levels have dropped to 2 or under by Wednesday. We'll see.

Have had a difficult few days, feeling like we came very close this time, but it was hard to wait for the blood test to confirm what we figured was going on after HPT's were positive but AF arrived after a couple of nervous days waiting to see whether it would or not. DH is optimistic as we got further this time, and is feeling hopeful about the next cycle. I'll get over this one in time, and I think a proper resolution will help me, rather than the limbo at the moment. Hopefully Wednesday will bring that proper resolution.

Good Luck to Deni and Tish today for their BTs - I've been thinking of you both a lot today, and I hope there is lots of good news all around! Fingers crossed!

Hugs to you all,

Miss C