The P17 drama, anatomy scan and Firefly

I wrote the following on May 29, saved it as a draft to finish later in the day, and never returned to it. You'll understand why as you continue reading.

I still don't have the P17 in my possession, but I should have it on Monday!!!

So, I finally got a call from the specialty pharmacy's insurance department, which is also the department that confirms the cash price, yesterday. That was a horrible call. The rep told me that the price I was quoted was incorrect. That it was $2100 for 3 doses, not 15. Well, that sent me into a tizzy. I got angry. Told her that I got a price quote three different times to confirm the price, and eventually ended the phone call with a "I don't know if we can afford that price. I hope my baby doesn't die."

I then started sobbing and called Jon, who swooped into super-hero mode and said that he would begin looking at acquiring the meds from overseas that evening, despite the fact that he was away on a business trip. A few minutes later the rep called back, apologizing. She was wrong. The price I was quoted was the correct price for 15 doses. Then it was a waiting game for the shipping department to call me. I just got off the phone with them and I should have my meds, delivered via FedEx on Monday, for a grand total of $2199.34 for 15 doses. I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm so hoping that this will be the end of the P17 drama and I can actually begin taking it.

We had my last cervical length u/s this morning.

Between when I wrote the above May 29 and now so much has happened, but I didn't want to write about any of it in for fear of jinxing getting the meds.

Later in the day on May 29 I got another phone call about the P17 injections, to once again tell me that the price quotes that I received were wrong and that the $2199.34 was for 3 doses, not 15. She had spoken to several people, including the pharmacist, but the price quote was wrong. I was livid, so didn't cry. There was no one there, at the time, that could authorize a price change, so I would have to wait until Friday, May 30, to get a phone call from that person.

On Friday, I did get a phone call. I explained that I had gotten 3 separate price quotes prior to submitting my prescription, then had 2 more prior to getting the final call the day before, and that it was unacceptable. That's 5 price quotes that were all wrong, even when one rep checked with someone and called back confirming the previous price quotes. The rep basically told me that she was sorry, they're looking into why this happened, but that they can't honor the price quotes I received. So, please, please, please, keep in mind that Jon and I will be filing false advertising claims against Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy through the BBB, the FTC and the FCC. Jon and I are also boycotting any and all Walgreens purchases for the rest of our lives.

After learning this information, Jon began calling compounding pharmacies and pharmacies in Canada. Because the meds are made commercially, compounding pharmacies will not make the meds unless there's a reason you can't take Makena. This is all liability bullshit. The compounded version of hydroxyprogesterone caproate used to the only way to get these meds. Then, Makena came along and the price increased from $20/shot to about $1500/shot. Now, Makena (or rather the manufacturer of Makena) is suing saying that the compounding pharmacies should not be allowed to compound the meds anymore. The compounding pharmacies don't want to deal with any potential negative consequences, so they are only compounding the med if there's an allergy to one of the ingredients in Makena.

After making no headway with any pharmacies, Jon and I decided that we would just have to not do the injections, as we didn't have $11,000 to spend on the meds, but that we'd talk to the doctor to see about increased monitoring to help with my anxiety levels. I think the stress of dealing with Walgreens, thinking I was getting the meds, not getting the meds, getting the meds, then confirming that I wasn't was just too much stress on me, and on Sunday, June 1 I woke up in the morning, went to the bathroom, had an excessive amount of discharge and some blood (none in the toilet, just mixed with the discharge. I wiped several more times to see how much bleeding there was, and on one of the wipes there was a small clot, no bigger than half a pencil eraser.

Jon was at work for a couple hours that morning, so I called him to let him know what was going on. He immediately came home and got Gus ready, while I got dressed, and we headed to the hospital. Being 20w4d, I wasn't sure if I should go to the ER or L&D, and Jon just wanted to get there, so we stopped at Urgent Care first (Jon later shared that he hoped to piss the docs off by going to the wrong place). Urgent Care sent us to the ER, and the ER sent us to L&D. So, we headed upstairs, got checked in, Bean's heartbeat was found (not with the monitoring belt, but with the doppler) and the on-call doc was called in. There are 4 docs in the practice, and I knew it wouldn't be my doc, as he was just returning from vacation that day, so Jon was going to use the opportunity to try to get a script for the compounded shots.

The doc got there, ordered some labs and an u/s. With our history, she didn't want to do a physical examination on me before she had confirmation that nothing was going on with my cervix. She also mentioned that she wanted to rule out a placental abruption. The u/s tech arrived and did an abbreviated anatomy scan, cervical check and placenta check. Said I was measuring 4 days ahead, that my placenta was in a good spot (at the top of the uterus), and that the doc would get results after the radiologist read the images.

The doc eventually came in, said that my cervix was long and closed, that the placenta looked good and that she wanted to do a visual inspection of my cervix. During that, she said that she could see NO EVIDENCE OF ANY BLEEDING. Jon talked with her about our history and wanting to do the P17 shots, but we couldn't get them filled. We walked out with a prescription, from her, specifically for COMPOUNDED hydroxyprogesterone caproate!!!!!

On Monday, Jon faxed the prescription to a compounding pharmacy, talked with the pharmacy, paid for my meds and they shipped it out!!!!! I received the meds on Tuesday, called the docs office and scheduled my first injection for yesterday (June 6). I didn't want to write anything about the shots until AFTER I started taking them. Once I start the docs office can't make me stop, right? Even if they refuse to administer them (which I don't think they will) Jon could learn how to do them at home, right?

Thursday was our anatomy scan. On Wednesday I tried to get my emotions in check. I really wanted this baby to be a girl. I don't get to raise Bella or Firefly on earth, and I so want to be able to show them the things we'd do had they lived. But, with the way we did our IUI, chances were leaning more towards another boy. For the last few weeks I've been thinking we're having a girl, but I wasn't sure if that was a gut feeling, or just me hoping so badly, that I didn't even want to voice it to the universe. (The dates of our scan and HPT with Bean also coincided with Firefly's HPT and due date. Firefly's functional due date was February 6, we took our HPT with Bean on February 5. The day we found out we were pregnant with Firefly was June 6, and Bean's anatomy scan was June 5.)

We got to the appointment on Thursday morning and checked in. When the tech came to see us in the waiting room, she said that she had to reboot her machine, so it was going to be a couple minutes. I wasn't sure if I need a full bladder or not for the scan, so had to go to the bathroom, and asked if it was okay to go or not. She said she would get some images with my full bladder and then I'd be allowed to go. When she came to get us for real, she showed us into the room and told me that my doc had also ordered a cervical length check, so I needed to empty my bladder, as they'd do those measurements first. This was a surprise to me, as I thought my last one was the week prior. I wonder if he ordered it after seeing that I was in L&D on Sunday???

My cervix is measuring awesome...over 5cm! That's the longest it's been since we started doing the cervix u/s, though she didn't do compressions. She then moved on to the anatomy scan. She did a wonderful job of telling us what she was doing and measuring, and it made me feel really great to know that, while not official because it's not from my doc, that Bean was healthy. She said that Bean was measuring right at 21w1d, which is exactly where I was gestationally :)

And we did get to find out that we're expecting Lucy. I'm happy and sad. I'm happy that I get the chance to raise a girl on earth. I'm sad that Bella and Firefly aren't here. And today it hit me how different raising a girl is going to be compared to raising a boy. I'm all for gender equality, but the world just isn't there yet, so how we raise Gus and how we raise Lucy will be completely different. We will teach Gus to honor and respect women, that we are equals. We will have to teach Lucy that, despite what society says, she can do anything that her brother can do. There's so many other things that will be different between raising them, and it's all just hitting me today, so I can't even write about it right now.

And then there was Firefly's anniversary yesterday. It was difficult. It felt like I didn't do enough for her. I had my shot in the morning, was caring for Gus all day and had an event downtown that we wanted to attend as a family in the evening. Unlike the other kids, I didn't do a birthday party or anything special for her. I did put something on facebook, and that made me feel a little better. I know that I can't do the same things for each and every kid, but it felt like I didn't really do much for her outside of myself. I did think of her a lot yesterday, how she'd be around 4 months old. And while I'm not happy that I didn't do more, I'm okay with what we did. In future, I think I'm going to have to stock up on sparklers for July 4 and make sure to save them for the next 11 months so we can do sparklers on Firefly's anniversary :)