Monday, Apr. 29, 2002 - 11:53 p.m. - All Fired Up

On Friday I received an email from a friend from one of my infertility discussion boards which pointed me to this petition asking for an apology from Good Morning America and Dr. Nancy Snyderman for ignorant comments she made regarding infertility treatment. Of course, I immediately added my name to the petition and wrote a comment. I was going to post the link to the petition here in my journal, with the hope of making more people aware of it and hoping that perhaps some other people might sign it as well. However, in the meantime, some very nasty comments have been made to one of my list mates comment boards by those who agree with Dr. Snyderman’s comments.

Now I agree everyone has a right to their own opinion, but I get upset when people make uninformed statements, particularly when they themselves have no idea what it is like to deal with this type of ignorance constantly. Of course, I couldn’t help myself and had to write back in defense of infertility treatment and coverage. Feel free to comment yourself, but be sure you have your facts straight before disagreeing with my statements. And please, no comments about how “you can always adopt.” Like infertility treatments, adoption is extremely expensive, so no, not everyone has that option either. Besides, that is a whole different issue.

Anyway, this is how I feel on the issue. Now I wrote this completely off the cuff, so it’s not well written, but I think I got my point across.

For all of you out there who oppose insurance companies paying for infertility benefits with the argument that it is unfair that everyone picks up the cost with their insurance premiums, I'd like to let you know that this has been proven to be a false assumption based on the tested practice of mandatory insurance coverage in Massachusetts and Illinois. Those states have shown that the FULL coverage of infertility treatment including IVF (often up to 5 times) has not significantly increased the premium costs for the consumer. In fact, it has been shown that money has been SAVED because there are fewer higher multiple births (usually due to taking the cheaper more risky route of injectibles with inseminations rather than the controlled, but more costly method of IVF), which require much more medical intervention during pregnancy (often requiring months of in-hospital bedrest) and unbelievably huge costs when these high-order multiples are born months premature.

By offering IVF to many of these patients, these high-risk, very expensive high-order multiple pregnancies have been reduced and have resulted in more healthy babies and moms. So the "cost" argument does NOT pan out. They figure it costs the insurance consumer perhaps a few cents more on premium costs to offer this infertility coverage. Seems like a good trade off to me.

To back up my information, I'd like to point you to the following articles so you can see I'm not talking out of my A$$!:

Facts About Infertility Treatment and Coverage

Making Companies Pay

And : Infertility Insurance Mandates Lower Multiple Births in IVF

Perhaps you should read a little on the topic before opening your mouth and making wild claims!

Also, PCOS is not just an infertility disease, it is a disease of the endocrine system (like lupus is a disease of the autoimmune system, or MS is a disease of the nervous system). Infertility is just ONE symptom and aspect of this disease, and yet it does not receive the same validity for treatment as these other diseases. How unfair is that? Often simple TREATMENT of the disease can return a woman's fertility, but we women are denied this treatment because it is viewed AS INFERTILITY treatment. It isn't. It also helps with PCOS induced weight gain, heart disease and diabetes.

Endometriosis is also a disease -- a disease of the reproductive system. It should be treated as such and one of the SIDE effects of treatment would be restoring fertility.

As for all the other fertility medications and their costs, why is Viagra covered by so many insurance companies?? Is helping a man have an erection more important than helping a couple have a child of their own? Is that how our society thinks? Penile implants, viagra, abortions, sterilizations are all covered by my insurance, as well as infertility diagnosis, but NOT infertility TREATMENT. There is something wrong with the system. A fair comparison would be that of someone receiving insurance coverage for heart disease or cancer diagnosis, and then being denied treatment. Of course, treatment is available, but only those who can afford it can receive it. So are we advocating that only the wealthy can receive certain medical treatments? That doesn't seem right to me. Isn't that what insurance is for?

It's about time we women and men dealing with infertility issues stood up for ourselves and made ourselves heard. For far too long we have suffered in silence, embarrassed to admit that we have a problem conceiving -- something the rest of the world seems to take so lightly.

Whew! Ok, I’ll get off of my soapbox again. Nothing riles me up like topics like that. They are just too close to my heart, but I feel strongly about speaking out and educating people about it. Infertility affects 5% of the population in the US. That’s millions of people and yet it is hardly ever talked about or discussed, or worse it is brushed off with the ol’ “you can always adopt, there are so many unwanted, uncared for children.” Who said that the “infertile” of the world had the responsibility to take in all these unwanted, uncared for children? Oh well, don’t get me started on that. (grin)

In other news, Michael, myself, and another couple that we often get together with, participated in a Treasure Hunt my brother put together. It was a complete blast and extremely well planned and organized. We all started out at my parent’s house and had to solve clues to figure out where to go to get our next clue. Once there we had to figure out that clue to find the next clue location. The clues were great. We had to put together some legos in a particular order (based on flags of Europe) in order to get one clue, we had to decipher a “treasure map” to figure out which route was the correct one to get to the “treasure” on the map, then based on that route where we needed to go next, we had to look through an entire paper of ads (The Little Nickel Want Ads) to find the ad that gave us our next clue and so much more. It was a complete blast and everyone contributed to our success, which was great! Best of all, our team, Team DotGone, came in first!!! We were actually 6 minutes behind another team, except that they called in for a clue which cost them 10 minutes on their time, so we won by 4 minutes! Unfortunately all we won was a pack of Twinkies! Uggh! All the other prizes were gag prizes too, like Whoopie cushions and brooms for those who were the “sweepers” and came in last.

We finished off the evening with a party with lots of good food and fun conversations at my parent’s house again. A lot of fun!

The Peep is really making herself felt these days! I’m loving it. She keeps reminding me that she is there with her little pokes and occasional good kicks! Michael keeps missing the opportunity to feel her, or at least he did until this evening when she was being rather active and I put his hand on my tummy and he finally felt a good kick! He was so excited. It makes me smile to think of his reaction. It was so cute! I feel so fortunate to be able to experience this. It was one of the things that I was so heartbroken about when I thought we might never have our own child. I had always wanted to experience what it was like to feel your baby kick. It thrills me no end to finally get to experience that. It’s truly amazing!

Is anyone else watching Frontier House? It’s a PBS version of “Survivor” meets “Real World.” In 2000 they did a show like this called 1900 house, when a family had to live in a house as if it were 1900, but this time it is 3 families living on the frontier. I just love watching how these modern families cope with the hardships of life back in the “good old days.” I’ve never been one of those to believe that all was good back in the “good old days” and have always been glad to be living now and not then. It is fun to watch to see how people cope with it. I know I would never volunteer with the notion that doing so would be “fun” like one family did. Ugggh, how ignorant. It’s on again tomorrow and Wednesday from 9:00 – 11:00 here in our area and I think the times are pretty much the same in other places on the local PBS stations. You might want to check it out. It’s VERY interesting.

Currently....
Pregnancy: 20 weeks 6 day(s) It’s a GIRL!!
Medications currently taking: Glucophage XR 500 mg, Levoxyl 137 mcg, Prenatal Vitamins, Heparin 27,000 units, Baby Aspirin
Non-prescription: Calcium 1200 mg, Vitamin E, Vitamin C
Number of Injections given so far : 405 (258 since Jan. 1)
Feeling: Riled up
Current Cravings: Kappa Maki (Cucumber Rolls – sushi, but not with fish)
Reading : Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy
Reading via Books on Tape : The Return Journey by Maeve Binchy
Watching: Frontier House