Friday, November 6, 2009

BabyGate - Part 4

I spent the next three weeks ignoring the entire situation. I buried myself in work. I cooked a big (sugar-free) meal every night and kept the house looking like something out of Better Homes and Gardens. I spent a lot of time at Target, which most women will tell you can cure even the worst fertility depression. Until one night…
David and I sat down to do the finances. We realized that after all the medical bills piled up, we were starting to accumulate credit card debt, something we’d never had. Even if we began paying off next month’s medical bills in full, injectables included, we wouldn’t have any money leftover to pay the minimum on the credit cards! So THIS is how America got into the worst economic situation of our time. FERTILITY DRUGS!
We put a spending freeze on all credit cards and broke down to the BARE essentials every month. We ate out ONLY once a week (with a coupon from the Mint) and never bought breakfast or lunch. I stopped buying things for the dogs, I used coupons and followed the sales, and (dun, dun, dun) I stopped going to Target. Seeing as how I’d already cut out all sugar from my life, cutting everything else out was just insult to injury.

When it was time to go back to the doctor, I had very low expectations. I was over getting all excited or nervous.
Winnie walked in to do the ultrasound and whispered, “Today we want quiet ovaries. Let’s be quiet, too!” So we whispered for the entire ultrasound. Thank heavens my doctors and nurses get me.
And low in behold, my ovaries were quiet and ready for an onslaught of drugs. “This is great news!” she whispered. “Now you just need to order your new meds and we can get this party started!!”
“OK!” David and I whispered together.

I called the far-far-away pharmacy and asked if they had my prescription on file.
“Hi, Ms. Cohen! I have your prescription right here! And you also qualify for our medical assistance program.”
“Huh? I didn’t sign up for that.”
“Oh, you don’t have to. We automatically apply it to all accounts without fertility insurance.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is the total that high?”
“Well, you are ordering the injectables today. Those cost…”
“WAIT!” I interrupted. “I don’t want to know.”
“You don’t want to know the price?”
“Nope.”
“Ok. Well, I can just give you the total of the order so you know what we’re charging you.”
“Nope. Don’t want to know that either.”
She paused. She was clearly surprised. This wasn’t one of the options in her script. “Ok, Ms. Cohen, well, we’ll be charging your debit card a total of…um, we’ll just be charging it. And if you have any questions about the cost, then you can…um…you can call us.”
“Sounds great!” And I hung up, called Dave, and told him not to look at the credit card this month.
It ain’t just a river in Egypt.

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