IVF Junkie

I have track marks and bruising on my thighs, torso, and the crease of my arm, just like the IVF junkie that I am.

I started my stims on Thursday. The Dr. switched me to Follistim from Menopur for this cycle.

The name is so much more promising. It states exactly what it does; follicle stimulation.

The switch is good because we will hopefully have better success with this drug; bad because I have several thousand dollars worth of Menopur sitting in my cabinet from the last round.

I am sure there is a secret black market for unused fertility drugs. The ironic thing about black markets is that they are, by definition, secret. There is no blinking neon sign on main street, or even under a dark overpass, advertising “SELL YOUR UNUSED RX FERTILITY DRUGS HERE!”

I am not privy to the seedy underworld of the fertility trade. The Dr. recommended that I donate them to the office, where they could give them to other patients in a bind. I have done this with some of my unopened needles and an unopened Progesterone in Sesame Oil, which I ended up being allergic to. However, there is a difference between roughly $50 worth of supplies and nearly $4,000, which could be put to use in some other baby getting endeavor, like adoption.

It also could have been put to good use to pay for the Follistim, which is $806 per vial, each of which only lasts a few days. At this pace, I will be able to take a lovely vacation with all the airline miles I am accruing from charging all of this.

The Follistim comes with this whimsical pen for injection, for which I was only charged $0.01.

However, the charm of this fanciful invention only lasts through the first five minutes of figuring out the instructions. It truly is pointless (no pun intended, because it actually has a rather sharp point). The whole process could have been achieved with a much less fuss and anxiety by using the old stand by syringe and tiny vials.

Perhaps, instead of giving away pens for nearly free and charging over $800 per vial of medication, they could have saved themselves some money in production by just sending the meds in a plain old vial along with some little syringes. Then they wouldn’t have to recoup the cost of those damn pens by charging an arm and a leg for the drugs you use it to inject.

Just a thought, since, like a true junkie, when not actually injecting myself, I am still obsessing over it.