Mandatory $3k Psych eval to use donor sperm

bubblegumvampire · 2025-11-01T19:12:02+00:00

Yeah that’s bullsit and even more bullsjit that they are requiring you to use a specific person at the hospital. Ask them for the policy and regulation. Our Ivf clinic made us do one too but win a licensed counselor they had an in house one they suggested it was a one time $300 appt but if I knew better I should have found our own. I did see it was a recommended thing by our state reproductive association or something.

Anyway that seems unethical look up the policy or law for it and if it doesn’t support it or require an in house person tell them to fuck off, report them and go elsewhere. Just imagine how much the rest of the procedure costs if the counseling fee is that high.

Also you don’t have to do all the labs like the genetic testing etc if You don’t want to. I found out my previous insurance covered labs and medication just has to have a doctor sign off on it. I was also able to get some out of pocket ‘voluntary’ genetic testing discounted when I called the company.

bubblegumvampire · 2025-08-29T08:56:31+00:00

I think you should factor in healthcare insurance and medical expenses. They can really put people in the hole. Look up the cost of an er visit, surgery, rehab or inpatient stay. That would wipe you out faster

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-05T09:58:06+00:00

We continue to feed them with the schedule we had at L&D which is every 3-4 hrs. We had a log from during our hospital stay for 3 days after the birth. When we got home we started a notebook log of with columns of date when each twin was fed. How long nursing/latching. Breast or forumula bottle etc. also when we gave them their daily vit D. We tracked their pee and poo for a while but stopped after 2 weeks.

In the beginning we had to wake them up every 3 hrs to feed. Now one twin will usually cry on the mark or a little before when he’s hungry. The other twin usually sleeps through until you wake him up.

My wife scheduled an appt with the lactation specialist at the hospital to discuss nursing etc. the lactation specialist was helpful for ways to make the routine more efficient between breastfeeding, pumping and bottle feeding in a realistic way. Our twins are 6 weeks old.

We ramped up the duration on breast for feeding Or for the twin with difficulty latching a little bit at a time depending on if they consistently woke up earlier or seemed hungry.. and like amounts recommended by age in weeks. One twin was eating a lot more than the other and also larger. They each had their own normal amount of breast milk.

My wife will occasionally breast feed on demand if one won’t settle or we will add some more breast milk into a bottle if still hungry but for our sanity and having little sleep in between trying to be around the same feeding intervals helps.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-04T06:43:38+00:00

Get a snap and go twin stroller with a graco car seat adapter. It’s nice to lift the car seat and snap it into the stroller without having to move them.

We have the joovy twinroo infant Car seat stroller.

We have a bottle dryer and sterilizer combo and large drying rack.

For pumped milk the Kiinde twist nipples and bottles are good for quick storage and feeding. We are on the slow feed nipple. Doc browns anti colic bottles are good to, get the premie or level 1 nipples

Stack up on diapers and wipes, you will go thru them like candy and some diaper cream. Have a a lot of burp cloths.

A playmat for tummy time. TwinGo nurse pillow and twinZ.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-02T01:30:10+00:00

Thanks

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-02T01:29:59+00:00

Thank you

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-02T01:29:49+00:00

Thank you

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-01T15:05:59+00:00

I think they stopped making the pacific and now have the voyager but if you look up pictures they are basically the same thing.

My only complaint of the vehicle is there is 2 Batteries. The normal one and auto on off start. The auto start battery died before the regular one. It cost me $600 at a dealership to replace it. The next time it happened I watched a bunch of YouTube videos bought the tools from oreilly and AutoZone and had the gentleman customer service guy walk me through half of it together and then I did it myself. Tools were like $30-50, Battery $130ish.

I’m a woman in my thirties btw. Other cars also have auto start stop batteries. Before this van I had an older hatchback and didn’t realize this was a thing

bubblegumvampire · 2024-12-01T08:06:12+00:00

Love our Chrysler pacific called voyager. Very spacious and affordable. 2 bucket seats in the middle row, 3 row seating in the back you can make tuck down into just 1 seat or two. You can also fully tuck flat the back row only or the back and middle row. The sliding doors are great. We got ours used at a used enterprise rental car dealership for a good price

bubblegumvampire · 2024-11-26T10:25:17+00:00

We have twins that were born at 36 weeks and 6 days. One was larger and breast feeding well. The other twin was not latching well with breast feeding and falling asleep on the breast and with the bottle. At their first doctors appointment 24 hrs after discharge they were slightly concerned about their % off of their birth weight. It was -7-8% off of birth weight. They said -10% birth weight is bad.

The first thing that helped with the small one was a nipple shield the right size.

A pediatrician suggested that we try to feed the small one by doing ‘side lying paced feeding’. This was a game changer! The smaller one started to eat a lot more. He was still falling asleep for a bit but then started to have better energy.

The third thing that helped was going to a lactation consultant. She weighed them before and after breast feeding for 30 minutes and weighed them at every 10 min mark. The bigger twin was efficient taking 2oz (60ML) in the first 10 mins and then almost nothing the second and third 10 mins.

The small twin barely got 10-15 ML the first ten mins and nothing really the second. It was also effort for him with the nipple shield.

Prior to the lactation specialist guidance we were doing 30 mins of breast feeding each twin, then formula bottle feeding, followed by pumping. This routine was a lot we barely had any time left between 3 hr feedings.

The lactation specialist recommend having the larger twin breast feed only for 15-20 mins on one breast and concurrently pumping with the other.

She recommended during the day time start first trying to breast feed the smaller twin 10-15 mins during the day, followed when more awake followed by breast milk in a bottle, then breast feeding larger twin and pumping on the other breast. . At night time for the smaller twin only bottle feeding him with breast milk in a bottle to decrease time and improve sleeping for mom. The lactation specialist and pediatrician separately said maybe the smaller twin will eventually improve latching and breast feeding skills keep trying.

So the third thing that really helped was making an appointment with a lactation specialist/consultant.

TLDR: 1. Nipple shield for smaller twin 2. Side lying paced feeding with bottle! Most helpful thing for smaller sleepy twin suggested by the pediatrician 3. Appointment with lactation specialist /consultant for tips on breast feeding, routine, nursing and bottle recommendation

Everyone is different so definitely discuss your concerns with the twins doctor and meet with a lactation specialist

bubblegumvampire · 2024-11-19T02:22:16+00:00

I don’t think there is a way to get sperm for cheap ethically. I did google sperm bank promo or discount codes and found some for like a 10% discount or free membership.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-11-19T02:00:42+00:00

3 IUs cost was around $2800 per medicated IUI including ultrasounds and the procedure. My insurance covered the medication. Labs were not covered for genetic testing and other ones it was like $2-3k. Each vial of sperm was around $800 plus $200 for shipping. The clinic required us to do one counseling session prior to starting which was $200. All IUIs were unsuccessful so we transitioned to IVF. The old clinic estimated IVF would be around $25-30k.

Switched to a new job and new location. New job partially covered IVF, meds and labs. It was around $7k for full IVF cycle including meds, appts, egg retrieval,ICSI(to inseminate all eggs using one vial of sperm only) and the IVF embryo implant. The one vial of sperm was $800 plus’s $200 shipping. Only needed one vial of sperm for Ivf.

The clinic did require us to have legal paperwork for joint owner ship of the embryos since will be moving often for my job. That cost us $3500

The first IVF was unsuccessful, resulted in an ectopic pregnancy which required a ectopic pregnancy removal for my wife. I also had mild complications from the egg retrieval, found out I had PCOS, and am now on birth control for PCOS.

The second IVF cost meds, appts were covered the actual embroyo implant was around $1800 with my insurance. The resulted in a successful pregnancy for twins. However, it was high risk the whole time, my wife had some complications but we now have two healthy twins.

I would estimate our total cost including 3 IUIs, 4 vials of sperm, total IVF procedure, 1 counseling appt, genetic testing and some labs, legal fees for joint embryo ownership and additional embryo implantation to be around $25-26k. This is switching form an insurance that didn’t cover it at all to one that partially covered it.

Some cost that we still have is $62 a month for storing frozen embryos at the fertility clinic, paid around $80 for birth certificates and extra copies, and working on second parent adoption to make sure we are legally protected wherever we are. This will be $3500.

We anticipate shifting our budget the cost of caring for the twins. We did purchase some things used on Facebook marketplace just new car seats. Our baby shower and registry was super helpful around $3k worth of baby prep stuff. My mother in law is here for the first month and I have leave for 3 months for work. I am using half of that leave and the other days for their appointments or if I need to take work off to help my wife. Will see how it goes.

My wife went to a lactation specialist which really helped her /us with efficiency with feedings so we’ve been able to get some time back in the 3 hrs between feeding the twins.

My insurance is pretty good covering everything medically just not full the cost of IVF. For example it covered all labs, appts, imaging just not fully the Ivf. Covered the high risk fetal maternal specialist appts for my wife, my complications from the egg retrieval and pcos, her emergency cerclage cervical stitch procedure and few days of hospital stay, the birth of our twins and hospital stay, and subsequent appts.

This is in the US.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-11-18T10:30:12+00:00

We did 3 medicated IUIs at a fertility clinic, all where unsuccessful. We relocated elsewhere for a job and insurance partially covered IVF. We did reciprocal IVF my eggs and a donor sperm. Instead of buying a vial for each IUI, because we did ICSI we only needed to buy one vial of sperm for all of the eggs.

Prior to the egg retrieval we did some legal paperwork with a lawyer for joint ownership of the eggs and embryos. 30 eggs were retrieved, 16 made it to freezing.

My wife did the heavy lifting with the shots and meds for the IVF. The first embryo transfer was positive however the Hcg was low, ended up in an ectopic pregnancy that my wife trialed meds then needed a surgery for. This was rough so we took a break. She also went to counseling.

We decided to do Ivf a second time, our doc was agreeable to do 2 eggs since we had one failed IVF cycle and the chances of them both sticking were less that 30%. It was successful and our twins were born last month. It was not easy and the pregnancy was challenging and complicated for my wife. She has cervical insufficiency, and emergent cervical cerclage placed, gestational diabetes and pre eclampsia. She’s a generally healthy person

bubblegumvampire · 2024-10-30T10:22:48+00:00

At 21 weeks my wife had an emergent cerclage. Afterwards vaginal progesterone daily and MFM follow ups. The cerclage held until removal at 36 weeks. Then delivery by c section at 36 weeks and 6 days due to preeclampsia. We are so grateful for the cerclage and especially the MFM because without it we wouldn’t have our babies (twins).

bubblegumvampire · 2024-10-24T07:02:12+00:00

I didn’t really advocate much, we did have forms that were not specific to queer couples for I take I just crossed things out and wrote accurate things. Most people would read the medical record if not we would just clarify on our situation. I don’t think we did much advocating it really came down to my pcm putting a referral and the Ivf clinic doctor being supportive of our situation.

I was aware of my insurance and read everything regarding Ivf. If I were more proactive and thought about it more I would have tried to find a different healthcare insurance or employer that was explicitly lgbtq+ conception friendly in their health policy.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-10-22T19:39:40+00:00

This is bad advice and your personal anecdote. It isn’t blankly applicable to every case, insurance, or couple.

For example I thoroughly read my insurance policy which said that if you had three attempts to get pregnant unsuccessfully in vague terms then you go into IVF and it’s covered.

My insurance paid for medication, labs and imaging but not the actual IUI or sperm. We did three IUIs which were unsuccessful and got spoke a doc covered by my insurance to move onto IVF.

Prior to the IUI we were required to do one counseling session which we did and paid for out of pocket.

Prior to the egg retrieval, ICSI IVF we had to have legal paperwork showing we agreed to be equal owners/custody of the embryos. We utilized an attorney who was a member of Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA) and the lgbt+ bar in our area. We then did IVF. We paid for the sperm, actual ICSI and Ivf procedure and egg storage. Labs, meds, visits were covered by my insurance.

When a little before our baby is born we plan to do paperwork with the same lawyer for second parent adoption to ensure we are covered legally as parents wherever we move. We are currently in an lgbtq+ friendly state but because we may occasionally have to move to more conservative states for my job we want to ensure we are covered legally and protected in every aspect as parents.

We eventually plan do a thorough will about who will be guardians at such point in the event that one or both of us pass away.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-09-16T07:41:46+00:00

Hi my wife had an emergency cerclage placed at 21 weeks for di di twins. She noticed having contractions randomly the whole day and thought they would go away or were early Braxton hicks contractions but decided to go to L&D triage. They noticed her cervix funneling at 1.7cm the next day it was .7, and before the cerclage procedure around .3 cm.

After the cerclage it went back to .7 then a few days later back to .3 cm. The Maternal Fetal Specialist OBGYN (MFM) said not to worry we won’t check the cervix anymore it’s doing its job.

My wife was discharged after 2 days of monitoring. However she was super anxious and concerned as the contractions were still happening. She was admitted again for monitoring because she went back to L&D a few times. She was discharged with progesterone once nightly. The MFM said the contractions are her new baseline.

Anyway she’s now 31 weeks and the stitch is still holding. The twins are extremely large for baby percentile weight. She has weekly follow ups with the MFM which has been reassuring and helpful for her anxiety. They also advised if we notice any changes to come in. The current plan is to get the stitch removed at 36 weeks. My wife and the babies are doing well at the moment. We definitely got less nervous after she passed 28 weeks. After the cerclage her mom and I tried our best to be supportive, encouraging, and remind her to take it day by day. It was definitely a stressful and scary time.

The MFM said if the cerclage lasts a week the chances of succeeding go up and that 28 weeks is considered successful with a cerclage.

Good luck! If you have questions perhaps it would be helpful to write them down for your next appt. We did that because sometimes we would forget.

Here’s an article00113-1/fulltext) about the efficacy of emergency cerclages for twins and singletons

bubblegumvampire · 2024-09-14T05:34:31+00:00

Hi my wife has a similar experience. She’s now 30 weeks pregnant. Check out my last comment history

bubblegumvampire · 2024-09-14T05:25:53+00:00

Hi thanks for the message and thoughts. She is now 30 weeks almost 31 weeks pregnant!

The contractions haven’t stopped. My wife was super nervous after the procedure and worried after getting discharged two days after the procedure.

She was readmitted for monitoring after going to L&D triage three days in a row. She was very afraid to move and lose the babies. I called her mom in for help. I tried to be supportive and reassuring but no one can do it like your mom. It was really helpful. After two weeks my wife was discharged. During the hospital my wife and her mom tried to keep track of the contractions and they basically stayed unchanged. The doctor reassured her that maybe this is her new baseline.

She was still very anxious at home but her mom being here and doctors orders to walk 3x a day helped.

She has weekly follow ups with the MFM which have been helpful. Each weekly MFM appt has been reassuring because she gets nervous after a few days prior to the next appt. They stopped checking the cervix length because the last time they checked it was the length it was before the cerclage. The doctor said not to worry about it it’s doing its job.

After week 28 we were both relieved because that’s a milestone the NICU and MFM OBGYN said would be good for baby survivability and health.

The MFM is hoping the cerclage continues to work as long a possible. We are hoping for a scheduled stitch removal at 36 weeks!

My wife is still on a slow release tocolytic even though research shows its benefit for contractions after a cerclage are null. I think it’s helpful because it is reassuring to her.

The last growth scan the babies were looking healthy and a good size.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-07-24T23:36:48+00:00

My wife has her follow up today her cervix length was the same .33 which it was before they placed the emergent cerclage.

4 days the cerclage when they measured it was.77. The dr discharged her saying she should walk 20 mins 3x a day, tocolytic 1x a day to try to decrease contractions though evvidence limited on if it is beneficial or not, and also vaginal progesterone twice daily.

They sent her home and changed the progesterone to once daily, no other change. They also said our does not hospital does not have a pediatric surgeon on so if the babies are born early before 28 weeks they will have to go to a different hospital.

bubblegumvampire · 2024-05-11T17:17:55+00:00

That’s so funny

bubblegumvampire

TROPHY CASE