So I toddled over to
www.stirrup-queens.com and found this book written by Melissa Ford:
I read the first chapter on amazon.com, so I've decided to order it. It will take over a month to get here to New Zealand! What!? It's almost like we live on the moon! :P
That got me thinking, maybe the local library has some books on dealing with infertility. It's been a hard thing to come to terms with this second diagnosis, but in reading Melissa's book (bits of it) I've already discovered things that are helpful to me. So I gathered my parking meter money and headed off to the library in search of more information.
I took all the interesting looking books, as follows:
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| Infertility, A Guide for New Zealanders by Sue Saunders. No link, as I couldn't find anywhere selling it! |
Looks like I have a lot of reading to get through! I've started with the last one on the list, as it's written by Sue Saunders who is currently working as a counsellor at the fertility clinic that's we've had dealings with - how's that for irony! Anyway, even though it was written before the turn of the millennium, the information about emotional stuff seems sound.
Here's a bit of depressing news: GST has gone up. GST is Goods and Services Tax, and it applies to most everything you buy in NZ. It went from 12.5% up to 15%. "Why is that interesting to me?" you say, well, it affects the cost of IVF treatment. What was once around about $11K has just jumped to over $12.5K!!! :( I sat down with a calculator last night and worked out the cost. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I reveal the name of the clinic, it's not like there are many to choose from in New Zealand:
Fertility Associates. (P.S I really really think they should consider changing the photo on their homepage - a big pic of a baby is just insulting!) Yeah, so at least the cost of everything is on their website.
I'm trying to decide what to do, how to progress things a bit. On one hand, I've already written to
www.fertilitynz.org asking for their help, and they have said they will be advocates for us and forward our letter of complaint on to the fertility clinic. However that was over a month ago. Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just complain directly to the clinic. What do you think?
The other thing I'm trying to decide is whether or not I should approach the
Health and Disability Commissioner. Here in NZ there is quite a good system where patient/consumers can easily make complaints about health providers. I've made use of them once before when my endocrinologist did a shoddy job of switching me over to Lantus (he got the dosing all messed up, which meant I had a bad hypo and broke my back, then he blamed me. Yes, he's my current endo - I live in a small town!) and the folks there were quite helpful and very clear about my rights. I know they probably can't do much in the way of getting us the access to public funding we require, but it would be good to stop a similar thing happening to other couples. It's totally changed my life. The more I think about what happened, I become convinced that we are being discriminated against. Just because Hubby has a vasectomy from a previous marriage, that should have nothing whatsoever to do with our marriage. Our marriage is infertile, with 0% chance of conception and over 7 years of trying. In any way you look at it, telling us to wait 3 years feels like a penalty that neither of us could have ever done anything to avoid. I read a couple of government reports by a chap called Wayne Gillett, in which he noted the feelings of grief and devastation are just as great in a couple who are "situationally infertile". I must get a copy of those reports (also quite old) and post interesting parts up here. Getting them may be hard though, as they are at the library at work, and I DO NOT want my co-workers to see me getting them out of the library. Maybe I will just photocopy them...
Anyway, I'm feeling tired and high and hungry. Want to eat, need to drink (water), and do a test. Until another day, have a great Thursday/Friday in your part of the world. :)
When we started our journey I did not read to many books. I only bought one, which was not that great in the end anyway. During my treatements I read a book by a South African - So Close, which is a story of her through infertility, loss, and the birth of her twins. It was a great book to read. I also joined an online forum. Smallish one (in the WWW-sense), as it is mostly South Africans who post there. But during my treatment I got some great advice from the girls there. One person I met through there is in a similar situation as yours (husband had a vas). She is now 30 weeks pregnant.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the health systems works quite differently here, and particularly when it comes to fertility... While it is expensive for us, we gets a LOT of overseas couples coming here for treatment - we have great clinics and doctors (world class if I had to say, but then I am biased...), coupled with a weak currency..
Happy reading!