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The Ontario Fertility Program – Jacquie’s Story #IVF4ON

Paula — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 14:02:07 +0000

This month marks the first anniversary of The Ontario Fertility Program. The highly anticipated program has increased access to fertility treatment for many in Ontario who previously couldn’t afford the cost of assisted reproductive therapy. The Ontario Fertility Program has helped about 5,000 patients. It has given hope to many infertility patients, closure to some, and it has made family a reality for thousands like Jacquie. More than 50 clinics in the province offer the Ontario Fertility Program for patients who qualify. You must have a valid Ontario health card and be under 43 to access the program. Patients who qualify are eligible for one IVF cycle per lifetime. The Ontario Fertility Program has made all the difference in the world to many infertility patients like Jacquie. Jacquie asked to remain anonymous because culturally, she said, it’s still not acceptable to share infertility experience. “No one in my family or friends circle know that we suffered with infertility. My background is Indian, and most people don’t talk about their fertility struggles.” The Ontario Fertility Program launched in December 2015. Jacquie was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, and Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome, (PCOS) a condition where the ovaries sometimes produce many cysts and irregular periods are common. It is the most common endocrine disorder for women in their reproductive years. Jacquie is a medical secretary. Her husband works in the service industry. Both work full time and they only recently managed to save money to buy a condominium in the Toronto area. Although both work full time they were not anticipating the cost of paying for IVF when they took out a mortgage. Borrowing more money to do treatment was not an option. Dr. Marjorie Dixon, a well known Toronto fertility doctor at ANOVA Fertility, recognized that they were a couple who qualified for the Ontario Fertility program. Jacquie’s experience with the Ontario Fertility Program has been a good one. “All the doctors, and nurses were super helpful and always were willing to help and answer questions.” [tweetthis]Jacquie waited only about three months to start the Ontario Fertility Program #IVF4ON [/tweetthis] The soon-to-be Mom says she is currently feeling great. The start of the pregnancy was rocky with hyperemesis gravidarum. She had to take 2 months off work because of the amount of vomiting and nausea she had. It got better at 16 weeks, and eventually went away at 26 weeks. In the New Year, Jacquie says looking forward to the chance to be a Mom and can’t wait to meet the new baby. Jacquie doesn’t know whether the baby will be a boy or girl and she’s looking forward to being surprised. “The funding has meant so much to so many women suffering from infertility. They are finally able to get a chance at IVF if they were not able to afford. The Ontario Fertility Program meant we could access treatment and have a chance at building a family.” Hope For Others Starting in the Ontario Fertility Program Asked what she would tell infertility patients who are still hoping to do a funded IVF cycle, she said: “My advice is stay positive and patient. From my IVF cycle, I had 18 follicles, 7 mature eggs only and 1 Embryo. I had no hope as to that 1 embryo would work as most people get a couple. My embryo was frozen on day 3, and thankfully it worked when I did the transfer. Don’t lose hope; Anything can happen.” You can follow the group Conceivable Dreams on line and learn more about the Ontario Fertility Program. http://www.twitter.com/ivf4on/ and http://www.conceivabledreams.org/

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Nine More Things We Want You To Know About Infertility. All The Feelings Are Real #ohip4ivf #onpoli

Paula — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 17:48:14 +0000

There are babies everywhere right now. Facebook is a constant eruption of sonogram pictures and people are forever happily announcing the birth of their babies. It’s a super challenging time of year for so many reasons. Spring and summer forces everyone outdoors and strollers are plentiful, which is wonderful for so many reasons AND it’s also painful for those still trying to conceive. It can be even more devastating for those who have recently miscarried. [tweetthis]1 in 6 struggle 2 conceive. Many r infertile as a result of other health issues #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] 1 in 6 struggle to conceive. Many are infertile as a result of other health conditions. Cancer, PCOS, endometriosis, abdominal scarring, Crohn’s Disease – are just a few of the things that can lead to infertility. I asked some infertility patients in Conceivable Dreams what they wanted to tell people about infertility, what they wanted to share about their journey, the myths and facts. They shared some incredible, insightful and emotional comments a few weeks ago here in Nine Things We Want You To Know About Infertility. Once they started talking and sharing their stories and thoughts, the comments and feelings flowed fast. This is part 2 of this infertility patient series, because they had so very much to share. From guilt to anger, sadness and despair – this is all about the emotions of infertility. This is all about the feelings of infertility. What we want you to know about the feelings of infertility: Commitment: Valerie: It’s been an up and down roller coaster!!! Emotionally, physically, financially…. It’s made some of my relationships with friends more difficult but it’s made my marriage much stronger and for that I will never give up!!! [tweetthis]Valerie: infertility is a roller coaster. Emotionally, financially & physically #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] Once people start opening up about doing IVF it can be surprising how many others have questions, or are currently trying to conceive and need some support or reassurance. Infertility patients and their friends and relatives are talking more now than they ever have before, partly as a result of the number of people sharing in Facebook groups and on other social media sites. Awareness has grown in leaps and bounds. Some advocacy goals have been achieved together as a group of collective voices sings a more powerful chorus. BUT individually on a personal level patients struggle with complicated situations, a barrage of appointments, and emotions. Everyone’s story has common threads but they are also very unique. Anger, Disbelief and When You Feel Like Nobody Else Understands: Elaina: Don’t tell me you understand because it took you months to get pregnant when it was 3 to 6 months. It took me 84 months to get pregnant. Your 3 to 6 months is a drop in the bucket. [tweetthis]Please don’t tell me you understand if you tried for 3-6 months. I tried for 84 months. #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] The emotions are complex and secondary infertility is every bit as big a deal. Your body has betrayed you regardless of whether you already have a child or not. The feelings are valid and in fact secondary infertility is one area of infertility that is growing. Guilt [tweetthis]Our first was natural but we required IVF for our second. I felt guilty because we already had a baby #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] Elaine: Our first was natural (but took a long time) but we required IVF for the second….and then the third was natural (no rhyme nor reason). I felt guilty going because we already had a baby but so desperately wanted a second baby! Failure: [tweetthis]Louisa: I always feel like a failure. #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] Louisa: I always feel like a failure. Pain, Sadness, Alienation, Isolation and Hurt: [tweetthis]Lara – It’s very hard to spend time with couples who have children when you have none of your own #ohip4ivf[/tweetthis] Lara: It’s very hard to spend time with couples who have children when you have none of your own. I no longer spend time with some of my friends anymore, not because I don’t like them, or don’t want to see them, but because it’s too painful for me. Jealous, Envious, Hurt: Andy: Infertility happens to single people too, and for LGBTQ people, its often not a “couple’s” issue the way it is for hetero people. It’s a different set of issues. [tweetthis]Andy: You want to feel happy for friends getting pregnant, but at the same time you feel jealous. #ohip4ivf #onpoli [/tweetthis]The other thing is the nasty evil ugly feeling of wanting to be happy for your friends, but also feeling jealous and envious, and hurt because they are having kids, getting pregnant, whatever, and you are not. But then on top of that you feel guilty for feeling envious. I call that whole combined thing the ugly green monster of infertility. [tweetthis]Andy: I call it the ugly green monster of infertility (on wanting to be happy for friends getting pregnant when you are struggling to conceive)[/tweetthis] Exhaustion: [tweetthis]Elaine: I feel like people have some inkling that IVF is expensive, but not HOW expensive it is #ohip4ivf #onpoli[/tweetthis] Elaine: I feel like people have some inkling that IVF is expensive, but not HOW expensive it is. I don’t think people understand AT ALL the amount of TIME it requires!! Before work appts every other day for invasive tests/taking hormones/talking about it/thinking about it.. Resentment and Grief: [tweetthis]There’s sometimes resentment towards the one with infertility. It doesn’t last long but it’s real #ohip4ivf[/tweetthis] Heather: Also, finding out you are not able to conceive on your own brings a grieving process that includes a bit of resentment toward the one that has infertility. It doesn’t last long but it’s real and it’s ok to feel that way! It also brings guilt, anger, fear, doubt, hopelessness among so many more feelings!! Let yourself go through them all! ALL THE FEELINGS: [tweetthis]Kate: there is an initial confusion at realizing that things aren’t happening as easily as they are for others #ohip4ivf[/tweetthis] Kate: “For us, it’s the various stages of emotions. The initial confusion at realizing that things aren’t happening a easily as it is for others. The hope at getting referred to a specialist. The anticipation of perhaps finding a reason. The uncomfortableness and violation both physically and emotionally during treatments. The defensiveness and self protection at people’s comments. The thick skin needed to not feel that we need to explain our finances to people, whether it be due to their assuming that we must have excess money due to not having to care for children, to explaining just how much treatments cost. The hope every month that ‘something, anything’ took. The happiness at others success. The jealousy and pain at others success. The constant triggers, from pregnancy test commercials, baby showers, and ‘family’ holidays, to one-on-one conversations. The frustration at passing time. The isolation, even among groups like this, due to feeling like your circumstances aren’t as clear cut. The pain of constant milestones passing by. And the unexpected random realizations that we will have no branch on our family tree. From simple thoughts of ‘life goals’ like watching your child get on the bus for their first day of school, graduation, driver’s licence, our retirement, grandkids etc. And the staggering weight of debts accrued financially and emotionally. Just when we feel that we’re at a comfortable stage and able to cope, any one of those can rear its ugly head and send you spinning into an undertow again.” In Ontario Infertility patients have a group called Conceivable Dreams to help advocate and support people going through the process. If you are struggling with infertility in Ontario you can follow this group on twitter (@ohip4ivf ) We tweet and share our messages with #ohip4ivf #onpoli hashtags. You can follow some of the advocacy and events for infertility patients in Ontario by watching this site: http://www.conceivabledreams.org/ I am community manager for this group and as such I am compensated. I support infertility patients in Ontario. All of the patients mentioned here were happy to give voice to some of their feelings this month. If you want to be added to our private Facebook support group email me inkscrblr@rogers.com please indicate subject line (Infertility) in your email.

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Five Steps to Becoming a More Healthy and Empowered Patient

Paula — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 16:20:07 +0000

How many times have you gone to the doctor and felt less than happy with the visit? Do you leave feeling like an empowered patient or not?If you spend any time at all visiting this blog, then you know I often write about health matters. I write almost as often about advocacy and causes that matter to me. The lives of the members of my family intersect often with the traditional health care system. I was a child when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and I spent many weeks, months and school vacations in the hospital or racing back and forth to doctor’s appointments. I never felt like I had any sway at all in my own health care until I hit around the age of 25. It’s sad to me that it took that long to find my voice within the system. It’s sadder still that I felt I never had a doctor who listened or treated me in a way that made me feel like an empowered patient. As a child and a teen, I didn’t know to grab that power myself. So what does all that have to do with the topic of this book: Diagnose Yourself: How to find a permanent cure for what ails you.There are a few reasons this book interested me right off the bat. Jenner is a naturopathic practitioner with a history of speaking engagements in which he would tackle the root cause of a person’s ailment or issue, often successfully finding a “cure” contained within a patient’s environment. He experienced great success in person with this method. So he decided to write a book about this common sense approach to diagnosing your own illness. His approach is designed to empower patients to manage their health care better, particularly their interactions with their doctor. His book is available on Kindle and in paperback. I reviewed it here on Thrifty Momma’s Brainfood. Recently I interviewed Jenner who advised this book would be a good tool for anyone unhappy with their current relationship with their doctor. After all everyone has one of those stories. You know the one, where the doctor didn’t take enough time to listen, or the one where he or she got it wrong. Diagnose Yourself says what if you take the power back and prepare for each appointment and work through a template in the book to help you get the right answers that solve your issue. It is not about avoiding the doctor or firing the doctor. It is a book about occasionally managing your own symptoms and using some common sense to figure out symptomology. It is well worth the money, and as anyone here knows, I am very much about advocacy. Funny how so many of us can do it for others and yet not for ourselves. This Christmas or New Year give yourself the gift of Diagnose Yourself: How to find a permanent cure for what ails you. Because it will change the way you work with your doctor and it might even provide you with the tools to get right to the cause of your illness instead of passively assuming a prescription is the only option. You can analyze your problem, the symptoms and potentially find the cause within your environment. “People who read my book will be able to take more responsibility with their own doctor.” The book is structured in three basic parts. There are case studies and health care history sections and then there is also an interactive element for patients that includes an easy to follow template to help guide you in assessing and detecting what and when and how symptoms are impacting you. It sounds simple, because it is but it can also be time consuming which is partly why this kind of assessment often isn’t done in traditional medicine. Five Steps to Becoming a More Healthy and Empowered Patient By Reid Jenner I was talking with a friend the other day over coffee and she was relating to me an uncomfortable experience she’d had with yet another malady that was initially misdiagnosed by her physician and which needlessly extended her illness. This led to a discussion about how we can take more responsibility for our own health by doing a little legwork to assist our health care providers in more effectively diagnosing and treating our health problems. Here are five quick and simple steps you can take to help yourself and your doctor reach faster, more effective, and less invasive personal health management outcomes: Keep track of your symptoms. Studies show that the cause of most illnesses can be traced to harmful factors that we are being exposed to in our environment, not internal or genetic factors. But we are often so busy and distracted by everything that is going on in our lives that we fail to recognize the connections between what we are doing or being exposed to that may be contributing to our illness. Just keeping a simple log on the back of a napkin for when your symptoms manifest and what you’re doing at the time can help. Recognize what you are doing differently. Most illnesses can be traced to something unique about your special habits, the unique locations you habituate, or the unique timing of your illness. Take the information you gather in step 1 and analyze what is different about you compared to others most similar to yourself who are not experiencing the same problem. Using this technique, one of my clients traced the cause of his chronic and painful sinus infections to the unique exposure to a wood stove placed in the basement adjacent to his study. Look for distinctions in your environment. Oftentimes the source of the problem has something to do with the unique location(s) in which you travel and operate. Another client found the cause of her recurring and severe red eye condition was being caused by the rapid change in air pressure within the cabin of her commercial airplane when she traveled and descended into a high elevation airport in inland China where she visited her parents periodically. Recognize the unique events associated with the timing of your symptoms. Sometimes the sources of the problem relates to what is going on at the unique times when your problem presents. A fascinating and perplexing problem with flight attendants experiencing a severe face rash was ultimately solved when the random timing of problem was traced to certain flights over water only on selected routes where they were displaying new life vests that had a chemical irritant embedded within the fabric. Share your findings with your health care professional. At the outset of your doctor examination, tell your doctor what you’ve uncovered and what you think may be causing the problem. Put the onus on the doctor to evaluate and rule out your well-framed hypotheses. Use the same critical thinking process and cold hard facts you uncovered in your analysis to evaluate and rule out equally implausible explanations offered up by your physician for your illness. Information is power—and you are the primary custodian of the critical information relating to your health problem!

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Infertility Community Reacts to IVF Funding Announcement for Ontario #ivf4ON #onpoli

Paula — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:34:00 +0000

Ontario’s infertility community reacted with many emotions this week to news that IVF will soon be funded. That’s long awaited for many who took two or three jobs and sometimes used credit cards and second mortgages to be able to pay for health care treatment needed to get the health care treatment prescribed. Last Thursday, Ontario’s Minister of Health and Longterm Care Deb Matthews announced that public funding would be made available for in vitro fertilization. IVF funding is part of the draft budget officially. The funding will take place starting in 2015. An advisory committee or board will be appointed to help roll the program out. There will be $50 million a year and it will service 4000 people. That’s a victory in so many ways for so many people in the infertility community wondering how do I pay for in vitro fertilization. It’s a huge step for those struggling with infertility because the announcement clearly illustrated that the Liberal government of Ontario views infertility as a health condition. [tweetthis]Reactions to the news that IVF will be funded in Ontario (late 2014) #IVF4ON[/tweetthis] For 1 in 6 struggling with infertility this is huge news. Conceivable Dreams has been advocating for this funding for 6 years now. This week they celebrated that victory. There is more work ahead in partnership with the Ontario government. There are many details to figure out and many questions from patients regarding what this new expanded program will look like. But this week infertility advocates and patients in Ontario like Danielle Xavier, who started trying to conceive at 25 and struggled for five years, have hope. Infertility impacts 1 in 6. There are numerous causes of infertility. Sometimes infertility can look like this – Carla has PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome )and had trouble conceiving because of that health condition. But the repercussions to society are greater than that number. Public funding for IVF is a policy that will benefit everyone. Because infertility impacts everyone. Employers, families, grandparents, and the health care system as well. On Thursday morning when the announcement happened I woke up to dozens of infertility patients emailing me and tweeting, many of whom were crying happy tears. Some who were overcome entirely. Many recognized this is their last chance at building family. I wanted to share a few of their reactions here today. Because this is a hopeful group and this announcement has given them hope for a future. I don’t have to tell you how priceless that is. Conceivable Dreams, members of the Ontario infertility community and advocacy group, reacted this week: “IVF coverage means that I can have the family I always dreamed of without going into enormous debt first and It means I can get medical treatment for a condition, that neither myself, nor my husband have control over.” – Melissa Leverre, London, male factor infertility “When your fertility doctor tells you IVF is your only hope…you feel defeated. And when he hands you a list of what IVF is going to cost you, including meds, admin fees, and procedures, you feel hopeless. Public funding will bring us hope again.” – Christine and Terrance Thwaites, Mississauga [tweetthis]When your fertility doctor tells you IVF is your only hope…you feel defeated. And when he hands you a list of what IVF is going to cost you . . .you feel hopeless. #IVF4ON[/tweetthis] “We drove six hours to the fertility clinic and we worked multiple jobs to pay for IVF. We hope nobody else has to go to such extremes to afford a family.” – Kayla and Kevin Roy, Sudbury “Public funding of IVF means relief. When working with a diagnosis that is time sensitive, there is no longer an unnecessary wait while the patient saves up the funds.” – Rebecca Brooks, Kitchener, premature ovarian failure, trying to conceive – 6.5 years “We are still paying off debt from our first attempt at IVF. Public funding means that we don’t have to go into further debt to try again. We don’t have to give up hope of becoming parents.” – Sandra David, Toronto, male factor infertility due to Cancer “Following many failed fertility treatments, with debt and heavy hearts we decided to close that chapter and move onto adoption. Public IVF funding will give many the ability to keep reaching for their dream, to have a family, that without funding might not be possible.” – Michelle Pleiter, Listowel, severe endometriosis “My husband and I recently celebrated the birth of our daughter. This has completely diminished our savings. Public IVF funding gives me hope other families won’t have to go into such debt to have a child.” – Stephanie and Mike Mauro, Peterborough “We tried 12 procedures, including 3 IVFs of our own and have transferred up to 4 embryos at once because we were desperate and couldn’t afford to do them 1 at a time. That was a very scary decision to have to make. Nobody should have to be put in that position.” – Carly Weiner, Toronto, male factor due to Cancer, and unexplained female factor “I feel gratitude every day to be the mother of a boy, now 2, conceived through IVF. However, the process to become parents cost us $28,000 in treatments and four years of heartache. It also saw us making risky health choices in order to save money. With publicly funded IVF, today’s infertile couples won’t have to endure what we did.” – Jocelyn Bell, male and female factor, Dundas Conceivable Dreams is on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ivf4on And, if you need support, or can offer support to someone struggling with infertility, please visit Facebook to join the group Conceivable Dreams – IVF4ON https://www.facebook.com/groups/conceivabledreams/ And there is also a fan page: Conceivable Dreams I am community manager for the group Conceivable Dreams. As such I am compensated. This is a group and a cause I support 100 %. My opinion is my own.

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