We've now breached a year since we have been trying. The holy trinity of Kate, Kim and Schnooki are all pregnant. Not to be outdone by their lesser celebrity, Megan Fox, Adele and Penelope Cruz appear to be pregnant, and age doesn't even seem to be a big factor. It's like in Les Miserables, the last barricades are falling. My friends who are announcing their pregnancies now are those who put it off for ages, or who are older, or who've been married a long while. Even friends who've had two miscarriages, or who've done IVF, or were that little gawky girl who loved white men and drink, are now touting their loved-up, knocked-up belly bumps on Facebook. These were the last single girls, and now they've galloped through married sisterhood.
And they've all gone and done it. We, of course, are still here. We're in that ackward part of the year where I just mentally calculated, with a shock, that even if we conceived now, we'd deliver somewhere in the 2014 year.
When I was a teenager, I read Judy Blume's classic, Dear God, it's me, Margaret. And because it was marketed to me as a classic, I expected to find it classic. I found it instead, hugely irritating. I found her obsession and exercises to expand her breasts inexplicable, impatient and unfamiliar. But now, I sort of think about that character's obsessions and I wonder if that's how I appear to other people, or to God.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm just trapped in an awfully conservative Asian society and it's the regime of expected roles that makes me wish to be conventional. Other times, I think maybe the easily-parents marriages are naive, happy and full of love, and I'm the over-complicated one.
After considering the cost and the options, we realized that we should have pursued public hospital IVF options earlier. The government allows for couples to draw out some amount of money from their own Medisave funds for IVF. This is supplemented by a government co-payment, which has been enhanced by this year's baby-friendly Budget. I know that the Singapore government can seem prejudiced or closeted on reproduction or women's roles — but I'm grateful and happy that there is some government provision for ART.
The total co-payments and Medisave withdrawal are substantial. Without them, IVF in a private hospital is close to $13–15k, depending on the amount of medication prescribed. Hence, with just the Medisave, the cost would still be substantial. With both the Medisave and co-payments, the amount is not negligible, but it's less of a cash withdrawal and financial sacrifice. I really do appreciate the enhancements made to allow women multiple use of the IVF subsidy and for subsequent children. I wish that as much would be written about alternative means of parenting like adoption, as it's something I'd like to know more about, yet is still more taboo in Asia.
After our last failed attempt at IUI in January, I booked a consultation with Dr Sheila Loh at Raffles Medical Hospital for a second opinion and also because I thought that restructured hospitals would make available the government co-payments. Our appt slot wasn't till February, but I took it happily. It turned out to be a total red herring, although Dr Loh was very nice and maternal. First, she was no longer concurrently a doctor at KK Hospital, as I had thought from outdated forums online, but now solely in private practice at Raffles Medical. Second, the govt co-payment is available only at public restructured hospitals. The one thing that we did learn from Dr Loh, though, was that not all hospital visits and waiting times are as unpleasant and tedious as what we had been experiencing at Dr Nair's, where a 3-hour wait or a midnight slot was fairly frequent.
Her waiting room was a lovely big comfortable space in the Bugis hospital, complete with televisions and reading materials and the wait no longer than 15–20 minutes. She seemed just as qualified and, in fact, took more time over the consultation and in explaining the process and answering my questions. The other thing tshe gave us were some names of recommended doctors at the public hospitals, and that I should ask if they carried out long-cycle or short-cycle IVF (most private clinics will do short cycle, but public hospitals do long cycle — the efficacy is the same, but of course most would rather ingest fewer drugs).
The other drawback is that IVF in a public hospital requires a waiting list. There is a waiting list even to get a consultation and the doctors are booked solid, which was my experience with KK Hospital. I called to try to make an appointment; the earliest dates were in April for the recommended doctors. Ok, I said, just give me the next available slot with any infertility specialist. That would be tomorrow, came the reply. I'll take it! The next tight work day, I had to rush there, drive multiple times around looking for parking, and navigate myself through the large hospital, only to come to a huge and packed living room.
