Author Topic: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.  (Read 4028 times)

MrsCtank

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Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« on: November 11, 2016, 07:30:43 PM »
Alright good sirs(and m'ladies)!!

Random post incoming, I was just wondering if anyone had a similar life experience, advice, how things worked out etc. Last things first, I'm hoping to start a family with DH this summer but it looks very likely like we will go through IVF which ive read can cost 10-15k out of pocket. The reasoning is a genetic disease with a 50% chance of passing, dominant inheritance. Anyone been through this? Did you save prior?

DH told me today its okay to be wrong, and I've been thinking about that tonight. A little back story - my relationship with my career can go from this isn't bad to loathing and overall I don't feel I'm suited for it. I say relationship because it leaves me without much of a work life balance and I feel drained constantly. Its soul sucking. Ive been considering changing careers but on paper its a bad call to give up a higher paying job for a lower and losing training time etc. Considering I keep having this recurrent thought over the last 1.5 years of my 3.5 year career though I feel I was wrong in the beginning to get into this field. Its okay to be wrong. Is my fear of being wrong again or failing keeping me unhappy? Maybe.

Learning coding - I'm currently working part time because full time just isn't mentally worth it (I got quite burned out) and have decided finally to spend some time with self teaching. What do I have to lose other than some free time? DH I a software engineer so I have him and his connections. I know I can pick it up and think I will find it interesting. He thinks he can get me a job in vulnerability research in 6 months of dedicated study. Any tips or resources from engineers in the field on things I should do/ places to start?

Thanks for humoring me!

CoderNate

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2016, 08:55:36 PM »
What technologies/languages are you looking to learn? Honestly, if you want to get into "vulnerability research", mathematics may be a better place to start!

okits

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2016, 11:26:38 PM »
DH told me today its okay to be wrong, and I've been thinking about that tonight. A little back story - my relationship with my career can go from this isn't bad to loathing and overall I don't feel I'm suited for it. I say relationship because it leaves me without much of a work life balance and I feel drained constantly. Its soul sucking. Ive been considering changing careers but on paper its a bad call to give up a higher paying job for a lower and losing training time etc. Considering I keep having this recurrent thought over the last 1.5 years of my 3.5 year career though I feel I was wrong in the beginning to get into this field. Its okay to be wrong. Is my fear of being wrong again or failing keeping me unhappy? Maybe.

I struggled with a scenario like this for a number of years.  Eventual conclusions for my family:

- my health and happiness are worth something;
- my health while trying to reproduce is especially valuable as it affects fertility and the baby's health;
- dual income family; spouse supportive of a change that improves quality of life, health, and happiness, plus we could afford it;
- now that I'm a parent I want to spend time with my children every day, not constantly work overtime;
- I want to work outside the home and FIRE is long enough away that I want to spend those years doing something more enjoyable than the status quo; and
- is this job's pay really all that great on a hourly basis?

If you earned some money, learned some lessons, and developed some useful skills at wrong-for-you career, then you got something out of your time in this industry and it wasn't a complete waste.  You found out some things about yourself, like what you do/don't want/enjoy.  That's valuable.

Good luck with everything!  Please consider eventually turning this thread into a journal so you can record your progress and people can follow along and cheer you on.

frugalnacho

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2016, 01:38:59 PM »
Alright good sirs(and m'ladies)!!

Random post incoming, I was just wondering if anyone had a similar life experience, advice, how things worked out etc. Last things first, I'm hoping to start a family with DH this summer but it looks very likely like we will go through IVF which ive read can cost 10-15k out of pocket. The reasoning is a genetic disease with a 50% chance of passing, dominant inheritance. Anyone been through this? Did you save prior?

We've been trying to conceive for over 3 years now.  After 1 year we went to a fertility specialist, and nothing was wrong with either of us.  Unexplained infertility was the diagnosis.  We ended up doing 4 IUIs at a total cost of about $7-9k, I can't remember exactly.  We ended up getting pregnant one of the times, but ended up losing it.  :( After that we started saving for IVF.  Our goal was $30k in a savings account before we pulled the plug.  We just hit that goal recently, so we are going through with it.  We've paid about $14k in the last couple weeks, and the wife is on fertility drugs.  We should be going through with egg retrieval in early december, sending the fertilized eggs off for CCS, and transferring the first one in January.  Hopefully if everything goes well we will have loads of money left over, but if it takes several attempts we are prepared for it.

I made a thread about IVF a couple years ago, but haven't posted in it in awhile.  Good luck.

missksaves

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2016, 11:20:03 PM »
I worked in the fertility field before.

IUIs are a lot cheaper as it is low tech compared to IVF as it assumes the trouble in conception is with the sperm meeting the egg; either with the sperm quality or maybe anatomical irregularities with uterus/cervix opening etc during normal intercourse. So usually, they will propose this option first as IVF is usually considered a more drastic option.

IVF takes the guess work out of actually having sperm meet egg but it balloons with corresponding costs. If you think about all that goes into 1 cycle of IVF, the costs make a lot of sense. The cost of time/money for the female as ovulation has to be stimulated and overproduce follicles producing eggs. The fertilized egg then needs to be incubated and tended carefully by embryologists daily for the 3 or 5 or 7 days in vitro before surgical implantation. The actual implantation by doctor on top of the many dr consultations for the hormonal injections/egg follicle extractions beforehand. Sometimes there is also the additional cost of ICSI to directly inject sperm into eggs and takes a lot of skill/practice for the embryologists needing very special equipment. Even with all of these processes, luck can still be a factor because it is not a guaranteed the fertilized egg will implant and be a viable pregnancy, hence sometimes the choice of implanting multiples...

IVF is a big decision because it will be a money and time sink yet it can still sometimes amount to nothing, which can definitely be emotionally devasting...

That can also be a lot to handle on top of contemplating a career switch.

Hope my 2 cents help.

MrsCtank

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2016, 06:58:13 PM »
I will research IUIs, my concern is that we would be doing it for genetic reasons rather than fertility and if the testing is still possible. IVF is expensive, but not as expensive as a lifetime of medical bills.

That's one thing - the pay at my current career isn't great. Well not bad at 75k, but considering it required 7-8 years of school, a doctorate, and yearly maintenance and licensing, not that great. I also work weekends and holidays, and long hours. No paid overtime whatsoever.

mizzourah2006

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2016, 05:48:34 AM »
Alright good sirs(and m'ladies)!!

Random post incoming, I was just wondering if anyone had a similar life experience, advice, how things worked out etc. Last things first, I'm hoping to start a family with DH this summer but it looks very likely like we will go through IVF which ive read can cost 10-15k out of pocket. The reasoning is a genetic disease with a 50% chance of passing, dominant inheritance. Anyone been through this? Did you save prior?

We've been trying to conceive for over 3 years now.  After 1 year we went to a fertility specialist, and nothing was wrong with either of us.  Unexplained infertility was the diagnosis.  We ended up doing 4 IUIs at a total cost of about $7-9k, I can't remember exactly.  We ended up getting pregnant one of the times, but ended up losing it.  :( After that we started saving for IVF.  Our goal was $30k in a savings account before we pulled the plug.  We just hit that goal recently, so we are going through with it.  We've paid about $14k in the last couple weeks, and the wife is on fertility drugs.  We should be going through with egg retrieval in early december, sending the fertilized eggs off for CCS, and transferring the first one in January.  Hopefully if everything goes well we will have loads of money left over, but if it takes several attempts we are prepared for it.

I made a thread about IVF a couple years ago, but haven't posted in it in awhile.  Good luck.

This sounds like us exactly. Have you looked into intra-lipid infusions? This appears to be controversial in the infertility community (meaning they don't know if it has an impact) but our specialist tested my wife's killer T-cell count and found it was 2-3x that of a normal woman. She suggested intra-lipid infusions to knock down her immune system. Apparently the killer T-cells fight off foreign cells and could have mistaken an embryo attempting to attach to uterus lining as one such foreign invader. We gave it a shot because the doctor said it would even help with IVF. We actually were able to get pregnant naturally right after that. We had been trying for about 3.5 years and also did 4 IUIs. It wasn't that expensive, I think we paid $4-500. Testing her killer T-cell count may be something worth looking into.

frugalnacho

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2016, 07:02:37 AM »
Alright good sirs(and m'ladies)!!

Random post incoming, I was just wondering if anyone had a similar life experience, advice, how things worked out etc. Last things first, I'm hoping to start a family with DH this summer but it looks very likely like we will go through IVF which ive read can cost 10-15k out of pocket. The reasoning is a genetic disease with a 50% chance of passing, dominant inheritance. Anyone been through this? Did you save prior?

We've been trying to conceive for over 3 years now.  After 1 year we went to a fertility specialist, and nothing was wrong with either of us.  Unexplained infertility was the diagnosis.  We ended up doing 4 IUIs at a total cost of about $7-9k, I can't remember exactly.  We ended up getting pregnant one of the times, but ended up losing it.  :( After that we started saving for IVF.  Our goal was $30k in a savings account before we pulled the plug.  We just hit that goal recently, so we are going through with it.  We've paid about $14k in the last couple weeks, and the wife is on fertility drugs.  We should be going through with egg retrieval in early december, sending the fertilized eggs off for CCS, and transferring the first one in January.  Hopefully if everything goes well we will have loads of money left over, but if it takes several attempts we are prepared for it.

I made a thread about IVF a couple years ago, but haven't posted in it in awhile.  Good luck.

This sounds like us exactly. Have you looked into intra-lipid infusions? This appears to be controversial in the infertility community (meaning they don't know if it has an impact) but our specialist tested my wife's killer T-cell count and found it was 2-3x that of a normal woman. She suggested intra-lipid infusions to knock down her immune system. Apparently the killer T-cells fight off foreign cells and could have mistaken an embryo attempting to attach to uterus lining as one such foreign invader. We gave it a shot because the doctor said it would even help with IVF. We actually were able to get pregnant naturally right after that. We had been trying for about 3.5 years and also did 4 IUIs. It wasn't that expensive, I think we paid $4-500. Testing her killer T-cell count may be something worth looking into.

No we haven't, but we've already paid for the first round of IVF and DW is already on hormones, so me thinks our path is already set.  Hopefully it all works out with IVF, if not we will look into it.

mizzourah2006

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2016, 08:18:05 AM »
No we haven't, but we've already paid for the first round of IVF and DW is already on hormones, so me thinks our path is already set.  Hopefully it all works out with IVF, if not we will look into it.

It still may be something to actually ask about. Like I said, our doctor even recommended we do it for IVF (which is what we were doing). We planned to start the hormones the month after. My understanding is that if your killer cells are too high they can actually successfully kill off a completely healthy fertilized embryo. The infusions apparently lower your immune system, hence lowering the impact your killer cells can have during the infusions lifespan.

Anyway, good luck! I remember how stressful that time was and I especially remember how stressful it was for DW.

Apostrophe

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2016, 09:27:36 AM »
My wife and I are about to start our second month of IVF, and we had the $ in the bank before we began. The dollar amount is significant.

Hoping that we are successful, we are also now saving cash for a delivery deductible, baby stuff, and framing in another bedroom in our house.

Chris

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #10 on: November 15, 2016, 09:34:34 AM »
Learning coding - I'm currently working part time because full time just isn't mentally worth it (I got quite burned out) and have decided finally to spend some time with self teaching. What do I have to lose other than some free time? DH I a software engineer so I have him and his connections. I know I can pick it up and think I will find it interesting. He thinks he can get me a job in vulnerability research in 6 months of dedicated study. Any tips or resources from engineers in the field on things I should do/ places to start?

With programming, it really depends what you want to do.  Web scripting is totally different work than database development, which is totally different than building back-end algorithms.

Once you know the kind of projects you're interested in then build them.  If you want someone to hire you and you don't have work experience or education to prove that you know your stuff, you will depend on a large portfolio of well designed software to land a job.

thd7t

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Re: Its ok to be wrong, learning coding, and IVF.
« Reply #11 on: November 15, 2016, 10:17:00 AM »
It's okay to be wrong. Not admitting that opens you up to the sunk cost fallacy. It's pretty well accepted on this forum, particularly when discussing investment strategies. Still, you'll also see a lot of people here who didn't save for retirement for a long time and then realized their mistake. If you don't admit that you are wrong, you can't do what's right.