Question Six
Heading into the weekend, I thought I’d throw out a nice, light topic that fills all of us with joy–financial considerations. Has a nice lilt to it. You can almost sing it when your heart is completely brimming with love and gratefulness towards insurance companies.
Unless you are a billionaire who drops $20,000 without blinking an eye, finances have probably guided some of your protocal decisions. Infertility is expensive and the financial strain is one of the many salts on the wound. As if it’s not enough that you’re giving yourself injections into your stomach or “depositing a donation,” you also have to make huge monetary sacrifices. Many times, when people are faced with infertility, they can’t even afford to get started building their family due to the astronomical costs involved with fertility treatments, adoption or surrogacy.
The question: how much did finances coming into play in your decision-making process? Did you forego attempting fertility treatments in order to have the financial means for adoption? Did you do many extra IUIs because you couldn’t afford IVF? How would your treatment schedule be different if money wasn’t an option and insurance was covering costs (or adoption was easily affordable)?
Of course, answers will probably differ if you are in the throes of primary IF vs. secondary IF. But how far were you willing to go financially to build your family and how did money figure into your decision-making process?
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We’re in the “can’t afford IVF *and* adoption” camp. Thankfullly we have enough of a nest egg to afford one or the other, and we’ve decided to go with adoption. Neither of us were ever completely comfortable with the idea if IVF (him more than me) but the finances cinched it.
I like to think that if we could afford it, we’d try 1-2 IVFs before making the decision to adopt, but even with the money I’m not sure my DH would want to do it. In fact, if we had the money, the decision might be even harder because I think that I would be more willing to try once or twice, and I really don’t think that he’d change his mind.
Maybe in our situation it’s best that we can only afford one or the other, and we can agree on adoption.
Thankfully we have not had to worry about finances for IVF; as we live in Massachusetts and my insurance has a lifetime benefit of $35K cap. We are VERY lucky in that regards.
If none of these work, though, we will do what we need to in order to adopt – scrimp and save, etc.
Both my husband and I are agreed – we will do whatever it takes to have a family, whether it be IVF or adoption. Either way, we will be parents.
I’m frantically searching for a job so that we can afford IVF. We’re not going to try any other treatments, we’ll just find a doctor willing to start with IVF. We have male-factor problems, so that should offer the best chances of success. We can’t afford any of it right now, but if we have to cancel the cable or spend all night in the dark to save on the electric bill, then we will. We’ll come up with some way, we just have to. We’ll save every penny for as long as it takes. We can’t save for both IVF and adoption, so we’ve made our choice. No matter how long it takes, it’s gonna happen.
DH is all about us having a biological child, I don’t think he would really accept adoption unless we had tried everything else first. And I’m OK with that, it’s my first instinct, too.
We tried IVF once (failed) and were set up to try again, but a call from the pharmacy asking for $4,500. in two days made me cancel the second IVF attempt. Because of finances we (not the doctors!) requested to try an IUI cycle, even though our doctor told us this would probably not work. It was a fraction of the cost and I found the medications on line (freegaaragesale.com, I think?), which was a risk, but b/c of the cost of the medications, we decided to give it a try. I purchased one carpule of medication from a woman in Califonia and another from a woman in DC. I met the DC woman at GWU Hospital with cash in hand. We both laughed at how much this felt like a bad drug deal in a dark alley!! As it turned out, the IUI cycle worked and we have a wonderful little boy who is almost 1 year old. As an option for the first IVF cycle we decided to donate half my eggs to another couple in return for them paying for all the medications and procedures on our end (not my ideal way, but when you want a baby you’ll try almost anything!). Since we didn’t have insurance coverage this was a more affordable way for us to go. However, I didn’t produce enough eggs to use in a split donor cycle and we ended up having to pay for the cycle ourselves. If we had insurance coverage or unlimited funds I’d certainly try another IUI or IVF, but since the money tree in the backyard doesn’t seem to be producing this year, we’re more than happy with our one little boy.
it figures into everything. We have some money saved, we could always get a loan for IVF (Our Ins does not cover anything IF related) but right now we are looking at our 2nd IUI cycle. However, we know that if we need to go on to IVF we will need to have a serious conversation about the cost, where the money will come from, etc. It will be hard, but I hopeful that my mom can help us with some and a loan will help too. It just makes me so sad that it will have to come to that, but yes $$$ is always an issue. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would be PG in no time, because I would not hesitate to spend the money to make it happen.
Kirsten
We’re currently discussing our options if IUI doesn’t work. I don’t think we can afford adoption and IVF. I’m not sure we can afford one. It’s not an easy decision for me. If I try IVF and it doesn’t work, it could possibly be the end of the road. Yet, I’m not quite ready to give up on us. I don’t ovulate regularly and my husband has a lower sperm count/motility — as far as I know, we’re good candidates for IVF. Knowing (thinking) that isn’t much comfort when the possibility of remaining childless looms over my head.
We underwent IUI 4 times with the 4th time being the charm. The fertility clinic in our city usually only allows for 3 IUI treatments before they say we have to try something else. My dh and I went through a battery of tests which all showed that things were normal. Since this was the case, our fertility doctor okayed further IUI treatments. We are so grateful becuase it was the next treatment that took.
IUI was an emotional rollercoaster. The treatments, the waiting, the anticipation, the let downs, the tears. We decided that we were not going to proceed with IVF if faced with it. I didn’t want to go through the same emotional highs/lows, especially when dealing with thousands of dollars. If we couldn’t concieve on IUI, we would have pursued adoption. Private adoption where we live is much cheaper than IVF.
This week marked 13 years since the finalization of our son’s adoption. We chose adoption for two reasons. First, we had no diagnosis to treat and second, we could only afford adoption or IVF. We felt like adoption was more likely to result in parenthood. We also believe God played a strong part in bringing us, our son, and both of his birthparents into a relationship that continues to be a blessing today. I don’t have a blog, but I can be reached at lizm60@yahoo.com if anyone wants to visit about open adoption.
Insurance #1 covered three IUIs then we had no insurance so we did at home inseminations then I got a new job which has paid for IVFs 1 and 2. Now we’re applying for a state grant or I’m going to look for another job with fertility benefits.
We’ve decided against adoption for many reasons (detailed at least twice in my blog)