Financially speaking...

Today's blog topic is going to deal with the financial aspects of IVF. I've had friends ask if IVF was covered by insurance and unfortunately for us, it is not. In communicating with others via an IVF message board, I've come across many women whose insurance does cover IVF (fully, partially, or for a specific number of tries) and I must admit I'm completely jealous! But just like us, there are a large percentage of couples that have to foot the bill themselves so we're referred to as "self-pay".

Now interestingly, there are states that mandate that infertility treatment (including IVF) be covered if pregnancy costs are covered and New Jersey is one of those states. However, because our insurance policies are not written in NJ we do not fall under the state mandate. Boo hiss!! I've also found in my research that there are other low-cost options out there...if you qualify that is. For instance, there are a number of clinical studies you can sign up for, but I'm excluded from almost all I've found for various reasons - either because I'm an old fart or because I'm missing an ovary. There's also exciting advertisements out there for mini-IVF (less meds and you're put on a "schedule" so everyone does their IVFs en masse) however, when you read the specifics I'm past the age cutoff of 36. So there are other IVF options out there, but not so much for us. I guess it's just as well - we really love our RE's office and now that we know them and trust them, we're happy to proceed with them.

So what do the costs boil down to? Well, some or most of the screening tests that I described in the previous post should be covered by our insurance. We'll probably have some out-of-pocket from those so when we've completed a cycle I'll do a grand total tally of everything. But here's what we can expect to pay at our fertility center for a "fresh" cycle with the protocol I'll be on:

• IVF - $6811 - this includes all of the blood work and ultrasound monitoring (every 2-3 days), egg retrieval (ER), the fertilization process, embryo transfer (ET) and post-transfer beta to see if it worked
• Meds - approx $3000-$4000 - this can include birth-control pills (optionally used to calm everything down or for better timing purposes), injections to stimulate the ovary to produce lots of eggs (stims), injections to keep you from ovulating (antagonist), injections to tell the body to get ready to ovulate (trigger), and 3x a day post-transfer vaginal suppositories (to increase the progesterone levels) - the good news is we've already purchased $1023 worth of meds so thank goodness we're ahead of the game on this one!
• Embryo Cryopreservation - $460 plus $270 for 6 mths storage - if we have "extra" embryos that fertilized (beyond those that they transfer back into me) we can have them frozen and stored for later use. This is optional and is paid at the start of the IVF cycle. We will pay for this option because if we are lucky enough to have "extras" to freeze, a frozen cycle is a much more affordable cycle than a fresh cycle. If it turns out we don't have any to freeze or none of the "extra" embryos make it to freezing, our money for this is refunded.

Our total, if we estimate on the high end of the meds = $11541. Ho-lee shee-ott, I know!! Thank goodness we do not have to go with things like PGD (where they have to look for genetic disorders) or ICSI (Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection, where instead of placing sperm on the egg for fertilization, they inject a single sperm into the egg) or our total would be a hell of a lot higher. But even so, $11541 is a huge gamble on a process that gives us a 37% chance of pregnancy for my age group. (Then again with no fallopian tubes we currently have 0% of getting pregnant naturally so 37% is a lot better than 0%, don't ya think?)

Now, here's why we hope we can get enough to freeze - if this fresh cycle doesn't work or if it does (yay) and we want to have another go at it down the road, a frozen cycle is around $2500 or so and that includes the meds. So it's a huge difference financially and it's much less taxing on the body (don't need to go through the weeks of injections, the ER, etc) though the success rate for frozen cycles for my age group is lower than a fresh cycle (25%).

We know the money could go towards our retirement or our first home. A couple of months ago, we even started browsing houses online and did a couple of drive-bys, getting excited at the prospect of buying our first home together. But when we sat down and talked about which we wanted more - a child or a house - we both answered the same thing. So here we are, taking our chances on IVF. With lots of hope and lots of prayers, by this time next year we'll be browsing for houses with a little baby in our arms.