Intro to Us :)

mrs&mrsk

My wife and I got married 9/20/13

We are dabbling in reading about getting pregnant, etc.  She has a heart condition and I have a mental condition LOL (vaso vagul i basically cause myself to pass out if i hear medical stuff). So.... we will see who gets to be the preggo one.  Right now it looks like it will be her, she is 29 and I am 34.  (Backwards!) I may try the 2nd time around... TBD.  
Next week we have our first appt- the cardiologist- to see if she CAN be pregnant and still be OK physically.  In the meantime, I will troll the forums

I didn't like/use the knot when wedding planning, I hope this better suits us! WE need to learn the ins & outs of these forums. 

First question-- how do we keep cost down and chances UP! ?

2momsinCA

I just joined today too and I think I'm super trolling... Good luck with your ttc journey and I hope you get the clear from the cardiologist.

Cost down and chances up? Are you going to an RE? It's worth it to do hormone tests and an HSG just to make sure everything's in working order. Other than that, it's expensive! We spent quite a bit on our ttc adventure and I think the budgeting skills we learned through the process will hopefully help once our twins arrive. I personally think we would have saved a lot of money it we had skipped the home ICI attempts, skipped clomid all together and gone straight to the injectable meds and monitoring. It would have been nice to just have one or two really expensive cycles rather than 10 moderately expensive ones. But that's just me.

ball.and.chain

Welcome!  The cost stuff is hard.  Unfortunately most of the stuff that increases your chances also increases your chances of multiples -- and then that's more expensive down the road.  But a good RE can help.

healz413

Welcome!!

I would definitely recommend actually calling your insurance company and your wife's insurance company (if you have insurance) to see if they'll cover anything related to infertility. Policies really vary and some people are surprised to find that their insurance will cover something.

Good luck!

mrs&mrsk

The more I read, the more I agree with @‌ 2momsinca
I am looking into insurance but basically mine is "better" for most things and Dw got old to b on it last week (ugh self insured doesn't have to follow any rules until obamacare, what a battle!). Looks like it covers "infertility testing" but not solutions. Hoping that means re visits ... And ultrasound bc that's pregnancy which is covered? They told me they don't know what iui is and to call with billing codes... Needless to say after the cardio we will see the gyno and get more answers and get the "codes"... I hope we can just pay for sperm and actual iui-ing!

StacyLH24

Welcome to our group. We have a TTC check-in on Mondays. Please join us for that.

I would encourage you to work with a RE to help your chances. Unless there are fertility issues, they may not let you jump to injectables right away. If your insurance doesn't cover them, they are very expensive. One cycle of Gonal-F is about $3,000-$4,000 - this is what one of the nurses at our RE's office told us. Thankfully, we have excellent coverage for IUI.

SweetPea0307

Welcome! The balance between cost and increasing your chances is a tough one.

My wife and I are currently going through a program where we only spend $250 for the IUI (1 per month) + cost of sperm. So pretty cheap (as these things go), but without any of the drugs or monitoring that might increase chances. But so far we've had 3 IUI's with 3 BFN's, so hard to say if this is the right balance. Though, like @ball.and.chain said, the stuff that increases chances also increases the risk of multiples (which my wife and I are not okay with), so maybe it's the best we can do.

Good luck! My one tip would be fully fund an HSA or an FSA if you have one.