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azaretsky
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IVF for genetic reasons
azaretsky
member
After getting pregnant with DS, we found out that both DH and I are carriers of CF. Thankfully, DS did not inheret those genes and was born healthy.
We are now thinking about the possibility of having another child (we always wanted at least 2). There is no way I'm prepared to leave it up to chance/luck this time around, though. I don't think we'll get "lucky" twice.
Have any of you ever heard of IVF because of genetic reasons? Would insurance cover this? How much could it cost? Do any of you have any experience with something like this?
TIA!
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Re: IVF for genetic reasons
I had IVF with PGD screening and I have seen it done for CF as well. Our insurance covered it because I was 35 at the time. We were having IVF for fertility reasons but also did the PGD due to a Trisomy 18 loss we had. We had a panel of 9 chromosomes checked and this was done by Reprogenetics. The cost if not covered by insurance of the PGD was $3,000. The IVF was covered in full. Check your insurance plan as to the reasons they would cover. You may get in there due to the carrier status. I am usually over on the Parenthing board. If you have any questions, page me there.
Good luck!!
I am right now. There are a few other ladies that post on the IF board that are doing PGD for genetics as well.
It entirely depends on your insurance. Some people have reported sucess playing the $ game with insurance - appealing an IVF denial with the "it will cost you $$$ to cover a child with CF vs $ to cover IVF/PGD to avoid it" argument.
Before insurance... 3k for PGD lab, 9k for the IVF/ICSI/PGD biopsy, and 4-5k meds + ?$ monitoring (which insurance covers a lot of the time, even if they don't cover IVF, so I don't know what it is OOP)... so about 16-17k total, per attempt, before insurance.
You might be able to get into a shared risk program, which is a lot better than paying per attempt. We had too many problems to get into one.
However, I will say... it's entirely worth it to avoid passing CF to a child.
Ladies - thanks so much for the very useful information! I'm meeting with my OB/GYN next week to get more information and be referred to the specialist. I also put a call into my insurance to check things out, although the person I spoke to was pretty useless.
I know it's done... I think it depends on reason. are you looking to use a donor or for actual DNA editing (can they edit out the CF gene yet? I know they have done others)...
I'm just learning about this (literally JUST looked up what PGD stands for
, but at this point, I'm hoping to use our own egg/sperm. From what I'm reading, this is a very involved process and I'm kind of scared - not because it's 'involved', but because it might not lead to success/healthy baby after all...
Quick and dirty PGD primer...
You will send cheek swabs (or other some other DNA sampling method) to the PGD lab along with your genetic mutation results. They build a special test to screen your embryos.
You have to do IVF with ICSI (injecting 1 sperm per egg).
In the IVF lab, on day 3 after fertilization, one cell is removed from each embryo. This is sent to be tested by the PGD lab (or it might be onsite, mine wasn't).
On day 5, you get your results and unaffected/carrier embryos get transferred (and hopefully stick) back into the uterus. Then 2ww. Optional testing (CVS/amnio) to confirm PGD worked.
It's not perfect. There will also be embryos that come back as "undetermined" after testing. Those and the affected embryos get donated to science/discarded as you see fit.
However, I'll take not quite perfect over 50% anyday.
I am a fertility nurse and we do IVF with PGD for this reason. I have worked with a patient who had it done for your exact same reason.
I have no idea if insurance covers it but if not it would cause about 20K. Not including the costs of meds which would run you between 2K-5K.
If I were you, I would definitely do this. If I knew what DD had I would do IVF with PGD. But we don't so we're not having anymore biological children.
Let me know if you have any questions about the IVF and PGD process.