Advice for first attempt at IVF

pbl2011 · December 2011

Hi, my partner and I are 24 years old and have a 4 month old. We are preparing to implant my eggs in her uterus, and were wondering if anyone could offer some advice regarding procedures and costs.

TaylorandMel · December 2011

I think there are many variables-- It will depend on the state you live in, your insurance coverage, and the clinic you go to. Ours, for example is not covered by insurance and costs about $13k for the whole thing. We were lucky and ended up getting coverage on SOME of the medications, so out of pocket cost was about $9k. Some people end up having it all covered by insurance apparently. We can't believe it.

The procedure usually involves taking birth control before the cycle (but some people don't do this). Then you do stims, with injectable medications, usually several times a day. They will monitor how your follicles are doing by ultrasounds. I think we stimmed a little over a week. We had about 5 or 6 US in that time. Then they do the retrieval. They give you a short acting anesthesia and go in with a large needle to retrieve the eggs. Then they check all the eggs over to see how many are mature. They tell you right then how many eggs they retrieved.

Later in the day, they put the sperm with the eggs. Then they let them be until the next day, at which point they check how many have fertilized. Then they call to tell you how many have fertilized. They generally do a day 5 transfer if possible, but may do a day 3 or 6 instead. This depends on age, medical history, and status of the eggs. The embyros are staged, based on how they're developing. They prefer to transfer them as blastocyst.

After the transfer you have to be on strict bed rest for 48 hours and then about 10 days later (depends on the clinic) they draw blood beta levels. If it's positive they recheck in 48 hours to make sure it's doubling and then usually do a 1st US at 6.5 weeks or later (because then there should be a HB).

We transferred two in the morula stage, but they were obviously both quite happy, because we're having twins. We had 7 eggs retrieved, 5 fertilized, 2 transferred, and 0 embryos remaining.

pbl2011 · December 2011

thanks for responding! that was a lot of valuable info. Just trying to get prepared as this is something that we'd like to start working up pretty soon. the though of multiples is pretty scary though, this little one has been quite a handful lol. good luck!

ball.and.chain · December 2011

TaylorandMel:
Some people end up having it all covered by insurance apparently. We can't believe it.

We live in a state (MA) that has mandated coverage of fertility treatments, which I believe covers IVF (I have heard NJ laws are similar). I also have very good health insurance that has unlimited coverage of fertility treatments. We're not at the IVF stage yet, but if I don't get pregnant via IUI (which they are covering in full), I anticipate coverage of most if not all of IVF.

That said -- the fertility law says insurance has to cover "medically necessary expenses of diagnosis and treatment." If OP's partner has viable eggs, I don't know that any insurance would consider it "medically necessary" to implant OP's eggs into her partner. And in many cases you have to prove medical necessity by failing to conceive via IUI before IVF will be covered. So even in the best case scenario for insurance and state laws, it is still possible that this could be all OOP.

musicmaryn · December 2011

Good luck to you both. I just did a round of IVF and it worked! It really all depends on the insurance plan you have to know what is covered. Most fertility clinics have a financial advisor that will look up your insurance to see what is covered and will go over all the costs with you prior to starting anything. My IVF procedure was fully covered. I have a $15k medical lifetime coverage for IVF plus $5k/yr for fertility drugs coverage. The medical coverages was plenty, but I ran out of coverag for the meds and ended up having to pay about $1k ish for the last few meds. There were A LOT! I'm 41 and my eggies took an extra 8 wks to mature enough for retrieval.

We retrieved 11 egs, 10 fertilized, 6 good embryos grew from that, we transferred 4 embryos, storing 2 more embryos for a 2nd pregnancy. 2 of the 4 transferred embryos implanted and only 1 of them is viable. So I am very happy to have 1 strong healthy growing lil bean in me.

IVF is HUGE process. We tried for 6 cycles of IUI with and without fertility meds before IVF and had 2 miscarriages during those 6 cycles.

All of that being said, your case will be a little different. The whole process will be the same, except you will be on the massive fertility drugs before retrieval to produce multiple eggs, and then your partner will be on fertility drugs (progesterone) for a few weeks after the transfer. Since you both will be undergoing partial IVF, you BOTH need to have the good insurance coverage. Best to have the fertility clinic financial advisor run the insurance analysis on both of you and prepare an estimate of costs for you.

Good luck and keep us posted!

pbl2011 · December 2011

my goodness! i can only hope that we have as much luck this time around as we did last time. Pregnant after one attempt of diy insemination at home is making this seem daunting. I am in boston, MA, any suggestion on places to go here?

2moms2twins · December 2011

pbl2011:
my goodness! i can only hope that we have as much luck this time around as we did last time. Pregnant after one attempt of diy insemination at home is making this seem daunting. I am in boston, MA, any suggestion on places to go here?

There is a Great Fertility clinic in Boston - its huge and of course I have no idea what the name is now - eerrrrr sorry i'll try to look at my old emails this was a year or so ago.

ball.and.chain · December 2011

I went for a consult at Fertility Solutions and really liked Dr. Huang, but at this point she has not actually treated me. I am currently doing IUIs with AICGB but they do not do IVF; we will go to FS if I need it. I only read good things online about FS (including from someone here). I think the big ones are Boston IVF and RSC in Lexington, but there are others too. Brigham & Women's has a practice, as does MGH. You can search for clinics by location and look at their success rates on the SART website: https://www.sart.org/find_frm.html Note that FS doesn't have scores yet because they are too new, but the doctors have lots of experience.

In the end location matters because you will have to go so often...but ask around and Google places and see if you can find a place others recommend. Fertility Solutions seemed like the right fit for us but I have a friend who thought RSC was great, so it's pretty subjective!

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Advice for first attempt at IVF

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