IVF questions

doxiegirl419 · June 2012

Hi ladies,

I've been MIA lately...we found out that we have only a 3% chance of having another child on our own and that we'd need to do IVF with ICSI. We are 100% out of pocket and aren't sure what we will do yet but most likely we'll wait until the beginning/middle of next year if we will go forward.

For those of you who are doing IVF, are any of you fully out of pocket? An IVF with ICSI cycle here is about $13,500 plus $3-7k in meds. How are you maintaining your sanity especially since it's so expensive?

Also for those who are or have gone through it, how is it, really? I'm especially wondering about the egg retrievals and the embryo transfers. It just all seems so overwhelming.

I really don't know what we're going to do. DH is fine if we only have our DD. Ideally he'd like another, but it just seems so risky to pay $20k for something that has a 50-60% success rate. I would really love another but I am nervous about both scenarios-doing it or not doing it. ::Sigh::

Any experience anyone has would be great!!!!

mama_cito95 · June 2012

IVF is definitely scary and overwhelming. You just need to take one day at a time. We are completely OOP. For this current IVF cycle we did ICSI. The procedure itself with ICSI was about $9000 and then another $4000-$5000 for meds. But for us the reward outweighs the cost. That's how I look at it. If it works, it is so worth it all (money, time, heartache).

Each experience will be different for each person. For my first IVF I was totally stressed out about the injections (which I did ALL myself). But once I did the first ones it was really not bad at all and the entire cycle went fairly smoothly. We ended up with embryos to freeze. For #2 we did FET, but it failed. FET was much easier than IVF. I just completed IVF #2 (fresh cycle) and am in my 2ww. IVF #2 for some reason was much more challenging and seemed to drag on much longer than IVF #1.

I know that my RE's office offers some sort of insurance plan where if the cycle fails then you can get at least a portion of the costs back. They also offer discounted packages for if you want to pay for 2 cycles up front in case one doesn't work which saves a few thousand dollars. Are those options for you?

GL on your journey.

e74 · June 2012

We are completely OOP. However, our Re has a shared risk program where we can try up to 6 cycles and get most of our $ back ( we are doing donor egg, so we don't get her fees or medicines costs back) if we are not successful. I can't say anything about egg retrieval since using a donor, I did not experience that. Good luck!

mama_cito95 · June 2012

Oh, forgot to answer the part about the ER and the ET. For my first ER, it was fine. I felt fine afterwards. I still took the day off of work though. I also felt fine after the first ET (which I was awake for). But my RE is old school and requires 3 days of bedrest ET.

For my second IVF... I felt awful from the moment I woke up from ER and was still not 100% the next day. It took me longer to wake up and recover immediately after. I was super nauseous and threw up while recovering. I got home, threw up again and then passed out on my bed for 3 hours. I woke up and threw up again. The last time I ate was dinner before ER then I didn't eat again until lunch the day after ER. Even then I didn't really have an appetite but figured I needed to eat. I felt fine after ET though because I was awake for that. But again the 3 day bedrest was killing me.

But of course the experience is different for everyone.

uctracy@yahoo.com · June 2012

We are completely out of pocket. We were accepted into Shady Grove Fertility's shared risk program. We get 6 fresh cycles for $20,000. If Wedon'thave a baby we get all that money back. The meds are also OOP. The meds for my last cycle were about $4000. I found that the Freedom Fertility Pharmacy (they are online and ship overnight-- you can get a price quote online) had the best prices, as well as some rebated for people who don't have insurance for fertility treatments. Good luck!

AshleyR2452 · June 2012

I don't have any advice, but wanted to offer my support! We are pretty much in the same boat it sounds like. We were told we have a 5% with IUI (Our RE will only do metformin with IUI, no injectables - he said it's not worth it OOP for our odds this time), and we only have 4 cycles, and then our next step is IVF with ICSI. We are 100% out of pocket as well and thinking about IVF makes my head spin. I can't imagine spending that much money. I know the reward is great, but that money scares me. When we were TTC for DD, we swore we wouldn't do IVF if it came to it, but now I find myself seriously considering it. My DH would also be fine with just DD (although he would prefer to have another), but I really feel the need to have another DC and I'm afraid I won't be totally happy without. I would be willing to adopt, but DH isn't on board with me on that. He'd rather be a family of 3.

Hang in there and good luck!

doxiegirl419 · June 2012

Just wanted to say thanks to all of you!!

My current RE doesn't offer the attain program or any discounts in the case of failure. Another IVF center nearby does, but said there are a few factors to qualify so I would have to look into that further. I know it would all be worth it if the result is another healthy child, it's just so overwhelming to think we could go through all of that and pay that much and it wouldn't work. At least we have some time to decide.

I wish you all the best of luck!!!

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