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Attain IVF refund program- any experience?
Hi- I am so sorry if this is an inappropriate question for this board. I know many of you have not struggled with IF, but I thought some of you might have some helpful information.
We are really struggling right now to have a second child. One of the options right now is IVF, and they have offered a program for at least a partial refund if the IVFs don't work.
This is super appealing because if we don't get pregnant, I will definitely move on to adoption, and the finances of all the failed IVFs would be a big setback to adoption funds.
Anyone have experience with the IVF refund programs? Any information is helpful.
I am on this board a lot, but posting less lately. I have always wanted to adopt and am seriously considering heading that direction sooner rather than later, but right now I am so sad about the IF that I feel like I need to resolve my feelings/finish dealing with that before we move on.
Again, sorry if this is an inappropriate board question.
Also, I just want to say that all of your beautiful children and families are such a bright spot to me in this difficult process- it is so nice to see the reminders of all of the different ways to make a family.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Attain IVF refund program- any experience?
Our clinic had a shared risk program. A "regular" cycle is ~$11.5K without meds.
The shared risk program was $21.5K up to 3 cycles. If you never got pregnant, had a m/c, or baby didn't live more than 72 hours, you got $18K back. Basically, if you got pregnant in cycle 1 or 2 you paid double or broke even. if it takes 3 or never works you "got your money's worth."
FWIW, I don't think this is the right board at all.
I am happy to delete the thread if it is offensive or upsetting. That is not at all my intention.
I don't think you're being offensive or upsetting at all, you're considering both IVF and adoption, I think a lot of people have or even are trying to decide between the two, there is nothing wrong with that.
That being said, I don't have any experience/advice to give but there may be others that do. I hope you get some good advice : )
I don't find this post offensive at all either. I think many of us on this board have dealt with IF and also understand you feeling like you need to give it a chance before feeling 100% ready to commit to adoption. No advice on the shared risk program but good luck with whatever you decide!
TTC since June 2009
01/10- Femara
03/10- Femara
07/2010- Clomid with injectables and IUI #1
08/2010- IUI #2
06/2011- IVF #1 BFP!
09/2011- Miscarriage at 10 1/2 weeks
11/2011- FET
01/2012- Start Home Study process
03/2012- Home Study approved and now waiting on our child to find us!
07/2012- matched with a BM who is due in October!
11/10/12- our son is born!
11/13/12- court grants us custody!
12/28/12- finalization! Always ours in our hearts, but.now also ours forever
http://keepingupwiththejoneses-dana.blogspot.com/
I'm not offended--just thought an IF board may be better suited for something like this...
I agree that it's less an issue of this post being offensive, and more an issue of you getting a lot more info and experiences from people on the IF or IFV boards. I'll bet if you XP there, you'll get more responses.
That being said, we never pursued IVF so I have no experience with shared risk plans.
You could post this the IF board although most of those ladies are still cycling so they wouldn't have any experience with actually getting their money back. I know a lot of them are part of shared risk programs though. When I joined my clinic there was no guarantee program - their success rates especially for DE, which I was doing, were so high that they didn't feel it was beneficial to patients. Low and behind, three DE miscarriages later they instituted a shared risk program that I'm too late to join, and have wasted a lot of money that I could have put toward adoption. So from my point of view a program like this would have been worth joining.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
Early loss 10/08
Lap 1/09
IVF #1 "natural IVF" - 1 egg retrieved, missed m/c
Tried several mini-stim cycles with no response
Switched clinics - dx'd as carrier for Fragile X
IVF #2 MDL protocol Jan/Feb converted to IUI, BFN
IVF #2 take 2: Antagonist, one embie, BFN
IVF #3: Antagonist, no fertilization
One last ditch effort at OE IVF (antagonist with Clomid) cancelled
DE cycle #1 Jan/Feb 2011, BFP, ectopic
DE cycle #2 June/July 2011 - BFP
10/28/11 Baby girl lost at 17 weeks due to pre-term labor. We love and miss you.
DE cycle #3 June/July 2012 - BFP, twins, both heartbeats stopped, D&C
2 frosties but don't know what's next
FET Dec 2012: BFP! Praying this one sticks for the long haul!
Are you doing shared risk with your own eggs / sperm? or using donor gametes?
The reason I ask is because when you use an egg donor (or if male IF, a sperm donor), you *should* be bypassing a lot of the reasons for past IVF cycle failures. Donor egg / sperm *should* work the first time (in theory) and result in frozen embies for future cycles/attempts. So in that case, my friends have chosen NOT to participate in shared risk / refund programs.
However, if they were using own eggs/sperm knowing that there are issues like "old eggs" "poor sperm quality", then they have spent the big bucks on a shared risk program.
I know 1 person who used donor eggs, participated in a shared risk cycle, got pg with mulitples on her first attempt, her family is now complete, she has frozen embies in storage, and she paid A TON of money for 1 IVF cycle vs. the 4 fresh IVF cycles she gambled on. She lost a ton of money.
Another person I know paid for a 3 cycle shared risk program, used her own eggs and hubby sperm, all 3 cycles were negative, she got full money back, and is cycling somewhere else. She is not ready to persue adoption yet.
I agree that this is generally true. However in my case (see above post) I fell on the wrong side of the odds with DE and would have benefitted from shared risk. I guess that's why it's a 'risk' - you never know what will happen. Since OP has had a child, she knows she can carry a pregnancy. But yes if she is using OE/sperm there are more issues to consider.
Early loss 10/08
Lap 1/09
IVF #1 "natural IVF" - 1 egg retrieved, missed m/c
Tried several mini-stim cycles with no response
Switched clinics - dx'd as carrier for Fragile X
IVF #2 MDL protocol Jan/Feb converted to IUI, BFN
IVF #2 take 2: Antagonist, one embie, BFN
IVF #3: Antagonist, no fertilization
One last ditch effort at OE IVF (antagonist with Clomid) cancelled
DE cycle #1 Jan/Feb 2011, BFP, ectopic
DE cycle #2 June/July 2011 - BFP
10/28/11 Baby girl lost at 17 weeks due to pre-term labor. We love and miss you.
DE cycle #3 June/July 2012 - BFP, twins, both heartbeats stopped, D&C
2 frosties but don't know what's next
FET Dec 2012: BFP! Praying this one sticks for the long haul!
May, totally agree with you and am very sorry that your attempts didn't work.
I was trying to emphasize in my response that going the donor route doesn't always work and can result in negative results too. I tried to put in "disclaimers: so to speak in my responses.
OP - another consideration is... do you want to be tied to this 1 clinic for that many cycles? have you cycled there before? what are the clinic's SART rates? Is this the best clinic in your area? or would you be better served traveling possibly out of state to one of the top notch clinics in US for a 1x cycle?
if going donor route - are you comfortable with their donor pool? donor recruiting process / donor screening process? are there 3-4 current donors you would want to use if you had to cycle 3-4 times with this same clinic?
If your first 1-2 cycles fail in a shared risk plan, would you be better off going to a different clinic for say a different protocol or different lab or different donor pool to see if you get different results?
so many factors to consider. its a hard choice to make. I've had friends go both routes and there is no right or wrong answer.. just a lot of money at stake... and your emotions.
Wow! So many great thoughts!
We would not be going the donor route for eggs or sperm, I don't think. I'm not sure that I feel that committed to having the baby come out of my body. I will definitely explore that option, as I know a few people who have had great experiences with it, but we'll see. I know that my body could get pregnant and carry a pregnancy 3-4 years ago, but who knows about now. I had a 4th degree tear with my son's delivery, with the painful recovery and risks of incontinence and as much as I would be willing to go through that again if I got pregnant again, I'm not sure I'm willing to pay 20-30k to go through it again.
All of our cycles to this point have been in the hundreds of dollars range, and we'll soon get into the couple-of-thousand $$ range per cycle, but once we get into the 15-20k range (and no guarantee) I start to wonder if we might not just want to move the adoption plan to the forefront. The first plan was the free route of just getting pregnant. Now that we are having to spend money one way or another, it is making me question what our best route is.
The shared risk idea was appealing because it would preserve adoption funds in case we are not successful, but I had not thought about not being able to switch to a different clinic. I plan to research this clinic and also research travelling to other clinics before we get further into the IVF route. So far we have stuck with this clinic because it is on our insurance plan, but once we get to IVF it is all OOP, so at that point I am going to look more closely at what clinic to use.
You all have given me exactly the kind of thoughts and information I needed. I feel like I hijacked your board a little with my off-topic question, but I knew many of you would have thought through these options and considerations. Thank you all so much- Adoption board rocks!!
Very late to the party..sorry I have been busy.
We used the attain program. We did one round with donor eggs. Donor produced 14 eggs. Zero fertilized. We then opted for adoption. Since we had no frozen embies..we recieved a full refund in the form of a check within a week of signing the papers.
The only thing that is deceiving is that you still have quite a bit our of pocket with the attain program. You still have to pay the donor fee and for all meds (yours and hers). If you are not doing donor than you still have your meds to pay for..
We were skepitcal but DH is an attorney and the contract looked fair and simply stated. It turned out just like they stated it would..
Hope that helps.