Saturday, February 11, 2012

*tap, tap* Is this thing on?

So, how's this work?

After a night of nothing but tears, I keep coming back to "but I don't know for SURE my eggs are bad."

It's a guess... it means that every IVF is a shot in the dark and likely to lead to more heartbreak.

But I. Don't. Know.

It's that unknowing which makes me want to push on... to find an answer and hopefully get lucky along the way.

We're going to progress with a mock cycle in order to get an endometrial biopsy. It won't answer the egg question, but it will at least help answer the "are we even timing this right / is there an implantation issue?"

The egg issue becomes more complicated. More for financial reasons than anything else.

For those of you who haven't the vaguest idea of the process of infertility treatment, let me share some numbers for you. If you don't have stupendous insurance, most insurance companies pay very little or even nothing at all for actual IVF treatment.

When we started this process, the company W worked for actually HAD stupendous insurance. But when he switched jobs, that would go away entirely unless I kept up with COBRA. Considering the cost of COBRA vs the cost of fully out of pocked, we opted to keep only me on that insurance. At our expense.

So let's look at a cycle ON the COBRA for all our out of pocket expenses:
Monthly COBRA (regardless of whether I'm in a cycle or not it must be paid every month): $742.24
Cost of prescription pre-natal vitamin - (copay) $10/month
Cost of prescription folic acid - (not covered) $20/month
Cost of IVF medications & supplies (copay) approx. $100/cycle
Doctor's visit copays $10 x approx 5-6 visits per cycle
Close to $1000 for one cycle month (not counting non-cycle month costs)
There was also an administrative fee at the very beginning around $350, I think.


Now... remember... I was also unemployed during a lot of this time or working as a contractor which required me to take time off for bloodwork, ultrasounds, retrieval and transfer.

Cost for a cycle completely out of pocket: $20,000+

We're getting a bargain, right?

So now we're coming down to choices. Insurance will not pay for donor eggs (my BEST chance to conceive). Cost if my clinic has a ready donor: $22,600 (though it's POSSIBLE my insurance pays for my portion of this (around $6100, minus my copays, etc. So our portion then becomes $16000-1700). Cost if they do NOT have a donor and we need to go to an agency? Closing in on $30,000.

Donor eggs are out unless we put ourselves in debt.

To get the answer of "can my eggs even have a hope to survive?" we need to do what's called a PGD or embryo biopsy. Reading the jargon of medical insurance, I can't say for sure if there is or is not a circumstance in which this is covered. Let's assume not. Two cycles (mock cycle to check uterine lining and "real" cycle for transfer w/ biopsy) plus the cost of the biopsy  ($1500 to my provider; $3500-4000 to an outside lab).
 So roughly another $7500 out of pocket.

When you ask us to go out somewhere and we turn you down... it's not because we're mean or we don't like you... we can't afford it.

I saw some pages with PayPal donating buttons... I thought "Hmmm... good way to defray some costs... but how does that work from a financial/tax/legal point of view?" That thought was almost immediately followed up with - "Do I really want to beg my family and friends for financial help, which we may never be able to repay and air all this laundry to more than just the 6 or 7 people who probably read my blog?"

I don't know. I'm lost. Add onto this some potentially further bad news (or at the very BEST some "What the hell is wrong with me NOW" news) and I have to wonder what my great purpose is here in this world that the Almighty thinks it's worth keeping me around.

In my lowest last night, I came across a blog of a woman who is now facing the possibility of a life without children. She had a list of "things I'll never get to do"... it was truly heartbreaking. I don't WANT to be there. I don't want to face that. But, as I read somewhere else, when is enough, enough? How do you get yourself past this and move forward, especially, like me, you don't feel satisfied that you have all the answers yet as to "why."

Maybe I hold in my wallet the solution to all of it and that $310M will be mine tonight... a girl can dream, right?

2 comments:

  1. The financial aspect is part of what makes all of this so hard. We have NO insurance coverage, and WILL go into debt if we try to pay for more than one cycle (to add to the debt already, really). *sigh*

    I've never heard of a mock cycle, but it sure seems crappy to have to put yourself through all of those medications and not even transfer an egg. Ugh.

    Also, though I have a paypal thing on my blog, we've never gotten any donations. I kept the button on there as small as it is because I feel similarly as you do - do I really want to be begging my friends and family for money?

    There has to be an easier way....oh there is.....for the other 80% of the world. :/

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  2. I know... I can't even imagine if we had to do this without the insurance - we've been lucky to have that at least. It's been challenging while I've been unemployed to keep that extra insurance going (esp since if Wes' new job had insurance which covered IVF we wouldn't have needed to keep me on his COBRA. Talk about a political rant brewing about infertility and medical coverage).

    A mock cycle will basically check my lining to make sure the problem isn't actually an implantation issue. They'll do a biopsy (which terrifies me as I do not think I'm sedated for it). I agree about the crappiness of it. To be honest, I don't know why they couldn't go through the process and do a retrieval and biopsy, freeze the embryos and transfer next month. BUT - based on what I know of how the cycle will go, they won't do a stimulation at all... it may be they don't want anything else to muck up the lining and are testing a very specific time frame.
    I agree - it's the one big thing I've struggled with through all this. How is it everyone ELSE can seem to manage this the "normal" way, but not me? At the very least, I feel strongly that infertility needs to be a consideration for insurance plans. It's not like this is something we did to make things this way; it's a genuine medical condition like any others insurance DOES pay for.

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