6 months later, bombshell (maybe I'm being dramatic...)

Kaboooooooom!!!

My heart hurts.

So when we did the IVF we made the decision at that time to do cryopreservation, whether it was 1 egg or 20 eggs. Insurance doesn't cover it so its $750 on top of all the rest of the procedure costs. We signed the forms and were told the $750 would cover the freezing and the storage for 1 year.

And the bomb that got dropped....
I check my email yesterday, no reason at all just wanting to see if we got any comments on the blog and if anyone else posted and I have an email from my fertility clinic.... That's odd... It's a blank email with 2 attachments. The first one is consent to discard embryos... WHAT?! So I download the second an its consent to transfer embryos.... Ok this attachment at least has a letter with some explanation talking about using a 3rd party to store the embryos. They want a $45 transfer fee to transfer the embryos to them initially and when we are ready for them they don't charge to transfer back. Ok, that's ok... And then there's a section about storage fees, which were less than the $750 we were expecting to pay again so that's cool, but there is no mention on when we have to pay it.

So I called today and apparently this plan had been in action since April of this year, what?! We were supposed to have been told in May that this was going to happen but guess what? We weren't... Now we have until the end of November to come up with the money to transfer and store our embryos or we have to decide to discard them.

We are in the home stretch of having to make sure we have everything for baby, and now we have to come up with more money to make sure my eggs aren't just thrown out? If we knew this in May we would have been able to save money specifically for this. My husband says its fine and we'll be ok and we will be able to pay it but it hurts me that we are being hit with this now.

I'm so thankful my procedure worked for me the first time but I honestly don't think I could go through a retrieval again, and then them putting embryos back while my ovaries are blown up 20x their normal size. I don't know if I could do that part again. So I really can't stand the thought of losing my embabies right now. This is all still so fresh and now I'm exhausted.

Read everything and ask questions, and hope they tell you the truth. Apparently not the whole staff was informed of this in may and that's here the ball was dropped. I still swear by my fertility clinic because they were awesome, but this was just not something I was looking forward to hearing right now....

-Mrs Red

When it rains, it pours.

Well today is CD 33 and I'm still getting BFNs. I called my doctor today to discuss doing an HSG dye test within the next couple cycles. Of course it's waaay expensive and had to be paid up front. And of course our insurance won't cover it. So I spent a good chunk of the morning choking back tears at work. We also found out the other day that my husbands grandfather has a large brain aneurism that looks like it might burst (which would be fatal) and THEN my husband got a phone call this evening about his dads recent test results...the Dr. is pretty sure he has pancreatic cancer. I know everything happens for a reason, but why God, why?

So sorry for such a whiny, negative post. I'm sure I'll be in better spirits tomorrow. Just send up all your prayers tonight. Xoxo

This is Amazing!

Where's the Baby Carriage??
The link above is a donation site a couple set up to work towards saving up for IVF.

I know through this battle we all don't have a lot of money to spare because of our own treatments. The amazing thing is you can donate as little as $1 or more, depending on your situation. She is shy by just under $2000 and her goal is Aug 3rd.

If you have a dollar, or more, to spare, please stop by their page and make a donation!

Need To Save Money?

Going through infertility you KNOW that:
-Pregnancy tests are expensive
-Ovulation predictor tests are expensive

BUT what if I told you there was a site where you can get these SOOO much cheaper???!!!

As in 55 CENTS each???

Here is the link: http://www.early-pregnancy-tests.com/

Clomid

Thanks to a comment from a reader I decided to do a little "investigation" online, lol.

Walmart sells Clomid (name-brand) at retail price, whatever that may be exactly.
They sell the off-brand, clomiphene citrate, 5 for $9 and 15 for $24.

Hope that helps anyone! I know that CVS sold name-brand Clomid for about $3.81 per pill. Still not that bad of deal.

Medication cost

I posted a while ago about insurance non-coverage, well here's some numbers I wish we're easier to find, since the mail order pharmacy is shady about giving out this info:

Gonal-F ( I needed 3 900 iui pens)
$1380 each!!! If you can get the discount card for cash paying patients, it's $744 each. If u have insurance coverage you can get for free but u can only use either card once in 28 days so try to get all ur medication at once.

Microdose or low dose HCG (an injectable compound)
$95 at the local pharmacy out of pocket plus the cost of syringes -__- which were $4 each bag of 10.
Mail order from freedom pharmacy was $70. This was one my pharmacy couldn't do because it was an injectable compound.


Certatide (I needed 3 of these but was prescribed and paid for 4 :-/)
From freedom pharmacy $86 each for a total of $344, the maker back orders it for smaller pharmacies.

Novarell
$89.90 from freedom, it was discontinued for my pharmacist to purchase. The alternative is Ovidrel which is $95

Vivelle dot (estrogen patches since I have estrogen issues)
This one has a discount program that is free with insurance, but freedom told me they were 67.81 for a box of 8, or 9.51 each. Which stinks because these are estrogen patches meant to be changed once every 72 hours, however the longest mine have gone is 48 hours...

Doxycycline (antibiotic and typically covered by any insurance)
Freedom said copay was $10.67, idk how much it really was but my pharmacy got it for me for a $5 copay.

Methylpredisolone (idk what this was but took 16mg once a day for 4 days after the retrevial)
Freedom said the copay for this one was $4, again idk how much it was for real because my pharmacy got it taken care of for me, so I think it's one of those on a discount thing. It was 16 mg a day for 4 days.

Progesterone in oil (so far just 2 vials)
Freedom said $55 each vial.

Apparently some of these medications have discount cards that can get the medication heavily discounted or free when used with insurance! Big thanks to Raj and the staff 15RX pharmacy in San Antonio who worked for 2 days straight to help me pay as little as possible! They were like angels from God when I needed stress relieved.

Freedom pharmacy said I would pay $3090 out of pocket (mind you this is with insurance)
Shopping around I paid $1792 out of pocket. Could have been less if I didn't wait for the last minute to order everything (mind you this is the EXACT SAME FREAKIN INSURANCE!) I'm grateful for the insurance coverage I have but still think its ridiculous how little it pays and how my lifetime max is $5k! Thats one cycle!

Anyway, I hope this helps people get an idea of out of pocket costs

Question #24

24. How has your financial situation affected your infertility journey?

Shannon:

Fertility treatments can get expensive, especially if you are referred to an RE. When you find out the clomid treatments are $1000 (including sonos)... That is a LOT of money. Not in the long run, I know. And definitely not the most expensive. But that would be EVERY MONTH of treatment. We have a hard time saving it up. Usually when we get close, something else comes up!

Mrs Red:

My hubby and I had a bad habit before marriage of putting everything on credit so we have a mountain of credit debt, plus now a mortgage... So most of our money goes to that. When I worked for a mutual fund company my insurance didn't cover it and we weren't all for paying out of pocket. I ended up quitting my job of 7 years and stayed out of work for 5 months getting out of depression and trying to 'just relax and get pregnant' didn't work. So I started working again and we realized when we switched insurances to my hubby's his work covered infertility treatments!!! So we started them because even if we didn't have much spare money, it was ok because the insurance covered a lot of it. I have been very blessed with my new job because it affords us to pay down our debt without acquiring more and still do treatments. We have only done 3 rounds of iui but it's still a lot even with insurance. We are waiting to pay down more debt before we plunge into ivf this summer. Let's pray we can continue on that path incase our healthier lifestyle change doesn't bring us a baby :-)



Ashley:
Unfortunately I feel this whole journey is driven by finances and will power. We pay everything out of pocket and I'm not sure how but we have found some way to move forward without taking much time off between treatments. My husband owns a business with a business partner and the business does very well but they don't draw much of a wage because they want to pay everything off as soon as possible (which I understand because they are starting their 4 year) but it does get frustrating going through this journey because I feel like if we were a "normal" household with two incomes we could have done things a little quicker & less stressful financially. We've used the money that he makes to pay for our fertility treatments since we usually live off of my income for everything else. So for the most part it has worked out. We are just starting IVF in which we did have to barrow a small portion of the amount, which has been the first time we've had to do that. We do not like debt and the only debt we have is our home, business and now $5500 for IVF. That also helps keep my stress level down.