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
Ugh! That's frustrating! Our clinics fees included everything (including cryo.) and they store the embryos for 1 year after the retreval and then they go to the third party storge where we are sent a bill for the annual,monthly or quarterly storage fee -in which we had to decide which we were going to do even before we started the IVF process. We chose quarterly. Anyhow - SAVE them. I know it seems like a lot of money right now, but in the big picture you will be saving MUCH more money by freezing them then going through the whole fresh cycle process again, not to mention saving your body a whole lot of trauma! It will be ok - promise. Just think of them as your kids and you would do anything for you child right? Good luck sweetie!
ReplyDeleteThere was never any question on whether or not we would continue the storage but the thing was is that we were told we had a year before we'd have to pay anything again. It's only been 6 months so I feel cheated out of the money we paid. We were fortunate that my husbands insurance paid a big portion of our IVF bill but this was one thing insurance wouldn't cover so that's why it was 'extra'. When I found out about it I felt bad and had no idea how to tell DH. Luckily he isn't suffering from baby brain or hormones so he can think rationally and said we'd pay monthly (even though in the long run it'll be more money this way) then after we have what we need for the baby we will switch over to the prepaid 2 year fee (which really isn't that much compared to what we'd pay for one year). His plan is rational and makes financial sense for us right now and I'm glad he's thinking clearly because I'm not! LoL I'm just thinking about how much we sacrificed and what I physically went through to get to this point and was trying to imagine going through it again, not sure if I'm strong enough to do it again.
ReplyDeleteTake that back, I know I'm not strong enough to do it all a 2nd time from the beginning
DeleteIm sorry to hear you got cheated (with them not being honest with you) =( Thats horrible! Im glad your dh is there to help you through this though and work things out. It sounds like he is very supportive. Praying for you guys! Hang in there! =D
ReplyDelete