Kids are expensive. This is a known fact. Everyone knows it. But for me and many other fertility challenged women and couples, the expense begins long before the child is born. Some insurance covers infertility, but most do not. As my RE said, someday the government and insurance companies will recognize the fact that infertility is an actual medical condition that it needs support in all areas. But for now, that is not the case.
So out of pocket or OOP is how I'm dealing with this wonderful journey. 2012 brought my first year ever of enough medical expenses to take advantage of the tax write-offs. Everything is a write-off, even the sperm donor! Miles driven to and from the doctor, the acupuncturist, the sperm bank, and anywhere else I went. Parking fees and meters at all of these as well. So that helped. A lot. Especially today!
Today I officially got my loan from Springstone Patient Financing, and also found out that I qualify for Attain IVF. What that means is that for a one time fee, I get 2 IVFs, and 2 FETs. IVF is a retrieval and transfer of fresh embryos. So I get two chances with that. FET, is a frozen embryo transfer. Assuming I have enough eggs retrieved to produce enough healthy viable embryo's to do the fresh transfer and then freeze the remaining ones, if I don't get my BFP with the first IVF, I can follow it with a FET. And then if again no BFP, I can do another fresh retrieval and transfer and then have the pick of the litter with all the remaining frozen, if I find myself still not preggers.
I feel amazingly positive about the upcoming months, but some of that might be that I know that I will finally have some answers about the quality of my eggs. I will know in about a month if my RE thinks I have a chance of getting pregnant. Up to this point, we know I have lots of eggs, we know that I can get pregnant, we know that my numbers are amazing not only for my age, but even if I was 5 years younger, the only thing we don't know is if my eggs are any good.
Wow, I've gone off topic. I was talking about the expense of infertility. Hmmm, infertility, I'll save that for another day.
So the package does not include the meds!!! From what I've gathered, meds can cost anywhere from $1000 a cycle to $5000 or more. UGH!!! That's what my tax refund is for! Woohoo, that arrived in my bank account today! I did find an overseas pharmacy where the meds are less expensive, since many countries have controls over the pharmaceutical companies that America does not. I'm hoping to be able to order at least a few things from there, although I don't know what I need yet, and it takes about two weeks to get things from overseas. Hopefully next week when I go in for my next scan, and to I start my Lupron, I can get prescriptions from the nurses of what I'll be taking, and maybe get the first few days worth from the local pharmacy but order the rest from IVFPharmacy.com.
So off to bed so I can wake up early for my workout. DriveCardio is my new found exercise love. I'm going as often as possible in the coming weeks, since once I start stims, working out will not be that comfortable or welcome.
Goodnight!
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