The whole situation around this insurance stuff, I am mostly mad at myself. I am a super researcher- whenever I'm buying anything over $100, I go online to determine my best options. I can't believe I was so stupid as to not look into this further.
I cried and cried about it yesterday, but also felt a little guilty. I know so many infertile couples are much worse of than we are. a) We have had insurance for the last two years. b) We actually do have money in savings to pay for a fresh cycle if we needed to. But... it kills me. I'll have to have another post later this week on my relationship with money, because I know that's a big part of it.
So now I am trying to figure things out. It turns out, as some of you suggested, I can go back on my insurance from my job. I can even do it without CO.BRA since I am technically still employed by my school. I spoke to someone today to see how to do it, and it would cost just over $7000 for the year.
Now, if we do that, we will have to first do a frozen transfer with my one lone embryo... so we have to decide if that's what we want. But, researcher that I am, I wanted to see just how much money we are talking about.
I went through my old papers and made a few calls.... The breakdown from our last cycle:
Meds: $5445
IVF: $8300
ICSI: $2500
PGD: $5200
TOTAL: $22,945
We did have to pay $95 of the meds and $225 of the PGD, but STILL. That's a lot of fucking money. In fact, that was probably my take home from my salary my first year of teaching! Considering our savings, III told me yesterday "If someone told me I had to pay ten grand to have a baby three or four months sooner, at this point I'd totally do it." But, crunching the numbers, it's 20 grand and he might have also been saying that to make me feel better since I was laying on the bed crying into my pillow....
With six complete failures of cycles and two losses, we're impatient. Both of us hate the idea of having to try an FET with only one embryo because of the high chance of failure. But... ugh. I repeat: That's a lot of fucking money.
I cried and cried about it yesterday, but also felt a little guilty. I know so many infertile couples are much worse of than we are. a) We have had insurance for the last two years. b) We actually do have money in savings to pay for a fresh cycle if we needed to. But... it kills me. I'll have to have another post later this week on my relationship with money, because I know that's a big part of it.
So now I am trying to figure things out. It turns out, as some of you suggested, I can go back on my insurance from my job. I can even do it without CO.BRA since I am technically still employed by my school. I spoke to someone today to see how to do it, and it would cost just over $7000 for the year.
Now, if we do that, we will have to first do a frozen transfer with my one lone embryo... so we have to decide if that's what we want. But, researcher that I am, I wanted to see just how much money we are talking about.
I went through my old papers and made a few calls.... The breakdown from our last cycle:
Meds: $5445
IVF: $8300
ICSI: $2500
PGD: $5200
TOTAL: $22,945
We did have to pay $95 of the meds and $225 of the PGD, but STILL. That's a lot of fucking money. In fact, that was probably my take home from my salary my first year of teaching! Considering our savings, III told me yesterday "If someone told me I had to pay ten grand to have a baby three or four months sooner, at this point I'd totally do it." But, crunching the numbers, it's 20 grand and he might have also been saying that to make me feel better since I was laying on the bed crying into my pillow....
With six complete failures of cycles and two losses, we're impatient. Both of us hate the idea of having to try an FET with only one embryo because of the high chance of failure. But... ugh. I repeat: That's a lot of fucking money.
7 comments:
I'm so sorry you find yourself in the icky insurance position. I will tell you that we were in a similar place last december and chose to pay the cobra ($1100/mo for a year) for my old insurance that had IF and meds coverage instead of the free coverage from my new job. And we ran the numbers under a bunch of scenarios (# cycles, preferred provider or not, etc.) and we ultimately made the decision not to switch insurance. For us, knowing we spent the time on the spreadsheet and the options helped -- and since you still have the option you will feel much better in the longer term.
fwiw, I totally didn't want to do an FET with only 1. But we did before we switched clinics. And I'm just about at 18 weeks with the one we almost left behind.
It *is* a lot of money! We talk about this fact often. Just yesterday I was thinking of how, with my new job (and raise), I could finally buy a BMW if I want to, but for the fact that we are likely going to be paying $35K+ for a donor egg IVF cycle next summer.
We can't even justify taking a weekend trip to San Francisco or L.A. for our anniversary because it will cost $1000 we could be putting toward our fertility treatments fund.
I know I should just be grateful we have the means to come up with the money, but it is so unfair!!
I'm glad you are still able to elect coverage from your employer. FET aside, going back to your prior insurance seems like a good option.
Best wishes figuring it out.
That is alot of money and I feel for you :-( Sometimes it sucks having to make such difficult decisions all the time, it gets exhausting! We will need to fork out $25k if this cycle doesn't work to proceed with further IVF cycles and that's only if we are eligible (it's a pay $25k scheme for 3 cycles and a baby or 75% of your money back) Otherwise we'll be back to the drawing board too. And that money will be borrowed from the bank!
Yeah...I will say it again. The insurance game sucks. Cheer up sweetie, you have choices :) HUGS.
You know we get the idea that it is not "nice" to talk about money, but in reality the money aspect features very large in the decision making process. We don't have any fertility coverage here in South Africa, so it's hard to part with hard earned cash for something like this. My instincts say that if you have a chance for someone else to carry the largest burden of the cost go for it! But maybe that's just because I wish I could have that chance...
I must say I would be very hesitant to do a FET cycle with one embie as well. That's a lot of time and effort wasted for a small chance...
All the best with making your decision... I don't know what I would have done in your situation... Please don't feel guilty! $23000 is A LOT of money, you have every right to worry about it...
Wow!! I am so excited you left a comment on my blog! I have never met someone with a chromosomal inversion before like me! So sorry for your troubles. Look forward to following your journey.
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