This song has been running through my mind lately. Doesn’t it for everyone?
Money is such a annoying problem in life… the problem is always there, even when the money is not, and I feel like IF issues just exacerbate or highlight this.
So many of us spends hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands…just to try to get knocked up or adopt a child. Does it annoy the EVER-LIVING SHIT out of anyone else when you say something about the cost of IF and a fertile responds with something along the lines of “well, this is just the beginning of the money that kid will cost you! Hahaha!”
Um, yeah, you got knocked up accidentally and/or for free. You don’t get to lecture me on the cost of kids right now. $#*^@#
/endrant
Anywhozers, we’ve started thinking more seriously about budget cutbacks lately, mainly because we have about 4 more months to make as much as possible (and save as much as possible) before we’ll basically be living on one income for six months. Yikes. It’d be one thing if that was our normal lifestyle, but thanks to a high cost of living where we are + our own indulgences like golfing and going out for drinks, we have definitely needed two incomes to survive these past couple of years. Amy’s posts about following the teachings of Dave Ramsey have been inspiring me, but I haven’t exactly implemented things yet. It might be time to finally make that jump…
SO, since I’m on the topic of money, I thought maybe it was time to give you the breakdown of what our diagnosis/treatment/IUI cost us. This will be boring for some and useless for others, but I know that when we first started this journey, I had no idea what different procedures cost, and I couldn’t find that information anywhere. Hopefully this info helps out someone else who is just starting this crappy but ultimately rewarding journey.
In our situation, we have zero infertility coverage (typical for most), so these numbers are mainly OOP(out of pocket) costs. I’m sure the charges will vary from place to place, but at least it will give you a starting point to get an idea of costs! Also, I have not included our insurance premium costs, which were about $200/month for me during the TTC saga (an additional $4,200). I now pay $350/month for insurance that includes maternity coverage. Bleh.
First Year of TTC (july09/july10): $1,500
(back when some tests were still covered by copays/insurance and we were trying naturally or with Clomid)
HPTs & OPKs: $183
Pre-natal vitamins / herbs / TTC books / Clomid / etc. : $245
Acupuncture: $370
Diagnostic Bloodwork (prolactin, DHEA, TSH, & testosterone), 1 ultrasound, & Hubby’s SA: $677
Next 6 months of TTC (july10/jan11): $1,250
(TTC naturally – weekly acupuncture + herbs, and one P4 check)
Diagnostic Work with my RE (feb11/mar11): $2,500
$250 – Initial Consult
$100 – Regroup with RE after test results were back
$125 – Prometrium to end cycles (copay)
$110 – Acupuncture & Chiropractor Appt
$100 – glucose tolerance test
$500 – CD3 bloodwork (FSH/LH/AMH/E2)
$20 – misc. bloodwork (copay) (CBC/DHEA/blood type/etc)
$270 – Semen Analysis & ASAB panel
$360 – baseline ultrasound
$15 – Antibiotics for HSG (copay)
$575 – HSG
$125 – fuel cost for our trip to Denver
We did not pay $200 for the nurse consult (it was waived for some reason) and we also didn’t pay for the genetic consult (which I believe was also supposed to be $200).
We also did not do the following tests, but I’ll include them FYI.
$170 = Cystic Fibrosis test
$285 = Fragile X test
$350 = Spinal Atrophy test
IUI#1 with RE (mar11/apr11): $5,250
$600 (10 vials of 75iu menopur)
This was much cheaper through IVFmeds.com if your RE will let you use them – roughly $50/vial when you order 5 at a time and pay for shipping vs. $75/vial through Ascend, and if I’d have ordered all 10 from IVFmeds, it would have been about $43/vial because of combined shipping. Especially if you’re an IVF patient, I feel like this could save you hundreds if not thousands.
$100 (ovidrel trigger shot co-pay)
$1,315 Ultrasounds (5 of them)
Make sure you ask what they’re going to charge. My local OB clinic charged a different rate (more) for a trans-vaginal u/s than a regular one, and when I had to use the local hospital’s u/s machine for a weekend check, they charged me over DOUBLE what my OB clinic charged ($451 vs $221). Since none of this was covered by insurance, I should have paid cash up front for the 10% discount, but I wasn’t thinking straight to request that. Ugh.
$1,550 Monitoring Blood work
E2 was $142/draw
P4 was $80/draw
LH was $60/draw
HCG was $95/draw
Blood draw charge was $7-10/day
$170 Acupuncture
Two appointments – I actually wanted to do more during this cycle, but my schedule just wasn’t meshing with it.
$700 Sperm wash, freeze, and CBC panel
We had to do this b/c my husband was out of state for work during my IUI cycle.
I believe it was $340 for the freeze and $360 the required CBC panel if I remember right.
$125 IUI procedure
(Cheap, right?! If you’re doing a non-medicated IUI cycle, this is good info to know!)
$175 Sperm wash and IUI prep
I’m not sure if this cost is there whether you do the freeze/thaw process or not. Probably so.
$300 fuel charges for monitoring appts, etc.
$65 (prometrium supplements)
My co-pay is super high for this for some reason – $3/pill. Luckily a bloggie friend filled her prescription for me and sent it to me for $0.67/pill instead. Insurance is so stupid.
$25 HPTs
I couldn’t resist testing early…and then testing again with the ones that actually say “pregnant.” Worth every penny. :- )
$50 Zofran
I’m actually still taking this (trying to wean off as I type this), but once the pharmacy finally figured out I could get 12 pills for $2/time, it’s gotten cheaper. At first they were giving me 14 pills for $10. Again, I hate insurance.
We were traveling 350 miles (one way!) to the RE for the diagnostic work and actual IUI, and I didn’t include the cost of eating out, etc. while we were in Denver each time. I’m sure that added several hundred dollars minimum to our total cost, but I just didn’t want to think about it so I didn’t track it. 🙂 Luckily we had free places to stay with family/friends, so we didn’t have to pay for lodging.
Overall, in our 21 months of TTC, we spent roughly $10,500.
Obviously, we were extremely lucky to have our first IUI result in a BFP, and if you move on to IVF, the costs skyrocket from there. So many of you have spent 10s of thousands, and my heart goes out to you. Still, $10k is no small chunk of change to us, especially when the vast majority of it was spent in the last couple of months. Phew.
Prayers going out to all of my TTC friends that you get your BFPs sooner rather than later. May you all be the lucky $@*&%^ that get miraculously pregnant naturally on your next cycle because you were relaxed and not thinking about it. 😉
Love you all.
It's really interesting to compare the costs that everyone ends up paying… Sure would be nice if insurance covered more of these costs!
Seriously considering printing this post out for quick reference. Awesome info to have, especially being that it's the same clinic we'll likely be using. Thank you 🙂
I really can't say anything but "amen!" I've told PC I miss the Jeep a few times this summer and he rubs my belly… we literally had to sell it in order to lose a car payment in order to make a loan payment on IVF. If it hadn't worked, it would have been over for us and my heart goes out to those who go through the process multiple times. I am very happy to have this little one on the way but people are especially fortunate #1 if it happens naturally or #2 they have insurance coverage for infertility. That's one nice thing about having this baby over the age of 35… friends are giving us their baby stuff because they're done and family are buying things left and right before we even know for sure if it's boy/girl. Good thing since we spent so much money just to get him/her here! :]
I think about this all the time. I was lucky and didn't end up spending too much but when I called my insurance company about IF coverage they told me they cover up to diagnosis but no treatment. Oh, thanks United Healthcare – you'll pay to let me know the problem and then walk away. That is SUPER helpful. So, I was pissed off, but thought if worse came to worse, we'd cover it all ourselves. But what about the people who really can't afford it? What do they do? It's so unfair.
It actually makes me sick to my stomach the amount of money we've all spent or are still spending! Ive heard that "wait till you have kids then all your money will be gone" comment before. And I stopped myself from resorting to violence as a response 🙂
The whole "this is just the beggining of the costs" thing is almost as annoying as the "if you think you worry now, just wait". I have a huge problem with people with children acting as though they have this well of knowledge that we babyless people could never fatham. It's highly frustrating.Thanks for the cost breakdown. I know it will be so helpful to people out there.
So crazy. I started a mental tally a few months ago, but stopped. I didn't want to think about it! Very useful info for women who are just startingo out.
thanks for sharing it was really interesting. i wish it were free that would be nice, but lets say that because we pay for it we love our babies more!
ouch. we were so, so lucky to have IF coverage, but still owed a few hundred dollars each cycle for meds, etc.We're starting to budget too with one income, a dog, and a kid it really adds up.