Infertility is expensive!
We all know IVF and fertility treatment is crazy expensive, but just how expensive is expensive?
We are by no means wealthy, just a normal family on a not bad but not great income. We pay our mortgage, bills, kids etc. like everyone else does and have family that have been very generous and a little more credit card debt than we would like and we have to date spent approximately £16,000 to get to the stage of 1 failed vasectomy reversal, 1 failed round of IVF and a freezer full of sperm - at the clinic, not in our freezer snuggled up next to the chips!
We haven't finished our journey yet, we are still saving for our second round and hoping to God that's the last round we will need. I like to have a plan so our 2nd best case scenario is that if the fresh transfer at the end of round 2 fails we will have some frozen embryos to do a FET (frozen embryo transfer), this is much cheaper than a full round but still a couple of thousand pounds.
So thinking optimistically and praying our next round works we know that will be approximately another £9,000 bringing us to a total spend of £25,000. That is A LOT!
That could have got us another deposit on a house or bought us a new car (each!), or helped us start a business/invest/go on some epic holidays! Instead it is giving us a chance - not a guarantee - a chance, to have a baby. A tiny bundle of us (or maybe not quite genetically us if we end up on that path) but ours all the same to grow and love and lose sleep over.
If I am in a low mood, which happens to all of us, it is easy to get caught up in that figure and the 'what we could have spent it on' outlook. With hindsight we could have skipped stages and done things differently and that could have saved us money here and there but we also would have looked back and wondered what if? Ultimately hindsight is 20/20 and we mere humans are not. Infertility is expensive, both financially, emotionally and physically and all of us wish we didn't have to go through it at all, the injustice of it all doesn't stop stinging but I truly believe that everything we all currently go through is making us better parents; because we are already parents! Fighting for our not yet conceived children, doing what we can and providing what we can and making mistakes and getting it wrong and getting it right and one day, when our time comes, in whatever form that is, every penny and every tear and every pain will be worth it. If it wasn't and I'm wrong, why would we do it in the first place?
We are by no means wealthy, just a normal family on a not bad but not great income. We pay our mortgage, bills, kids etc. like everyone else does and have family that have been very generous and a little more credit card debt than we would like and we have to date spent approximately £16,000 to get to the stage of 1 failed vasectomy reversal, 1 failed round of IVF and a freezer full of sperm - at the clinic, not in our freezer snuggled up next to the chips!
We haven't finished our journey yet, we are still saving for our second round and hoping to God that's the last round we will need. I like to have a plan so our 2nd best case scenario is that if the fresh transfer at the end of round 2 fails we will have some frozen embryos to do a FET (frozen embryo transfer), this is much cheaper than a full round but still a couple of thousand pounds.
So thinking optimistically and praying our next round works we know that will be approximately another £9,000 bringing us to a total spend of £25,000. That is A LOT!
That could have got us another deposit on a house or bought us a new car (each!), or helped us start a business/invest/go on some epic holidays! Instead it is giving us a chance - not a guarantee - a chance, to have a baby. A tiny bundle of us (or maybe not quite genetically us if we end up on that path) but ours all the same to grow and love and lose sleep over.
If I am in a low mood, which happens to all of us, it is easy to get caught up in that figure and the 'what we could have spent it on' outlook. With hindsight we could have skipped stages and done things differently and that could have saved us money here and there but we also would have looked back and wondered what if? Ultimately hindsight is 20/20 and we mere humans are not. Infertility is expensive, both financially, emotionally and physically and all of us wish we didn't have to go through it at all, the injustice of it all doesn't stop stinging but I truly believe that everything we all currently go through is making us better parents; because we are already parents! Fighting for our not yet conceived children, doing what we can and providing what we can and making mistakes and getting it wrong and getting it right and one day, when our time comes, in whatever form that is, every penny and every tear and every pain will be worth it. If it wasn't and I'm wrong, why would we do it in the first place?
PS - I don't want to freak anyone out with our prices above, we had a lot of unexpected costs and different surgeries prior to starting IVF too so our costs have been steeper than most rounds would be I believe. It is my understanding that a lot of clinics are notorious for hidden costs though so please don't be afraid to ask for a full and extensive breakdown from your clinic if you're concerned. You're paying, you have a right to know in advance!
Comments
Post a Comment