Such a great appointment. I mean, just wonderful! What a pleasant surprise!
It started out with us leaving the house later than I wanted to. Nobody's fault, but more specifically it was kinda DH's work's fault. He is just worked to the bone. Then we got lost and arrived 15 minutes late. Obviously my b/p was elevated due to the stress. 143/97. Yikes!
Dr Alan was super encouraging. He said his clinic has a 70% live birth rate for women under 35 undergoing IVF for male factor issues. Yay! We inquired as to whether he thinks we need the 3 cycle plus program and he said that while he can't make any promises he would doubt that we would need that many cycles. He also got me to thinking about something else..If we go through 2 fresh, and possibly 2 frozen cycles, I may not want to do another fresh cycle. I am an IVF newbie...for all I know it could just end up being a really negative experience for me...maybe I won't even want to do more than 1 and money would be wasted.
I got some more specific details...His clinic uses ICSI exclusively, does more 5-day than 3-day transfers (depending on embryo quality of course), is open for retrievals/transfers, etc 7 days a week, and does a 1 or 2 embryo transfer per fresh cycle for women < 35 - it is up to the pt. 2 please! ;) There is a 37% twin rate at his clinic for IVF, 1% triplet rate. He also told me that 67 % of his patients <35 had enough embryos to have some for the freezer.
Money issues - actually good news for once! We are going to do a 1 cycle plus program without monitoring (which doesn't mean you're not monitored which is what I first thought-it just means the monitoring is not included in the all-inclusive price) - for $8545 you get:
-all the pre-stuff- catheter check, trial transfer, injection training, etc
-egg retrieval including anesthesia (which he says is IV anesthesia, not general thank God)
-ICSI
-Assisted embryo hatching if indicated
-embryo transfer
-frozen embryo storage for 1 full year
-WTF appt if needed
-1 frozen cycle if fresh cycle is unsuccessful and there are frozen embryos available.
All of the monitoring - U/S, lab work, repeat sonohysterogram will be covered by insurance (may have to pay some after insurance fees until deductible reached) will be covered by our insurance!!!!!!! This is a savings to us of approx $1k.
Meds - not covered one bit. The office manager told us that meds cost between $2500-$4000/fresh cycle, $2000/ frozen cycle. Does this sound about right? This is through Walgreen's. I'm thinking I could come up with something better?? Maybe not.
We will also need to pay for some sperm to be frozen ahead of time...Dr Alan recommended this so we have backup and plenty of swimmers to choose from - should also help with DH's anxiety the day of retrieval! This costs approx $300.
SO... by my calculations this process will cost us approx $12k if we are successful on the fresh cycle, $14k if we move on to a frozen cycle. Thank God we just got our tax refund.
So when will we move forward? Money is not holding us back now! DH defends his dissertation in late April, we have an out of town wedding in early May for 4 days, and an out of town wedding in Florida in early June. There is a small chance we can do it in May, if not we are looking at July or August. OMG I am so excited! Either way works...I am obviously antsy pantsy but July/August gives me a little bit longer to get healthier and save money.
I am literally walking on air right now. I know none of this means we will be successful, but damn it feels good to be doing something, ANYTHING!
Thanks for all the support guys!
It started out with us leaving the house later than I wanted to. Nobody's fault, but more specifically it was kinda DH's work's fault. He is just worked to the bone. Then we got lost and arrived 15 minutes late. Obviously my b/p was elevated due to the stress. 143/97. Yikes!
Dr Alan was super encouraging. He said his clinic has a 70% live birth rate for women under 35 undergoing IVF for male factor issues. Yay! We inquired as to whether he thinks we need the 3 cycle plus program and he said that while he can't make any promises he would doubt that we would need that many cycles. He also got me to thinking about something else..If we go through 2 fresh, and possibly 2 frozen cycles, I may not want to do another fresh cycle. I am an IVF newbie...for all I know it could just end up being a really negative experience for me...maybe I won't even want to do more than 1 and money would be wasted.
I got some more specific details...His clinic uses ICSI exclusively, does more 5-day than 3-day transfers (depending on embryo quality of course), is open for retrievals/transfers, etc 7 days a week, and does a 1 or 2 embryo transfer per fresh cycle for women < 35 - it is up to the pt. 2 please! ;) There is a 37% twin rate at his clinic for IVF, 1% triplet rate. He also told me that 67 % of his patients <35 had enough embryos to have some for the freezer.
Money issues - actually good news for once! We are going to do a 1 cycle plus program without monitoring (which doesn't mean you're not monitored which is what I first thought-it just means the monitoring is not included in the all-inclusive price) - for $8545 you get:
-all the pre-stuff- catheter check, trial transfer, injection training, etc
-egg retrieval including anesthesia (which he says is IV anesthesia, not general thank God)
-ICSI
-Assisted embryo hatching if indicated
-embryo transfer
-frozen embryo storage for 1 full year
-WTF appt if needed
-1 frozen cycle if fresh cycle is unsuccessful and there are frozen embryos available.
All of the monitoring - U/S, lab work, repeat sonohysterogram will be covered by insurance (may have to pay some after insurance fees until deductible reached) will be covered by our insurance!!!!!!! This is a savings to us of approx $1k.
Meds - not covered one bit. The office manager told us that meds cost between $2500-$4000/fresh cycle, $2000/ frozen cycle. Does this sound about right? This is through Walgreen's. I'm thinking I could come up with something better?? Maybe not.
We will also need to pay for some sperm to be frozen ahead of time...Dr Alan recommended this so we have backup and plenty of swimmers to choose from - should also help with DH's anxiety the day of retrieval! This costs approx $300.
SO... by my calculations this process will cost us approx $12k if we are successful on the fresh cycle, $14k if we move on to a frozen cycle. Thank God we just got our tax refund.
So when will we move forward? Money is not holding us back now! DH defends his dissertation in late April, we have an out of town wedding in early May for 4 days, and an out of town wedding in Florida in early June. There is a small chance we can do it in May, if not we are looking at July or August. OMG I am so excited! Either way works...I am obviously antsy pantsy but July/August gives me a little bit longer to get healthier and save money.
I am literally walking on air right now. I know none of this means we will be successful, but damn it feels good to be doing something, ANYTHING!
Thanks for all the support guys!
Sounds like a great appointment. It was a relief to start treatment, albeit scary!
ReplyDeleteWe had to put money away in our health savings account, and so we asked our RE about the likelihood of getting pg. if our first 2 IVF cycles were not successful--he was very frank and said it was very low, which then steered us further away from our RE's shared risk program. We also put just enough away for 2 cycles.
As for the drugs, we had 50% coverage from our insurance, and I think it came out to around $600-700? We bought our drugs through Freedom Pharmacy, and I think they tend to be cheaper than most pharmacies. I think you can research and find cheaper pharmacies...and you don't have to buy your drugs from the same place--some drugs may be cheaper depending on where you go.
Excited for you!!! Sending prayers for a successful cycle your way!
It is so great to have a plan in place. I am excited for you, there is plenty of time to prepare yourself. Based on my experience, the hard stuff comes towards the end: the waiting.
ReplyDeleteThe drug cost sounds about right. Our drugs were 40% covered and we had to but 1 days worth of drugs b/c of an insurance lapse. Walgreens offers a no insurance discount. 1 day = $350 or so, if you stim for ten days you are probably looking in the $3000 range although it depends on your protocol.
Awesome. It's always great to have a plan. I know that we decided to go with the multi-cycle plan because although most of our issues are male factor, I do have Endo - and we didn't think we would have the ability to afford to try again if we just went with one. Besides - this kind of gives us a cutoff for treatments, a place to stop trying if it's not working. Okay - enough gloominess. I am so excited for you, and I hope that whenever you get the ball rolling things go exactly as you hope. I hate to tell you that Gurlee is right - the waiting really sucks. Right now I'm on pins and needles every day waiting for my calendar and my prescriptions so that I can start taking care of those things... Congrats on having a plan!
ReplyDeleteThis is great news, I'm so excited for you! I think going with one round at a time makes sense in your circumstance (especially if it includes a frozen cycle).
ReplyDeleteOh man, it feels like July/August is forever from now but it will go SO quickly. We did our first cycle last July and started setting it up around April...it went super quick!
It is great to have information to work with, isn't it! The prices you are quoting seem almost too good to be real. We were paying a total of $3k per ds iui cycle, so this is awesome. Time is going to start moving a lot faster now that you have a plan. For me, the waiting without a plan was the worst. Yeahh, that you are moving ahead!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you have a plan! That always feel like such a relief for me!!!
ReplyDeleteGeez, are we going to the same clinic? Because those stats sound pretty much exactly like our clinic's. It's crazy. :) RMA PA/NJ?
ReplyDeleteGood luck! It sounds like an exciting plan :)