Infertility Round Two in Inside My Head

The sheer cost of infertility treatment is absolutely staggering. I live in NJ which is one of 13 states that mandates some sort of infertility coverage and I’m still going to go broke trying to have a second child. My doctor recommends doing an egg retrieval, PGD on the embryos, freezing any chromosomally normal blastocysts, and then doing a FET in July. I still have to pay 7k out of pocket, with coverage. Not including meds which the office was kind enough to donate to me. That’s just for one cycle. I want to scream and cry. Maybe run away.

I’m waiting for my period to start - I’m CD22, and I want to pull my hair out from waiting. Michael and I tried this month just for the hell of it. I took Prednisone since it’s supposed to decrease inflammation (I was diagnosed with stage II endometriosis in December 2013), baby aspirin, coenzyme Q10, omega 3, Vitamin D, folate, and a multivitamin. I’m taking so many pills daily I feel like I’m going to rattle.

To top everything off, my insurance wants Michael to get a second semen analysis ‘just to make sure’ that the results are consistent. If it’s abnormal the insurance will cover ICSI. If the semen analysis is normal, then Aetna won’t cover ICSI and I’m going to have to fork over another $2500. Plus they may or may not even approve the IVF altogether.

What really bothers me is that I went back to my fertility doctor in November and begged to start fertility treatments. We had a difficult time conceiving Sam and at 33 years old time is not on my side. He told me to wait 3-6 months since we did conceive him on our own. Now, after all the tests, waiting for insurance authorization, and PGD testing, I’ll maybe do my first cycle in July. I turn 34 in October. I’m painfully aware that success rates drop after 34-35 years of age. Everyone keeps telling me to wait, and now that I’ve waiting I feel that my success rate will suffer. I don’t have the kind of money where I can do 3-4 IVF cycles especially when they’re going to cost $20k per cycle.

I want to smack myself for waiting for children. Instead of buying a home and working on my career I should’ve had babies earlier. Careers can be built later in life, homes can be purchased, but there’s only a small window of opportunity to have babies and I feel like I’ve missed mine. Everyone keeps asking when I’ll have a second. My heart breaks almost every time with that question because I don’t know how to tell people that I may not be able to.

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