The Money Game aka IVF

Grab a cup of tea and settle in...this will probably be a long one!

We had our RE consult today and he went over all of the next possible steps.

1. Continue with Clomid.  I respond well to a very low dose (50mg) which is not always the case and is definitely a good thing.

2. Move to Injectibles.  His concern with them is first, that they cost way more than Clomid and second, that there is less control over the amount of follies produced.  It could be tons, a la Kate Gosselin or it could be none at all if I'm a poor responder.

3. IVF.  He said that if money was not an issue, that as a scientist (and doctor) he would want the greater amount of control and information that IVF offers.  

Our individual issues and concerns:

• Morphology - Mr. RE said that a normal couple fertilizes 70% of the time. (What!?)  We have fertilized 1/19 times, so closer to 5% (or maybe more if implantation is the issue).  This took Mr. GG back a bit because last time the doctor was very reassuring that we could conceive with his 4% morphology.  Either way, IVF solves the fertilization issue although it's possible that we would have fewer follies embies fertilize normally I guess (my own take, not RE).

• Lining - My lining was a 6 pre-Clomid and 6, 5, 7 during Clomid (and acupuncture).  This may be our biggest culprint, i.e. poor implantation.  And/or my issue and Mr. GG's issue are working against each other to make our overall success even lower.  Probably the case.

We were pretty set on moving to IVF before the appointment so that's basically what we said and were then given the IVF spiel.

MONEY

I'm a teacher.  You could look up my pay online if you knew my school district, but I make teacher-pay.  With my Master's and other units I am at the high end of the pay scale for my year, but I still just make a little over $50k.  Mr. GG is the president of his company and does pretty well.  So we are extremely lucky to be able to afford IVF.  But even so, we don't have money just lying around.  Much of it is tied up in our mortgage payment as well as a condo Mr. GG owns where renters cover mortgage only (no taxes).  So I would call us comfortable, but by no means rich.  And I can think of a lot of things that I would rather spend money on than creating a baby...like paying for baby's college.

Anyway, here are the options we have to decide between and I would really like some advice and help.  Decisions are not my forte.  I second-guess everything!

I left all of the specific info at home, but I want to post today, so I'll do my best off the top of my head.

Options 1, 2, 3 consist of 1, 2 or 3 fresh IVF cycles including associated monitoring.  Option 4 is the "Success Guarantee" plan which means they keep going until you have a take home baby, sort-of.

We are pretty sure we are going to only pay for 1 fresh IVF cycle.  This is tricky, but I think it's what I want.  Only one round of injections, retreival, etc.  Since I ovulate on my own, I probably have decent quality eggs and therefore have a good chance to retrieve a decent amount of eggs.  But what if I don't?

So that leaves Options 1 and 4.

First, every single cycle, fresh and FET (frozen) each cost $1,500 for the hatching and whatever fancy stuff they do at the lab to conceive for us.  So add $1,500 to everything below for each cycle.

Option 1 is $10,000 for one fresh cycle. Any additional FET cycles are the same $1,500 fee plus $3,500.

Option 4 is $17,000.  (Wow...it seemed really big when I just typed it.)  But all FETs are free under this option.  Basically you get to keep going for free until you have no frozen embryos left.  Well, except for the $1,500 each time.

Don't forget the meds though!  Meds run from $4-8,000.  Less if you respond well to lower doses, more if they have to keep adding and tinkering.  Plus anesthesia which I think was $400 as well as some additional testing (which I am hoping insurance will cover).

So wow, we are about to shell out a ton of money no matter what option we choose.

The big questions are:

• Is one fresh cycle a good bet, or do I need to plan for 2?
• Should we do the "Success Guarantee" or should we pay for each additional FET?

OH WAIT! I forgot to mention that you get ALL of your money back if you do the guarantee and are not pregnant at the end of all of your frozen embryos.  That would pay for adoption (ish) or a wonderful trip to Europe for like a month.

Mr. GG is definitely leaning towards that option and I think I am too...

PLEASE tell me what you think!