IVF - Financing and Family
Well…the time has come to spend some time processing the dreaded acronym…IVF…Invitro Fertilization (for those who are blessed enough to not have to know what it is). We made the decision about a month ago to seriously pursue our IVF options. We’ve done IVF consults with clinics before and know we are a good candidate. However, we hadn’t found a clinic that we liked. Long story short we decided to move forward with Utah Fertility Center partly because we have family who have used them in the past, and partly because they are a bit less expensive AND more experienced then what we have access to in Spokane. Starting the journey was the easy part. We did a quick consult with the doctor, then met with the finance department, then finally the nurse coordinator (all a few weeks apart) to put a plan of care into place.
During that time I met with my support group and asked them about how they had financed their IVF cycles. I got a variety of answers from credit cards to grants to saving for years. I asked if anyone had asked family for help and what I heard in response were stories of sadness of asking family members who ignored their requests or denied them. Ick. Asking family for help was my plan. I heard tales of family members who did help and it came back to haunt the new parents later on. I started to feel a lot of anxiety about how in the world we were going to pay for IVF.
IVF in the United States is typically not covered by health insurance and it costs anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 per cycle. Often people are not successful with only one cycle.
From the beginning my plan was to make a plea to my parents and grandparents for help (I recognize not everyone is lucky enough to be in a position to do that).
The anxiety started to set in though. I have intentionally not talked to many family members about our infertility problems for a variety of reasons. Fear of judgement. Fear of not being able to have a normal conversation again with them. Lack of trust that they will trust my research and decisions about this process. But, if we were going to move forward with IVF then my anxiety and I needed to sit down and lay out the game plan with my parents to see if they would be on board. I’ve never thought of myself as an anxious person but this felt different. It made me have a lot of compassion for people who struggle with anxiety on a daily basis. It felt like such a HUGE thing that I just wanted to put it off…one more day. I kept thinking that I’d have the energy to think about it tomorrow (which I never did). It felt much to large to process, far better to ignore it. Eventually I just had to do it without having really given myself time to think about or process how I felt (which I had no idea how to do) about it.
I’ve always thought of myself as a self sufficient person. I’ve felt like a failure every time I asked for help. It felt like admitting I wasn’t enough. People (including me!) are quick to say that accepting help doesn’t make you weak. And yet…I’m very guilty of judging people who ask for help. I think to myself “why don’t you quit watching netflix and get another job? How about getting up half an hour earlier and doing your own dishes? Maybe stop buying stupid stuff and save for emergencies? You shoulda bought life insurance instead of that 4k TV and then you wouldn’t be doing a gofundme.” See? I’m horrible. So…if I have those thoughts about people I’ve convinced myself they would have them about me. Let’s put a pin in that thought and just acknowledge that I probably need counseling/therapy. Suffice to say I needed to change my mindset away from asking for money and instead accept and receive what I know people wanted to offer.
Through a series of events all of my family members have pitched in to help us pay for IVF and not have to dip into the savings that we have that’s intended for business emergencies and deductibles (our deductible is $7K+). I’ve told a few people so far about this and each has asked how I feel about it. In the moment right now I feel very much like a problem needed to be solved, it’s been solved, let’s move on. But I know that my brain is designed to protect me. It’s doing a great job of protecting me from the potential hurt of family and money. I have a lot of fears about accepting money from family. What if IVF doesn’t work? What if I feel like I’ve now let everyone down? Will I be able to feel like I get to make the decisions about IVF, pregnancy and eventually parenting on my own or will I feel guilted into listening to my family’s input? This has the potential to heal and restore relationships or completely destroy them. Such is the way of many things in life I guess. I think my brain is working really hard to protect me from all those possible outcomes.
I’m trying really hard to be present and not fearful. I want to feel grateful and overwhelmed by the generosity of my family (especially because I know this is a stretch for some of them), but I’m not there yet. I’m still scared of the procedure. I’m scared of the results of IVF. What if it works? What if it doesn’t? All I can see is the daunting next few weeks filled with needles, drugs, hormones, stress on our marriage and the fear of the unknown.
Que sera sera (Whatever will be, will be)
