[Maestro1]

Ladies,

I hope you don't mind me intruding on this thread, but my wife and I decided to go the IVF route a few years ago and YES it was expensive even with good insurance.

The process we went through took about 2 months from start to finish. Although there was a hospital/clinic that was a mere 70 miles from where we live that would do the entire procedure, our insurance considered it "out of area" so we had to drive 45 miles (one way) to another hospital to see an IVF specialist.

My wife could drive 90 miles each day to get her shots from a nurse, or do her own self administered shots. Which in the end meant, I was doing the shots every day. I can't tell you ladies how much I hated causing my wife so much pain, for something that wasn't guaranteed.

Medicine with our insurance was about $760, but I know people who paid at least $2500. Once we started the shots (my guess about 2 weeks into this process), my wife was driving that 45 miles every other day to get her blood and hormone levels checked. As if the daily shots weren't enough, you guessed it...more needles to do the blood work!

Keep in mind, with the gas companies fleecing motorists for $2.85/gallon (at the time) we were driving about 360 miles a week, on top of the cost of medicine, and $20 co-payments. When we were finally ready for the egg removal, we had to drive 200 miles to Indianapolis to have the procedure performed (closest place apparently). The procedure took place at 6 AM EST, which is an hour ahead of where we live in Illinois. So the only way we could make it there on time was to rent a hotel room. Then a mere 3-4 days later, we were back in Indianapolis renting yet another room to have the egg reinserted.

In the end, I'd estimate that we did spend between $7000 - $10,000 for something that didn't work! Furthermore, when we were there the doctor tried to get us to "freeze" our unused embryos in case we wanted to try again. If we decided not to use them, she informed us we could "SELL" them to other people wanting to have kids. All this for the low, low cost of another $500. That would allow us to keep the frozen eggs for up to 5 years. Well, I just heard a news story just a few short weeks ago about the first successful child birth from frozen embryo. We went through the entire process back in 2004 and the FIRST successful birth took place 3 years later in 2007.

My wife wanted desperately to have children on her own. She didn't want to adopt and I respected her decision at that time. We were fortunate enough to finally have another child naturally in 2006. So for what it's worth, if we had to do it over again....we'd adopt or just keep trying the old fashion way. We spent way too much money, way too much time, and endured much heartache to find out it didn't work.

When we stopped TRYING and put it in God's hands. Everything happened according to his will.