IVF funding soon to be stopped...

[melfy77]

This thread might seem pointless, but I need to rant...

Today I am ashamed...at my government, at my ''people" I was born in the province of Quebec, Canada. I still live there. We pay an insane amount of taxes, it snows for 6 months, rains for 3 and we die of heat for the remaining 3 months...but boy do I LOVE summer!!!!! Like many, I am almost never satisfied with our leaders, but I do remember one thing that made me proud.

I never had a hard time getting pregnant, and I really hope I never will shall I meet someone and start TTC again (DH and I separated after finding out he was gay and cheating on me with men, but that's not the point of this thread...). Sure my journey was not the easiest, as I had 2 miscarriages before having my first daughter, but when I look around me and see all the struggles of you ladies, it makes me even more grateful.

In 2010, the province announced that it would cover IVF treatment (3 medicated cycles or 6 natural cycles or a combo of the 2). I was delighted!! Not because I needed it (I was not even married yet), but I knew that if I needed it, we could get it. Then my kids were born, and it made me even happier that our province had this program in place because I knew so many people would get a chance to hold their very own little bundle of joy. Of course many people were just angry because ''why should I pay (with my taxes, my money) so that a total stranger can have a kid, when they should just adopt''. Yeah well clearly those person didn't have kids, or never ever carried one. I was glad to pay for this. Because for once, I felt that this money I was ''losing'' out of my (very small) paycheck, was making people happy! I felt like I was making a difference in someone's life! A loving mother and father to be, a couple finally getting that blessing of becoming parents. How can someone be opposed to that?! Probably the same people who don't care that abortion clinics are fully funded by the gvt...

But then, our leaders got obsessed by the idea of saving money...and of course, what better way to save money than by cutting back on expenses...yep, goodbye free IVF. Even though it was all our money paying for it, it was still too expensive. Again, had they consider that all those babies would be working and paying taxes one day because their parents wanted them so bad they would love them, raise them and give them a good education, then maybe that program would still be in place.

it's ending in april 2015, so now it's a race...some will win a get a baby, but others won't and will have to pay full price. Yes they will give you some money back based on your income, but you have to pay first (and wait for months to see that money), and only if you don't have kids, 1 cycle if you're under 37, 2 if you're between 38 and 42, and if you're older, well too bad you should have thought about it sooner!!

To all those wonderful people who would give everything to have a baby, but who just can't because apparently money doesn't grow on trees, I am truly sorry for you!!

Long post, I apologise, but I needed to say something

 

[Mrs G]

Hi melfy

It's brutal isn't it?!? I'm in uk and everywhere is different here. Where I live you get 1 free cycle as long as you are under 35 and neither of you have any children. We were lucky that dd was born from our 'free' cycle. Since then we've done 3 full cycles and 3 cycles which didn't get to ET. I don't know how much we've spent, I don't want to know!! Luckily we are in a position to do it but it is so hard and so unfair to know that money can come between you and your dream of a baby.

Xx

 

[aidensmommy1]

It truly stinks! My insurance does cover BUT I just found out a month ago and it expires in June 2015!! That leaves us with 4 months for a successful pregnancy through IVF. I have GREAT faith and I wanted to stop in and tell u how much ur post touched my heart and to ask for your prayers . Hopefully I can come back and update you by May/June with BFP news! FX FX FX! The crappy part of this is that our OB told us that we had NO coverage for the past year and ACTED as if she called our insurance company, well I randomly called our company 1 month ago and they said they cover up to 6 rounds of IVF, unlimited! Of course this is great news but VERY nerve racking to know we only have 4 months to succeed. I do believe there IS a reason we found out just in time though! FX!

Also, it really aggravates me as well that they dont feel as tho EVERYONE deserves a chance in soo many different states/countries. It is beyond sad. Ugh. I believe EVERYONE, male or female, gay or straight, DESERVE that baby of their dreams! Itd truly be amazinggg if we could all have our LO's THE MOMENT we are ready, u know? I strongly love your opinion on this. I wish more people thought about it the way we do! Company's "saving money" in ART situations really gets to me!!

 

[MoBaby]

I wish I would have had funding. My insurance covers nothing. We spent over $40K to get our first baby and we are now trying for #2. Thankfully we did end up with 5 frozen embryos on the first cycle and we ended up spending about $15K for this cycle with meds and such because my insurance was covering some meds and pre testing but stopped doing that. And we will spend another $3K of a FET in april and some more money for a hysteroscopy I have to have. I know since we have a child we wouldnt be entitled to anothe IVF if we have government funding but at least we would have not spent as much and could have still had savings.

 

[aidensmommy1]

I wish I would have had funding. My insurance covers nothing. We spent over $40K to get our first baby and we are now trying for #2. Thankfully we did end up with 5 frozen embryos on the first cycle and we ended up spending about $15K for this cycle with meds and such because my insurance was covering some meds and pre testing but stopped doing that. And we will spend another $3K of a FET in april and some more money for a hysteroscopy I have to have. I know since we have a child we wouldnt be entitled to anothe IVF if we have government funding but at least we would have not spent as much and could have still had savings.

I completely get what ur saying. Because I have a son (dh doesn't have any of his own), IF it were through government state funding, we wouldn't be covered either. I have NH state employee insurance benefits (Anthem) but this state isn't mandated to cover any fertility services so I truly did get lucky BUT that's if we succeed in 4 months with 2 cycles, u know? If not, it looks like I'll need to try gofundme again. Its a hard process, emotionally, and physically (I'm a bit scared but excited!) as u know, and the fact that it is soo costly just adds on to all of that. We have not yet learned 100% whether or not the $2000-$5000 in meds will be covered yet But from what I've heard from other state employees here, they ended up with coverage so we'll see. I also dont know if they'll cover anything other than fresh transfers and dh and I would really like to be able to freeze some incase of a FET cycle, either if round 1 fails or for the future. Dh and I almost moved to MA for IVF coverage, unaware of our benefits until very recently, and I found out that because I MYSELF have a child, they wouldn't have covered if we had moved..?!? What about my husband?! Is he suppose to find another partner or not being able to experience having his own child JUST because I had a son at a young age and now have one remaining tube and its blocked..? U know what I mean? It's crap like that that they SHOULD fix for all couples.
Are you in the middle of a transfer cycle now? Or u start in April? I am on day 3 of the BCP as our start to cycling for IVF. Thankfully this doc wants our insurance money so he's been moving quickly PLUS I had all of the other fertility testing done, since I thought IVF would never be a true option for us, unless we tried "mini IVF", IVF without the meds but its still very costly and there isn't as high of success with that, seeing as there would only be 1-2 embryos to potentially work with just like in a normal cycle.

I really hope the round your speaking of works out PERFECT for you! I'll be cheering for you like crazy!! GL and I hope we can keep in touch...im very new to this and am looking for some fellow IVF'ers to talk to . I've been trying to look at only the positive things so I don't freak myself out more than I already am! Lol. Good luck again and FX for u and I both!!

 

[MoBaby]

I just did a cycle and had an early mc so my re wants to do a hysteroscopy now and then transfer with the period starting around March 21st. So probably do Fet second week or so of april. I hope you are successful your first go around. If it's just a tubal factor I hear there is a greater percentage of success.
I started a go fund me page but I haven't really shared it because my family doesn't know about IVF so for me to share it with friends means being open to my family and it would just be more questions and negativity.
It is unfair that if you have a child the partner is excluded. It doesn't make him a father. Rules are so unfair. Both people should be entitled to their own child. And all states should have to cover at least 50% of Ivf related costs. It's not my fault DH had issues as a child making ivf our only option. We didn't choose this just like one doesn't choose to have diabetes so it should be covered like any medical problem.

 

[aidensmommy1]

I just did a cycle and had an early mc so my re wants to do a hysteroscopy now and then transfer with the period starting around March 21st. So probably do Fet second week or so of april. I hope you are successful your first go around. If it's just a tubal factor I hear there is a greater percentage of success.
I started a go fund me page but I haven't really shared it because my family doesn't know about IVF so for me to share it with friends means being open to my family and it would just be more questions and negativity.
It is unfair that if you have a child the partner is excluded. It doesn't make him a father. Rules are so unfair. Both people should be entitled to their own child. And all states should have to cover at least 50% of Ivf related costs. It's not my fault DH had issues as a child making ivf our only option. We didn't choose this just like one doesn't choose to have diabetes so it should be covered like any medical problem.

Exactly. Ugh!

I'm so incredibly sorry about your m/c. My heart truly goes out to you and your husband

And thank you for that extra hope letting me know about the tubal factor. My right tube ended up abscessed in 2011 and during my stay in the hospital, while getting antibiotics, my tube burst & they had to remove my right tube and ovary and it also left my remaining tube with scar tissue damage . I didn't choose for that to happen, like your DH, so like you stated, its very wrong for them to only look at one partners background. We truly didn't think we would even be looking at any chance of IVF happening for us because like you, we tried gofundme but we, too, didn't share much with friends and family members in our community and I found it to be extremely hard to get the funding support through social networking when we tried last year, not knowing about coverage yet.

Anyway, we also should be looking at mid April for our IVF retrieval & transfer, given everything goes as planned, so you and I may be TWW buddies or "PUPO buddies!" (Pregnant until proven otherwise) I love that phrase, I feel it'll help me mentally through the TWW after the transfer. .
I'm so extremely excited but I'm also so nervous about this not working before June, when my coverage ends. I pray with everything I have that it does work because like I said, IVF is just not an option for us without the coverage. We have the money for a baby but not $20,000 to put up at once, u know?
Do you know, are there special fertility loans/grants offered out there that your aware of? I'm the type who has to have a "back-up plan"...I guess it makes it a little less painful to deal with a let down when I have a back up plan in motion, u know?
I hope your FET round goes very smooth and ends with a nice dark sticky BFP! Hope to keep in touch! GL hun!!

 

[MoBaby]

I looked into those and we didn't qualify

 

[aidensmommy1]

I looked into those and we didn't qualify

I pray this round works for us both! Esp with you paying so much! And if mine doesn't work out, thats the end to IVF, for a long time anyway, as I'm sure we wouldn't qualify for much either. I almost thought about doing a research study where they'll cover 3 rounds since they may not do it right the first time or 2 but then we decided against being experimented on but honestly, if IVF doesn't work out in our insurance timeframe (and that's a big IF... I have much faith!) but if it doesn't, we may look into that route again. I'm praying we both have BFP's by the end of April! FX for you and I both!!