Turns out we lost our motivation to go to the gym, so now I have time to write a little more...oh, and I've posted a link to this blog on a support website I've joined as well as emailed the link to close friends and family. Most of these blog entries are intended for people who are going through the same thing, so friends and family may find them boring...or not.
We have a number of choices to consider. We could do the IUI or IVF (with or without ICSI). We could just ignore the analysis and keep trying the way we have been. Or, we could switch tracks entirely and adopt either a child in the foster care system or adopt through a private adoption. Finally, we could just choose not to have children at all. This post is all about the pros and cons of each choice, as I see them.
1. IUI - The best part of IUI is definitely that it's one of the cheaper options and since we don't have coverage for fertility issues in our medical insurance, this matters. I think you can do IUI for $3,000-$5,000 per try (not positive about those numbers). It's less invasive than IVF. The downside is that it's not as likely to result in a successful pregnancy, and we could end up spending a whole lot of money on IUI just to have to switch to IVF anyway. If the problem was mostly motility, IUI would be a lot more enticing.
2. IVF - The best part of IVF is that the success rate is the highest of all of the intervention options (the success rate is still around 30-50%, so not a sure thing). That's pretty much the only benefit to it. It's more invasive than all other options, it's more likely to result in multiple births (which would be cute and all, but it makes the pregnancy higher-risk and as a practical matter I don't know how people handle two babies at once (or 4, in the case of my mother-in-law who had a boy, then twin boys a couple years later, and then a girl a couple years after that!)). The worst part of IVF is the financial hit - well, and the potential repeated disappointments.
3. Natural Pregnancy - We could just keep trying. This would be the cheapest option, but it's also the one that is a complete unknown in terms of chances for success. I do frequently read that people in very similar circumstances go through fertility treatments, take a break, and then conceive naturally (just got a note about one today on another website I subscribe to). This would be the best thing we could have happen, and so we are still trying, but I have to admit that my instincts have been telling me for a while that this just isn't going to work that way. That said, I could be wrong.
4. Adoption through Foster Care - Those of you who know my line of work must have guessed that this is an idea that has been seriously considered. I even found a little guy on the Northwest Adoption Exchange website who I think would be a great match for our family. He looks like a miniature version of my husband. Because of my history, I've thought a lot about whether adoption is a choice I would make for myself, and I've gone back and forth. In the last year, I've become more and more open to it, but I'm mainly open to adopting out of the child welfare system rather than a private adoption. My husband would really like to have a biological child and if it ends up that we can't do that, he's open to adopting but would rather go through a private adoption. The best part of this option is that we could quickly have a child (a 6 year old son, to be specific). The scariest part is that we could quickly have a child (a 6 year old son, to be specific).
5. Private Adoption - So I could be talked into a private adoption as long as it would be an open adoption. The drawback here is mostly that my husband would prefer to have a biological child and if we can't do that I would like to adopt out of foster care. So, it's not really the top choice for either of us. However, if we ended up going down this route, the typical drawbacks would likely involve a lot of waiting and some financial outlay as well. The best part is definitely that you end up with a baby!
6. Live Child-Free - This would definitely be the least expensive of all options! We could travel and be independent. However, I can't imagine not having a child at all and I can't imagine growing older and not having any family following behind.
In writing out these options. I ended up putting them almost in the order in which we've thought of them. I guess we could move natural pregnancy to the beginning since we thought we originally were going to go that direction. The plan is currently IVF. Current concerns about IVF are:
1. How will this treatment protocol effect my job?
2. How long or how many cycles are we willing to try?
3. Should we do genetic testing and if so, for how many genetic disorders and should we do gender selection?
4. What are the medications going to do to me?
5. Are IVF pregnancies more likely to result in miscarriages?
6. How many embryos should we have implanted?
7. What if I end up pregnant with triplets?
8. Am I being too obsessive about all of this? (I already know the answer to this one)
Next post will be on how this treatment protocol may effect my job.
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2 comments:
Hello, fellow IF blogger!
In defense of IVF, it has a lower risk of multiples than IUIs because your RE has greater control. You can transfer 1 good embryo (or more if they're less than stellar). But with IUIs they can't always predict that you'll ovulate just one egg.. you might pop out an extra one or two.
Yes, IUIs are cheaper, but if you have to do 3 or 5 or 7, then you've just blown the money you could have saved for 1 or 2 really good IVF attempts. That's my 2 cents. :-) Good luck!
Yes - I agree with this information entirely. My husband also pointed out that I mistakenly over-estimated the cost of IUI, but I don't think that's the best option for us anyway.
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