Entry posted by Andrew Q Gordon
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Four hundred characters is too few for the update I want to make so I'm going to post it here.
As many might know/remember, Mike and I are trying to have a child(ren). We tried traditionally surrogacy - commonly referred to in technical medical circles as the 'turkey baster method,' but after 3 attempts that proved unsuccessful. The fertility Dr., who I found to be a wonderful doctor, told us that statistically further attempts would end up costing us more than biting the bullet and going with IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), despite IVF being WAY more money. He explained that statistically, surrogates who do not get pregnant after three attempts generally do not get pregnant with more attempts. Not to say it wouldn't happen, but more attempts failed far more often than succeeded. Chance were, that if we tried more times, we would still end up at IVF, but would have spent more on the unsuccessful attempts.
This left us with a hard choice. We could keep trying the less expense method and hope we were one of those 10% cases where the surrogate would get pregnant after 3 attempts or we could go with the more expensive but much more successful method. Just so we are clear - each traditional attempt was about $1500-1750 with ultrasounds, travel fee to the surrogate, her fee per attempt, etc. But there was also the added cost of having enough 'boys' there for the insemination attempts. Five days in California, donating as often as was medically recommended, cost a bit over $1000 and yielded enough for just 3 attempts. And that didn't account for lost work etc.
IVF on the other hand was wildly more. $14,500 to the clinic, then there was an egg donor fee, fertility drugs, anesthesia costs, fertilization costs and all of that was just for one attempt. Now the clinic has their insurance package, which for a tad under $5,000, you get many more attempts than one. Basically, when they get the eggs, they fertilize them all at once, they only use 2-3 per attempt. SO if you have more than 3, you can keep them frozen and use them for future attempts free of the $4100 per attempt charge AND you get a full second go round if needed as well. But if she gets pregnant on the first time - and 90% do, you do not get a refund.
Given our luck so far, we bought the insurance package. We felt we had to. If it didn't work, if was another $20,000 plus to try again, money we just couldn't afford.
Okay, so - we are on track again - sometime in the next two weeks [i'm not clear exactly when, I'll find out more on Tuesday when the surrogate has another ultrasound] we will make another attempt. I really hope this works, because even with the insurance and other attempts we're entitled to, I'm getting really anxious [and older by the day. 
]
So with that - here's to 2011, the year I finally get to be a dad.
Now watch, we get twins or more. 
Andy
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