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Just because you're at one clinic now doesn't mean you can't look around at other places and costs - you can switch! I'm Canadian so my costs don't help you much, because some of mine is covered by health care and my work insurance covered 80% of my meds. IUIs cost me about $1000 each. My first IVF cost about $10,000 plus meds (I think we paid about $1000 out of pocket for meds) and my second was more like $13,000 - we switched clinics to go to a doctor whose protocols we felt more confident about.

We were lucky that we had the money - we also spent 5 years trying to get pregnant, so early on we started an account that we called the IVF account and put money in it every month. In terms of unsuccessful procedures (we did 8 IUIs and 2 IVFs) I found we had to just write off the money and not think about it. Figure out how much you can put into it and how far you're willing to go, and try not to think about the lost money, it's too much added stress.

that does sound a bit high...I would shop before deciding on ivf.

Our IUIs were $600 each round, not including medicines. Insurance covered the testing to determine the cause of IF, but none of the treatment, so the cost of IUI was all OOP.

So that seems a bit high to means would shop around before proceeding to IVF. But I also probably wouldn't pick a clinic soley based on cost.

That sounds like a lot. The two clinics I've cycled at have a cash price of 7900 and 8900 with icsi included. My meds were about 4k per cycle. 6-8k sounds really high unless you're a poor responder that needs really high doses. There is overseas pharmacy that is half the price of any US pharmacy too.

I would consider shopping around, too. We didn't shop around because I switched clinics to one that apparently was known to have better success for people who had trouble at other clinics. So since I was under 30, it cost me about $14-15K plus meds for one complete IVF cycle. We took a risk at only paying one. My clinic did have a IVF guarantee program that they give you as many cycles within a year or you got your money back. That started at $29K.

We have no IF coverage other than diagnostics tests so we were pretty much out of pocket. We, fortunately, had investments that we could sell to pay for IVF.

@Ajsmommy: I have DOR but I do think your age might not qualify you for the guaranteed package. I would ask around, though.

@Ajsmommy: That is one of the great things about being in Boston. There are a ton of top notch clinics in the state and with in driving distance that I think the competition helps keep cost lower. A lot of ladies on the Resolve boards talk about cycling overseas also. It's only 2-3k for IVF cycle in Czech! You could go over there cycle, and have a great little vacation for the price of a cycle here!

@Ajsmommy: Yeah, I can commiserate on age. At age 39 (when I started), no one was going to offer a guaranteed plan with the statistical decreased success rates .... but it did work the first time for me/us.

Two fresh cycles and two frozen cycles were included in our plan. So I guess that is four cycles, but really the major effort and costs on the clinic's end is the fresh cycle and getting the embies all isci-ed and monitored and grown in the lab. So if you are only offered two fresh cycles for $18,600 (or whatever other quotes you get), I'd ask what a FET would cost.

Also, no matter where you go, make sure you understand what diagnostics your RE are going to want to re-do at the start of each cycle so you can factor that into the total potential cost. I had a surprise whooping $800 saline sonogram that I had to re-do just because I had a freeze-all and had to do a FET. I know it might sound crazy to be upset about $800 after paying $18,600 plus but it made us really upset that we had already paid our clinic so much for a "plan" and they didn't go out of their way to point out that some really expensive procedures might not be covered in between cycles... And, I mean, shouldn't you just pay $18,600 and be done with necessary extras already?! But that is the way it works...

I would concur that overseas meds (and treatments, so I have also heard) are substantially cheaper. The only catch is that, if you live in the US, you can't itemize those medical expenses on your taxes... however I think you'd end up still paying a lot less with overseas meds and treatment overall to justify a loss of a potential tax refund.

I'm sorry you are going through this. I did not go to the big game in town Shady Grove, but went to a RE recommended by my chiropractor. I didn't research a lot about her success rates, honestly I got a good vibe from her, I didn't feel like a number (which I heard about shady grove), and the pricing was way more reasonable. Northern Virgina suburbs, and IUI was $750 including monitoring (not sure if it covered meds), and each ivf cycle would've been $3-$4K. Insurance covered all testing, but no treatment. We were prepared to do clomid and IUI only up to 3 cycles. I think if it came to it we would've sprung for ivf and I say sprung because we were still just starting out after grad school and I have tons of law school loans. Luckily, I found out I was pregnant the night before we were going to start fertility treatments (clomid for my ovulation/ PCOS and then IUI.) We are gearing up for #2, and plan to see her again if it comes to it. again, I'm sorry you're going through this, and I would really focus on being somewhere you are comfortable and completely trust your doctor.

We did 3 IUI's last summer and each IUI was probably close to $2K. I know that I had to do 2-3 ultrasounds/bloodwork each round and each of those were close to $500. The IUI itself was just under $300. We chose to move onto IVF because the success rates of IUI's really are not that much better than trying naturally and IVF gives such a better shot at pregnancy.

For our IVF, we purchased into the Attain program, which was offered by our RE. It's 3 fresh and up to 3 frozen cycles (there are some terms) within 36 months. If there is no take home baby, then we get our money back in full, except for meds. The cost of the program was around $25,000, but did not include meds and I was 34 when I entered into it. Our meds for IVF round #1 were close to $3K, I think. fresh round #2 were only $1,400 because I received donated meds from two different ladies (worth at least $2,500). My meds that round would have costed more because I was on higher dosages due to not responding well during round #1. Cycle #2 didn't work, so we will be doing a FET at the end of May. My meds for the FET were $650, but I had leftover progesterone suppositories, so I didn't have to buy those, which would have been an additional $500. It seriously all adds up..

Based upon what I paid for IUI's, I feel like the price you were quoted seems reasonable. It's mainly the ultrasounds that really cause the price to go up. For meds, definitely check out Freedom Pharmacy or Winfertility. They both have great pricing on meds, depending upon what you are buying.

As far as IVF, I would definitely look at the SART data. Although you can find cheaper clinics, are their success rates any good? If not, you will end up spending more in the long run. I also think that you can get meds much cheaper than what you were quoted. Many women just use the pharmacy their RE tells them to without researching, so they pay that. If you spend the time and even split your meds order to where you can get each cheapest (i.e., follistim and ganirelix at Winfertility, menopur and others at Freedom), you can save a few thousand. It is a pain, but well worth the effort. For my lastest fresh IVF med order, I had my meds split between two pharmacies to get the best overall pricing. There might be shared risk programs that you could qualify for, but I also don't remember the requirements of mine.

As far as paying for IUIs and IVF: for the IUI's, we used our health savings account, so it didn't have a huge impact on our day to day finances. But, then we couldn't claim those as medical expenses on our tax return. for the IVF, we took out 1/2 the fee from our savings and the remaining, we put on a 0% 18 month credit card. We have until Feb 2017 to pay it off and have about $5K left. We should be able to easily pay it off by September or October, so I see it as an interest free loan.

I totally get the confusing thoughts and unknowns regarding what to do. Feel free to keep posting and looking for support. We are all in this together

I live in Northern California and I'm a Kaiser member. Kaiser has its own RE center and its $9000 per straight IVF cycle (not including any special stuff like ICSI), plus the cost of meds.

Technically I was supposed to pay for like every lab and ultrasound too, but they covered as much of the testing and labs and ultrasounds as they could bill under my regular health coverage, so that didn't end up costing us very much. I guess that's pretty common around here - lots of the RE clinics ask your OBGYN to order what they can under the patient's normal coverage and then have the results and records transferred over to the RE clinic to save money for the patient.