The Next Step

After talking with a financial person at our RE's clinic, I realized that the whole insurance appeal is to get coverage for the IUIs that we've already done, based on the fact that they never told us there was a limit of three.

We might get them to pay for that, but there's no way they'll cover any future IUIs.

Based on that, we've decided that if we don't get some good news from my beta on Friday, we will be moving on to IVF.

"But, wait" you say. "I thought IVF was going to be prohibitively expensive?"

Well, yeah, it was going to be, but my parents have offered to cover a significant portion of the costs, leaving us with a quite doable amount to pay ourselves.

They'd said, a couple of times over the past few weeks, that they would help "big time" if we had to go to IVF, but I had no idea until last night just how much they had in mind.

With that part worked out, I made some calls today, to the donor IVF nurse and financial coordinator, trying to sort out the rest of the details. I got a bit more information, but I think I may have come away with more questions than answers. They are both working on getting us more information.

I've also asked Nurse E to check with Dr E on whether there is a possibility of getting approved for shared risk using my eggs, because that would be about half the cost.

I don't have a lot of hope for that, though, so we're expecting to go forward with using Shrike's eggs.

I'm trying to get things lined up to go right into the mock cycle if things don't turn out as we hope this cycle, but I don't know if I'll be able to.

Right now, we're trying to find out what kind of insurance coverage Shrike has that might help with her meds and / or testing. If it's good coverage, we might go with the shared risk option that does not include those, and pay them separately.

On the other hand, that money would then not be guaranteed. We'd be out it either way.

But, if even a few cycles would cost significantly less with insurance than the difference in the full versus partial plans, it might be better to go that way.

I'll have to discuss it with my parents, of course, since it will be mostly their money at risk.

There are still a ton of details to work out, and also a ton of things to process personally, including coming more fully to terms with giving up on my own eggs and a genetic connection to our child, but with my parents' offer, it's like a huge weight has been lifted, and suddenly IVF looks possible, rather than some crazy fantasy.

I am still just blown away by their support and their generousity. I have, of course, thanked them, but there is no way that words can ever be sufficient for a gift like this.

We are very, very lucky, indeed.