Adam and I decided this would be our last round of IUI. We have sunk close to $10,000 in the past twelve months of infertility: diagnostic testing, medication, ultrasounds, blood tests and vitamins. We paid out of pocket for almost all of it as insurance coverage is non-existent for infertility. It becomes a lot, rather quickly. Oral medications, injections, monitoring ultrasounds, Reproductive Endocrinologist (R.E) consultations the whole lot of it…it’s expensive.

This decision was made due in part to our R.E.’s counsel, the wits end of emotional instability and in part to the shock when I went in for my baseline ultrasound and was told we owed $1,150 from the previous cycle.  Over $1,000 extra?! I freaked. How could that be since we had pre-paid the full amount? Well as the receptionist pointed out I had additional ultrasounds, two to be exact, along with some blood work each time you wouldn’t think it’d add up so fast but with each ultrasound costing a little over $400 it just happened. I am transparent to costs not so you feel sorry for us, but to hopefully gain awareness and understanding to the severe need to have infertility recognized as a medical condition that should warrant some sort of insurance coverage.  Having infertility is so much more than not having a baby. It’s financial stress, emotional bouts of depression, defeat and forgetting the hurt only to try all over again with no guarantee that the outcome will change. It’s a daily fight.

Without going into credit card debt (something we vow never to do again) we made the decision to give it everything we got as resources allowed…one last time. In addition to the usual HCG Trigger Shot, 200mg Clomid and 1mg dexamethasone, vitamins and herbal teas we decided to pull out all the stops and use acupuncture to hopefully increase our chances of success. Acupuncture while covered under some insurances is, you guessed it, not covered for infertility purposes.

The Center for Reproductive Medicine says that after three IUIs our chance of success is small and the next route would be to move on to IVF. IVF is an advanced and very expensive journey. Where an IUI is only a couple thousand per cycle (I say “only” like it’s nothing… but really compared to 15-20K for a round of IVF it’s a more swallowable amount) IVF costs in the range of 40K. Finances aside IVF is something we are also not open to due to religious reasons.

So this is it. This is the point we never thought we’d never reach. The point that infertile couples talk about but remain hopeful would never get to. With our Reproductive Endocrinologist at a loss and IVF not something we are comfortable with we know that this is our last IUI.