Support Aran & Chris on their Fertility Journey

Support Aran & Chris on their Fertility Journey

Please watch this youtube video if you would like to listen to our story (only 3 1/2 minutes long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYOFsni0jpM

My journey with fertility has been much more challenging than originally expected and that is why Chris and I are reaching out for any kind of support people are willing to offer.

If you can provide any kind of emotional support, financial support or even just advice on this process, we would be extremely grateful.

Full transparency: we have some savings and some family support, but this would truly be a very large financial strain on us.

The estimated total cost is $75,000 ($15,000 of which health insurance should cover). To-date we have spent $19,000 out of pocket (mainly in the last month) and around $5,000 in medical bills are currently pending with my insurance.

The short version of our story is that I have had 3 miscarriages in the last year. Each one more heartbreaking than the last. Every time we get pregnant, I get so excited and start making plans. After our first miscarriage, Chris did a better job of not doing that and I have been trying to take the same approach. It is just difficult sometimes not to imagine the family that you might be starting when it feels so very close and you have yet to determine whether that pregnancy will stay with you. With my low ovarian reserve and low antral follicle count, our doctor has recommended IVF with genetic testing to give us the best chance of being able to have a baby. This process is very complicated and expensive, and we are struggling at the moment. We welcome any and all support.

The long version of our story is (for those of you like me who like to see all the data):

Chris and I met later in life, so we had an idea that our fertility journey might be challenging, but it has been more difficult than expected. We got pregnant on our own for the first time in June of 2023, but 9 weeks later I had a miscarriage (and a D&C surgery to help with the miscarriage). We started getting help from our OBGYN office in Bloomington and did started on clomid and a trigger shot to assist in achieving a pregnancy. We again found out we were pregnant in December of 2023, but this one also ended in a miscarriage at 5 weeks. In January we started going to Midwest Fertility Specialists in Carmel, Indiana (because there is no fertility care in Bloomington, Indiana). Just driving to their clinic takes me 1 ½ hours, so it has been a challenge (not just for the cost of gas, but the time it takes to drive back and forth). We did an IUI (intrauterine insemination) in March and became pregnant for the 3rd time. This pregnancy also results in a miscarriage sadly.

Our doctor has said that my numbers aren’t terrible for my age (I’m 42 & Chris is 36). In December of 2023 my AMH was .4 and in February of 2024 my antral follicle count was 2. Our fertility clinic did a lot of other tests to rule out any other factors that could be a barrier to achieving and sustaining a pregnancy. Luckly nothing else was found, but they are having me take supplements to help our chances( pre-natal vitamin, Co Q10, vitamin D, NAC & melatonin). I am also taking metformin to help with my weight and possible increased sugar/inflammation that could hurting our chances. I have gained weight over the last few years, during the covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic I did get into some bad eating habits when helping fight the pandemic (it was harder to cook and eat healthy when I was working constantly to help battle the global pandemic). But now we are also trying to cook and eat at home as much as possible and put good nutrition into our bodies to help improve our chances of a viable pregnancy.

Chris and I both want a family so badly. Miraculously we met in the middle of covid and almost didn’t make it to a first date because I was extremely burnt out helping with covid shifts at the hospital when it was near capacity and the pandemic was at its worst. I was taking ipads to rooms with patients and helping them say goodbye to their families, because at this point there was no vaccine and not a lot of treatments yet. Fortunately, Chris is a very forgiving man and didn’t hold it against me when it took a while to have our first date over zoom and our second date in a park (where it was safe at the time). While I work in healthcare, my role as an HIV Health Educator is a social working role (I do education and HIV testing) and I will never have a very high level of income. I really love my career because I get to help people every day and I hope that I can still give Chris the family that I know he really wants (as do I).

My doctor had recommended IVF with genetic testing, for us to hopefully have a child (this gives us a 20-30% chance of success). However, with 2-3 genetically good embryos, we have a 95% chance of successfully having a live birth, so we are trying to stay hopeful. We know that doing an IVF retrieval will give us a chance, but unlike younger women with better test results, I may not get as many eggs during a retrieval (which means we will likely have to do more than one IVF retrieval). Unfortunately, Indiana is one of the states that doesn’t mandate fertility coverage, which makes this even more challenging. Many people will get secondary insurance to help cover the high costs of IVF, but unlike the surrounding states of Illinois, Ohio & Kentucky where this is possible, it is not in Indiana.

Our current cost breakdown for IVF:

1. My work added a fertility benefit in 2023 and I have a lifetime max fertility benefit of $15,000, but there are certain restrictions. So far, my insurance has been very challenging in letting me use this benefit, but my clinic and I are very persistent on pursuing this.

2. We have determined that none of the lab costs will be covered by insurance (for IVF retrieval the lab cost is $9,500, genetic testing is $215 per embryo with a $350 transport charge, and any transfer of an embryo we do into my body is $1,700 ~ plus it costs $50 per month to store any embryos we end up getting).

3. The doctors’ visits, blood draws and ultrasounds (which there are many before a retrieval surgery) and retrieval surgery we are told will cost between $4,000-$5,000. That amount we believe my insurance will cover.

4. The cost of the medications for an IVF retrieval are $7,000 (which we have to pay out of pocket, because if we went through insurance they would start at a much higher cost and eat up our fertility benefit through insurance right away). As part of the stimulation portion of the IVF retrieval

5. I have to drive to our fertility clinic every other day (sometimes every day). I have tried to stay organized and listen to podcasts on the drive. It has been challenging, but I am thankful for the family support along the way (I have stayed at my aunt’s house in Carmel a couple of times, just to lessen the drive). My work has also been very flexible and supportive and for that I am truly grateful. We are trying to stay as positive as possible during this challenging process.

6. Our current out of pocket cost per IVF retrieval is about $17,230 (see above, not including costs for transferring an embryo to me later and monthly storage fees), but we would need 2-3 times this amount to do 2-3 rounds.

We just had our first IVF retrieval and while I had 7 follicles, two of them didn’t have eggs in them and two of them weren’t large enough to extract. We ended up with 3 eggs that were mature and fertilized. Two of them made it to the blastocyst stage and now we are waiting on the genetic testing for those embryos. I credit some of the increased egg quality on this round by adding omnitrope (a growth hormone) to our medication (a suggestion from a Facebook support group I am in). This was from another woman who did this on her second round of IVF and had increased egg quality. We did this with our doctor’s consultation of course. These online support groups have also been very helpful, and I have learned a lot along the way from all the women I have met going through this process as well. I’ve even had women help us by giving us their leftover meds from an IVF retrieval cycle (they must prescribe you more meds than you might need to start with, because they can’t determine your dose until they see how you respond). We have also (upon suggestion from this support group) been applying to any grant we can find for IVF assistance. Unfortunately, some of these grants are specific to geographic areas or require that the woman has an AMH of 1 or above (which I do not).

Our doctor said that they were very pleased with how we responded to our first IVF cycle. But want to be realistic with us that to meet our goal of having a child, we may need at least 2-3 rounds of IVF retrieval. For some women who are younger with better ovarian reserve, they can sometimes get 20-30 eggs and end up with many embryos to try with on just one round of IVF retrieval, but this is not what our journey looks like.

Even one IVF procedure has stretched our resources, but 2-3 rounds will be extremely challenging for us. Full transparency: we have some savings and some family support, but this would truly be a very large financial strain on us. That is why we are asking for support in this moment. We are waiting for the genetic results to come back from our two embryos, but the best possible strategy for a good result would be to do a couple more retrievals now, before my numbers continue to decline. Many women I have met in support groups said they either used this strategy or wished they had used this strategy. So, you get as many genetically good embryos as possible, let your body rest and then start transferring in one embryo at a time, hoping they will hold. And even when they do that, I will likely need to have a medicated transfer, be on progesterone shots, levonox and baby aspirin to help give the embryo a fighting chance of making it through the first trimester and not experiencing yet again another miscarriage. We have learned a lot and are applying that knowledge much as possible, to give ourselves the best chance for a successful result.

We are dedicated to making our family happen and I have been very lucky that my job had been so flexible and allowed me to do this (especially because with fertility treatments the schedule can vary at the last minute). We are extremely hopeful that will the high level of care we are receiving at our fertility clinic and doing everything we can to stay healthy, that we will be able to achieve and support a healthy pregnancy. The losses over the last couple of years have been difficult, but we have every reason to believe that we can achieve our goal of having a family.