Thursday, January 8, 2009

there are some things money CAN buy.

Our big in-vitro appointment with the doctor is on January 26th. I really like my doctor. But, like most docs, he's not big into answering the "so, how much will this actually cost?" question. This is his standard answer to that: "call the financial services department."

So, yesterday I called the financial services department to get the lowdown. Should my life at any point need to be commercialized by the MasterCard people, here's how it might go:

In-Vitro Fertilization Procedure: $10,000 - $13,000.
Medications for Said Procedure: $2500 - $7000.
Baby: Priceless. And yet, HELLA expensive.

In a piece of allegedly good news (will get to the 'allegedly' in a bit), my health insurance has added a fertility benefit this year. $10,000 lifetime maximum (HA! chump change) can be applied to a fertility treatment(s) of your choice. Sounds good, right?

Allegedly. If you have this benefit, you aren't eligible for the shared risk program. Which means you pay the whole amount for only one try. ONE TRY. Our odds are good, but still - one shot. That's a lot of pressure. And $10K doesn't even cover the cost of one procedure.

So, we could try our one shot and call it a day. But even the realization that we might be at that point was like a punch in the gut. I simply cannot acknowledge, at this point, that I might never have children. I can't do it.

So we could try our one insurance-aided shot, and then spend the additional $25-27K to enter the shared risk program which, by the way, does not include the cost of medications.

Or we could try once and then spend another $20K to try once more, and then call it a day.

Or I could wake up from this nightmare.

I choose door number three.

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