the Cost of In Vitro Fertilization

My husband and I had IVF this January. The practice we used had a "shared risk" program. We paid a flat fee and were given up to 6 fresh cycles and unlimited frozed cycles, until we were successfully pregnant. If IVF did not work, all our money would be refunded. The price of medicines was not included and cost us an additional $3000 a cycle.

We received excellent care. We specifically chose our clinic after looking at multiple clinics in our area. They had the best shared risk program and the best success statistics, which can easily be obtained through the Center for Disease Control's website.

IVF is a gamble for most people, since it is rarely covered by insurance. We went back and forth trying to decide if we wanted to pay for each cycle out of pocket ($9-10,000) or if we wanted to do the shared risk program. We finally decided that if we got pregnant, any cost would be worth it, but if we were not successful, we could not deal with never seeing the money we spent again. Knowing that it could be refunded and we could use it to pursue other options (surrogacy, adoption, etc), really calmed us down. I believe because we weren't stressing about money, we could relax more, which is always a good thing when going through fertility treatment. (And yes, it worked, the first time!)