Mothership and me, we want to be parents. Little did we know how emotionally exhausting, confusing and expensive the route to parenthood would be. Our IVF journey was a rollercoaster and isn’t over yet but I wouldn’t change any of it. There are things I wish I had known before we started, like how expensive it is because ‘no hidden costs’ actually means ‘we don’t tell you what you need until you need it (and its too late to back out now)’. Or how emotionally draining it is for Mothership when the medication takes its toll and she is not happy about her reproductive system being highjacked and life is hanging in limbo land as you attempt to overcome one hurdle after another. Yep, Its an expensive emotional rollercoaster, brace yourselves!
Mothership is over 40 and me only a young 35. We agreed Mothership would carry and use her own eggs before her system shut down. After exploring our options and looking into same sex parents and the law we eventually decided not to take an offer from a known donor who was willing to try the turkey baster approach. We were very fortunate to have supportive parents on both sides who agreed to pay for one round of ivf treatment between them. That treatment was estimated to be around 9k but has ended up costing over 12k. For their support and financial help we will be forever grateful.
Our first step was to find a clinic. We had no idea what to look for when choosing a clinic and just picked the one that was close and would allow us both to attend appointments. Because of covid some clinics would not allow partners to attend. It was important to me that I was part of the conception journey. I wanted to do all I could to be involved in the process and took my roll as project manager very seriously.
Boarding the rollercoaster.
Before any treatment started we were sent lots of questionnaires, forms to fill in and a bill for £245. This was the price of a 45 Minuit zoom consultation with a consultant to be told Mothership would need a fertility assessment. That would cost a further £515. Ouch already! The scan and bloods confirmed Mothership had a good egg reserve but also has endometriosis. We were given a 12% chance of success. Even if it was 1% we would have continued so the next appointment was booked. The search for donor sperm commenced.
Buying the other half of our future child’s genetics online was a strange experience. When choosing donor sperm there are a few things other than the donors characteristics to consider and be aware of but once we got our heads around that we opted for the London sperm bank and had a look through the profiles, found one we liked and put it in our basket. Just like shopping on amazon! After purchasing the sperm we had more forms to fill in and consented to transfer and storage. Total cost £1050.
Before treatment could start Mothership had to have more bloods taken, we had to attend a counselling session, a nurse appointment, and a 2 hour zoom session with a nurse where we filled in many many forms and was taught how to administer the medications. We ordered the required medication and again, paid the bill.
£5750 was the price quoted to us as the cost for one Ivf cycle with donor sperm, this included:
- pre nurse telephone consultation.
- scheduling nurse appointment.
- nurse zoom consultation.
- Same day bloods (be warned, this often only covers the blood test for oestradiol and progesterone. If the consultant decided to take more blood through the cycle you will be charged).
- Monitoring scans.
- One counselling appointment.
- Egg collection.
- Micro injection of sperm. (At this point if they decide to inject the sperm into the egg in a process called icis you could be charged an additional £800+)
- Embryo transfer.
- HFEA fee.
- One follow up consultation after cycle.
- Early pregnancy scan if required.
We also paid for 1 year freezing and storage of sperm at £550 and virology bloods tests costing £150. The blood tests is to check for things like hiv, hep b etc. This test is only valid for 3 months. If the cycle failed at any point. Its likely this test will have to be done again before the next cycle. (Our first surprise bill!)
IVF Round 1
Once the sperm straw was safely transferred to a fertility clinic in London, where the transfer and egg collection would take place, Mothership could begin the first stage of down regulation protocol. We ordered the medication, a nasty nasal spray of Busserlin at a cost of £121.04. 15 days after the the first day of her period Mothership endured the first of 3 times daily nasal spray doses. Strap yourself in for a bumpy ride, this stuff is evil. Headaches, depression and mood swings are all part of the process.
After a long 20 something days It became clear that Mothership didn’t want a system shutdown. Confirmed by another expensive and un-budgeted for blood test, the first cycle was unsuccessful and ended. Until this point we were unaware that a cycle could fail so early on. We naively thought that part of the treatment was adjusting the meds until they worked and that a cycle would get us to the point of egg collection.
So with the 1st cycle over and not getting even as far as the stimulation process we were told to wait for 2 periods to pass before beginning again. This time instead of the nasal spray Mothership would inject the Busserlin. A more successful and cheaper approach to down regulating the cycle. Yes you read that right and I know what your thinking… why didn’t they just do that in the first place? We asked the same question and were told ‘we think people wouldn’t want to inject unless they had too’. This pissed me off.
Why were we sold the first round of treatment when there was a better and cheaper alternative available? Can’t help feeling a little ripped off, but we paid the bill of £801.25 to cover the 3 scans, another pointless nurse appointment to tell us things we had already been told, bloods and a 5 minute phone call from the consultant who was clearly driving at the time.
IVF Round 2
After 2 bleeds from the Mothership we were given the go ahead to start the next round. But first we needed to buy more evil Busserlin at a cost of £88.02 (cheaper than the spray and more effective remember!!) and pay for another virology blood test. Surprise! This is when they told us it was only valid for 3 months. After another bumpy ride for the Mothership and me she was given the go ahead to start the next medication.
The Menopur was administered every evening for the next 10 days via injection into the little squishy bit around the middle of the Mothership. Every 2 days she was probed so that the consultant could view her internal organs and time the trigger injection so conditions would be just right for egg collection and maximum harvest achieved exactly 36 hours later. And that was it, we had a date for egg collection.
Egg collection
Exactly 36 hours after the trigger injection we were at the London clinic. Mothership looking super sexy in her gown and hairnet went off to have a snooze whilst her super juicy ovaries were being drained of all creators of life. I was not prepared for her return from theater. Still under anesthetic, wearing an oxygen mask and wired up to a monitor she looked so lifeless. It was a shock that made my eyes leak a little but after a while she started to come round. After asking me for the tenth time ‘how long was I gone for’ I had forgotten how vulnerable she looked and no longer needed the little bit of tissue to mop my leaking face.
During the hour and a half wait to ensure Mothership was back to full working order the embryologist came to tell us they had collected 6 eggs. 4 of which were mature enough put with the sperm. If they needed help to fertilise the egg we would be called within the hour to give consent of icis at a cost of £800. Thankfully the little swimmers did a good job on there own so that call never came.
Mothership now had to be primed for peak baby carrying condition and so started the delightful pessaries, or fanny rockets as we like to call them. A twice daily waxy coated rocket shaped progesterone booster that would kick-start the growth of lining for the embryo to implant…. And kill our sex life.
The day after egg collection Mothership was looking 6 months pregnant caused by post surgery bloating and was in quite a bit of pain. Her ovaries were angry for days. Eventually we got a call to say that 3 of the 4 eggs were fertilised and they planned for transfer in 3 days time. We were worried about having just 3 embryos but only needed one to make it so we were in with a good chance of a transfer. The next few days were spent passing time by eating waffles and trying to keep busy. Every hour that passed and we didn’t get a phone call we could assume no bad news.
Keep growing little eggies
I wanted to share our ivf conception story with you to help give an idea of costs and to provide information for those thinking of signing up to the ivf experience. Every journey is different and will require different management and medications.
Truth is, you don’t really know what your getting into until your well committed to process. We are extremely fortunate fo have financial support from our parents but it wasn’t the bottomless pit of money that the clinic seamed to think we had. If we had started this process with only the money based on the first estimate of treatment we would have found ourselves in a position where we couldn’t afford to continue. There were a lot of bills handed out and it was not always clear what they were for or what our options were. My advise would be to have a buffer in the bank and ask questions…. Lots of questions.