We like to share ideas/knowledge/hacks

I have just received another bill for $1500 which has to come fully out of pocket.

________________________________________________________________________

Please refer to the cost guide for readers in Australia. Everyone's circumstances are different and will have varying cost however, in brief, your IVF treatment is going to cost you roughly $4000 out of pocket each cycle. A cycle is defined as 

• tracking the female menstrual/ovulation cycle
• Injection
• egg collection
• embyro transfer

1. When I was given the sheet of paper laying out the cost, I did not know the cost did not include all the pre-tests(both partners) and specialist consultation cost which amounted to about $1000 after medicare rebate. Again this can vary between couples.
2. Although the payment shows roughly $4000 out of pocket, I did not know we have to pay the full $9000 upfront and medicare will rebate the $5000 after the end of the cycle.
3. Private healthcare only covers the operating cost for the collection of eggs.

Make sure you remember to use your credit card whenever possible. Might as well earn some points while making that bundle of joy!!

It all starts off with a visit to a GP to get your referral. Without a referral, you will not be able to claim medicare. A GP's referral is valid for 12 month of medicare rebate

Next  would be going for a specialist consultation and the specialist should prescript a series of tests for both of you.

The next one month or so would be the tracking of your wife's menstrual cycle and this involve making several trip to get a blood test done.

 Following that will be another meet up with your specialist and this is when the ivf cycle will really start. Get your  money ready.

On the first day when your menstruation starts, you will have to report to the clinic and they will instruct you when to visit for blood tests and ultrasound. 

Next comes the needles. Your wife will have to inject 1 needle into herself once a day for roughly 1 week to encourage the growth of more eggs. The nurse did mention they will require at least 6 to 8 eggs for the IVF to proceed.

After the first week, she will have to inject a second needle at night. My wife does one in the morning and 1 at night. 

Finally 36 hours before she is scheduled for egg collection, she has to inject a third needle call a trigger to prepare herself for the egg collection.

Egg collection is done under General Anesthetic and the recovery will take roughly 2 days and again, depending on individual.

Now, you may be asking, why do they need so many eggs. To give you an idea, my wife collected 15 eggs, 12 is usable, 10 manage to fertilize, 5 managed to growth but only 2 made it to the final stage. That worked out to be 1 in 7.5.

Roughly 5 days after the egg collection will be the actual embryo transfer and from there on, it will be finger's crossed. 2 weeks from the embyro transfer, another blood test is taken to confirm if pregnancy has taken place. If more than 1 made it to the final stage, it will be freeze so that it can be used if the first egg fail.

Physically the pain are tolerable, the injection are painless however the female has to be prepared for a lot of needles poked into her.

The emotional aspect would stem from worrying about stupid things such as, 

• will I have eggs or produce enough
• will the eggs fertilize
• will embyro survive
• how will the transfer go