How did you afford IVF and how many cycles did you have?

[ohsheglows]

Had my first failed round of IVF which was gutting but to be expected as I know the odds of it actually working is very slim. We spent around £6k on this cycle using our savings.

Before I started this process I thought I would do 3 rounds and then stop, but this last 2 weeks have been absolutely tortuous and I don't think I can go through it again. Not only is it emotionally draining, but also financially draining.

How many rounds have you completed and what was the 'number' you (or will) stop at?

How on earth did you afford it? We are thinking about credit cards at the moment.

Thank you all!

@ohsheglows bless you, I’m sorry to hear you’ve had this experience. When we decided to do IVF we looked at the costs and went with access fertility, this seems to have been the right decision as we would have spent more paying the clinic directly by now (unsuccessful fresh and frozen cycle) and no luck as yet for us. We went with the 2 cycle non refund package, it was £7,300, this gives us 2 fresh rounds and unlimited FET until we run out of embryos, until we end up with a live birth. This doesn’t include medications, we cut down the cost of this by getting a private prescription and getting the meds at cost price from Asda pharmacy. We’re also now paying for PGT-A and looking at other tests, so it’s getting costly.

It sounds like you need a bit of a break, so this could be a good opportunity for you to save up and get yourself in a good position for the next round.

I guess the decision you make if you decide to get a access fertility package, comes down to your circumstances, the package I’m with works out well because I got a lot of embryos, other women go for the refund packages.

As to where would I stop, for me personally I will go to any lengths to have a child. I’m 35 and time is limited, I have a good job and while I don’t have endless money in savings, we live below our means so do have some and I have a mortgage on a house and very good future earning potential, this is an investment in our future. I don’t want to have a fancy retirement after living a childless life. My plan is to go through my access fertility package, if the issue is me, then I guess I will look at remortgaging the house and looking into surrogacy if it comes down to it. But everyone is different, and there may well be a point when it gets too hard to carry on, but what I’ve found to date, is that I have ups and downs and the downs have been temporary.

We originally set ourselves a 3 cycle limit or £25k - whichever we reached first

The first £25k was funded by remortgaging our house to release equity - only cost about an extra £90 a month on our mortgage so hardly noticeable

Well we blew through over £20k on 2 cycles and 3 transfers and I didn't feel ready to stop. I wanted to try a different protocol as for me I wanted to be able to have no regrets, that was important in deciding at what point we would stop. Had we done everything we could? Only at that point would we be at peace with stopping

We then signed up for a 3 cycle package of natural modified IVF which including all drugs and ICSI was £13.5k. This was funded via a bank loan over 5 years at £275 a month.

I know IVF sounds expensive but you have to ask yourself how you would afford a child if you had one......this is the rather brutal/honest question asked when I approached family to borrow money.

And they were right.....

Full time childcare starts around £1k per month. If one of us gave Up work to be a stay at home parent then we'd lose £1.3k a month. So we were gently advised to live like we had a child for a year and put into an account the £1k plus per month....after a year that's another 2 cycles you can fund?

In the end we went with the Loan rather than waiting as if we couldn't afford £275 a month how were we going to afford £1k a month?!

(We've ended up with twins by the way! So financially we are destroyed 🤣🤣)

I've had 3 cycles so far, spent about £25k. I afforded it from years of living below my means - didn't have a car for years, could afford a bigger house but haven't moved, generally buy cheaper things than I could otherwise afford (over a period of years).

As to my limit, I haven't set one. I think I will carry on until I get the feeling of just knowing it's time, that you just can't carry on anymore, that you can tell within yourself that it's time to stop - I've heard other people speak of this feeling, and I have had it myself in other situations (eg, when you know it's time to leave a job, end a friendship, a relationship etc). Some people may reach this point after one cycle, some people may reach it after ten, so I think it's very personal and dependant on so many factors - money (some people may not be able to face the idea of getting into debt, then it not working and having to spend years paying it off ), the effect IVF has on your relationship, your emotional stability etc.

I haven't reached this point yet, I still have hope it will work for me so will carry on until I just decide I either have a baby or can't do it anymore.

This is the issue that has been stressing me out all week (decade?) so I’m pleased to read this thread. I’m really lucky in that I have a little boy, aged 2 now, from my second round of IVF. The first was a free go through the NHS and didn’t work out, the second was the successful one and there were two frozen ones which I replaced last year, one was successful but then miscarried and the other just didn’t take.
I’m now about to start a third round through a private clinic, the first two being through the hospital. But I’m trying to work out whether to just pay for one cycle £6900 or a package of two cycles with any frozen transfers for £10,900. If we do the first we can find this through savings and if we do the second I need to think of a way to finance it. We have some house equity, but putting it on a mortgage is affordable short term and expensive long term. So a loan maybe? I’m feeling quite daunted by it. I used to earn good money as a leader in school but left my horrible job to stay home and bring up my son for a while. I’ve just got a job 2 days a week in a university, but very worried about whether I should have taken a full time job to earn more and fund ivf. I’m turning 40 in October and I feel very conscious of it. I’m thinking to stop when I’ve done these two rounds, roughly when I turn 40 and jus be grateful for what I have. Easier said than done though. I think I won’t be able to afford to do more and I think my husband wants to move on and not be trapped in everything being on hold to try for another baby. It’s just all such difficult decisions and stress. What I wouldn’t give to be rich with good fertility!

1st round was mainly funded by the NHS, apart from the genetic testing of the terrible quality embryos
2nd round through savings, which starts imminently. We are giving up after that, as l am too old, tired and sick of the whole thing

‘l am too old, tired and sick of the whole thing’

Exactly this!

We found the nhs clinics to be cheaper and I don’t know if I should say this but they were so sloppy with their admin we didn’t get charged for parts of it where we should have done.

0% credit card
Savings
Remortgage

@Thelonggrass that’s funny!

Hi, I've just completed my first round of IVF unfortunately a bit fat negative, really gutted as I used all my savings and to do it all again it's either going to be a loan or going to a different clinic that does payment plans, I'm a single mother of a 3 year old which, I had him through doing a IUI, I did two more IUI's last year which didn't work that's why I thought I'd go down the IVF route, only had 6 eggs and only 1 for embryo transfer and none to freeze. I'm 40 nearly 41 so I don't have time on my hands to save again

@AutumnVibes l thought l might as well be honest! I’m all out of motivation now really. Mentally and physically it’s taken it out of me. I am on a fair few Facebook groups but increasingly l mute them as lm not interested and l don’t care very much

I think the cost of it really does zap your energy and emotional reserves pretty quickly because it then touches all the other areas of your life. We desperately need to move house and we have to put that on hold to do this. I’m pretty sure my husband would be thrilled if I said I’m actually not going to go through with it. Once this is done, I’m done and ready never to talk about fertility ever again in my life!

I'm a single female and unfortunately no help regarding funding for fertility treatments on the NHS, at least in England as far I'm aware.

Last year I funded my IUI via savings, the treatment was unsuccessful. This year I have just started my first and most probably the only IVF fresh cycle via some savings, a credit card and the generosity of family members.

I too already feel despondent about the whole fertility journey, and with being 39, I really don't hold much hope as the stats for IVF are quite low in terms of success overall.

Anthurium, I’m sorry to hear that there is no support for single women. I didn’t realise that and it’s really crap. I was single for a long time and didn’t think I’d meet anyone and I can see that it would just make everything harder.
It’s amazing to me how many people women and couples are going through this and how little public understanding there is about the impact on our lives. People get that the hormones are tough but to me that’s the easy bit.

Really interesting to read this. We had our first appointment with the consultant today and to be honest, I didn’t realise how expensive IVF was. We’ve been quite £10800 plus meds for 2 cycles. We could probably find that if we used every penny of our savings (wedding fund) but I’m worried that if it fails, I won’t know when to stop.

@anthurium - It it helps at all, a lot of us singles are in the same position as you (I'm also single, childless and at almost 40 losing hope with IVF and the difficult future costs if I keep going). Our age also means we won't get offered the cheaper/better value IVF packages .

It's completely unfair that it's a postcode lottery as to whether we get help - I was lucky that in my area singles and lesbian couples can get NHS help for donor IVF, providing you do 6 IUI's first to prove you are infertile. Obviously hetero couples don't need to to do this, so it's definitely often cheaper to be a hetero couple struggling with fertility, than a lesbian or single woman doing the same! (assuming you also fit the age and BMI criteria and all the other NHS hoops.)

I am single too and had IUI. I was so fortunate as to have it work, and have two beautiful boys now. The whole thing cost 15k€. I was thankfully able to pay it without loan.

If it hadn't worked... I don't know that I could have stopped until all hope (and money) was gone. Having a partner was never important to me, but having a child has always been essential to me. I would have gone on to the very last cent, to the last second until I truly was too old. That's probably not healthy, and not a good exemple to follow, though.

Update - I’ve just applied for a personal loan for the full amount of mine. Paying back £350 a month for 3 years. Will be a massive stretch but then I’m thinking of other things I’d rather spend the money on and realise that this is definitely my priority. It’s stressful though because my two year older is in a particularly screamy and unreasonable stage and we are both very depleted and claustrophobic from lockdown and it does feel like insanity to be spending all the money we (don’t) have to be doing this.

I'm just starting to look into getting a loan, to fund my next round, just debating whether to go for a multi cycle or to just to do another single cycle.

I decided on a two cycle one, though husband thought single. I think the feeling of it being like a supermarket special offer or gambling really doesn’t help with the stress of it.

That's so true on that one, if I can get the funds I'll probably go for a multi cycle this time around

In short, saving + the lockdown situation because we haven't anywhere to go or spend money at! Our situation was also helped by the fact that DH's employer reimburses up to USD$10,000 in infertility treatments a year as part of employee benefits and IVF is part of the coverage, so that definitely made it easier.

@ohsheglows - I would be very, very careful about going down that credit card route if I were in your situation. It's all fine if you're able to pay down the charges in full each month, but otherwise it's one of the most costly routes one can pursue I think. Good luck xx

Some clinics offer one year interest free loans so that is also worth looking into x

@ohsheglows
We went abroad partially because of the cost. Went to Prague, Praga Medica and must say we would go again. we were probably very lucky, got a positive on our first try. It cost us about 3.5K with meds and some extra lab methods. Also booked cheap flights and hotel, so overall it was not much on top.

That is a significant saving and could be the difference between affording one round or more. Was everything in English?