Freaking out about IVF costs, don't know what to do

[Stripeyhandbag]

The thought of it is making me sick. We were lucky to have funded NHS round but it didn't work so private is next. We've chosen a doctor my friend and many others in IVF groups recommend and the prices look fairly average to me for London. Already our experience is 10x better than the disorganised, impersonal experience we had before.

But I (and DP, hugely) are freaking out about the cost. A conservative estimate to pay for a (2) multi cycle package is £20k. I reckon it'll be another £5k on top, maybe more. A frozen transfer is £2.5k alone. Paying multi cycle saves a grand on the IVF but doesn't save on the icsi aspect or anything else.

I know people remortgage and use all their savings but I just feel sick. I so want this but if it doesn't work? We have nothing, and debt, and can never move home which we desperately need to do? DP is especially freaking out. Neither of us are or have ever been rich. This is an insane amount of money for us.

Saying 'it'll be worth it if it works' or 'if you won't pay you don't want it enough' is not helping me :( All I can think of is it probably WON'T work (let's be honest, chances are always slim) and even if we ARE lucky beginning pregnancy with zero money is unappealing.

I don't know what I want from this post, sorry. I guess, did anyone else feel like this?! Do we just pay one round, that still makes me feel sick. Should we get a loan??! Ugh.

Also, sorry, such a long post

That sounds expensive. I literally just paid for my round IVF round yesterday and it was £6050 - it's private but they do NHS too.

I think create do packages with refunds which might be worth looking into.

It's a lot of money but I don't want to have regret when I'm older although see what you're saying.

I paid about £8850 for a multicycle with Care Fertility Woking, a close enough distance from London. This was two cycles with ICSI (costs less if you don't have ICSI) and included all transfers, no matter how many you had fresh and frozen from a round. Meds on top was about £2000 ish, and a few hundred here and there for consultations and tests before hand but they may accept NHS findings. All told we reckon we've spent £1200, got pregnant on first round second transfer and have 4 embryos frozen from that round that would all be transferred free if we had needed them, plus another round prepaid for that we now don't need! Have a good look at multicycle packages as they do usually cover all frozen transfers, I was also shocked that they're over £2000 per one usually and quite a hidden cost! Hope that info helps :)

Do you have a complex reason for infertility that needs that specific doctor as a consultant? Or can you shop around a little?

Sorry £12000 not £1200!

Also you often get the embryoscope I closed in a multicycle package which was amazing to see, instead of the embryos being taken out once a day to be checked they're on camera all the time so the embryologist has a time lapse of the 5bdays and can see which ones divided most evenly etc for better grading, also means they're disturbed less.

It is daunting. I would definitely look into multi cycle packages with refund, it gives you so much more control over costs. I got a 3 cycle refund package for £10k, we’ve needed to use all three cycles so that’s saved us considerable costs. Medicines have cost about £6k on top, for 6 transfers so far (3 fresh, 3 frozen), but that’s been over the course of 18 months so has felt more manageable. My clinic estimates that, with all the treatment and protocols we’ve had, we’ve saved at least £8k compared to if we’d paid for each cycle individually.
I'm with Access Fertility, I’m sure there’s others too, and some of the larger clinics have their own packages to keep costs slightly more predictable.

Good luck x

If you are stressing about the cost then go somewhere else like Care, Create, etc and maybe outside of London. Nearly half the price of what you are saying and the success rates for each clinic are mainly pretty identical. Sometimes the reason they are the 'best' is because they only work with a certain criteria i.e under 35 years old as it makes their success rates seem better and charge more because of this.

Thank you for your comments and sorry for not replying. I probably haven't explained the costs terribly well. The IVF is about £3900 per cycle and the icsi £1300. Then all the extra bits and stuff. Embryo this, embryo that

It's rubbish on top of the Infertility that you then need to find large sums of money to attempt to overcome it.
I do have friends for whom IVF cost wasn't an issue but it definitely was for us.

It feels horrible when you're holding off on other things to pay for IVF.
We spent about £40,000, maybe a bit more, I kind of deliberately stopped counting.

I had a baby a few weeks ago so the gamble paid off eventually, but I still wouldn't mind not having debt and being able to splurge on other stuff.
I know we would have kept going and spent more.
It's annoying to think I could have invested that money for my baby if we hadn't had to have IVF, but if someone had said put £40k in a savings account for the baby I would have said where would we get that kind of money?

No advice really, we mainly used zero interest credit cards and didn't do home improvements that were needed. We were lucky enough to still have holidays but more low key than before and the pandemic happened anyway.

Good luck with it all, don't think too far ahead as it can feel overwhelming.

@Stripeyhandbag are the embryo transfers not included as it's multicycle?

Thank you, that's a very kind post x

Thank you. Going to ask this tomorrow. I wasn't able to have a fresh transfer with my last round - they had to freeze because my living was too thin to transfer.

@Stripeyhandbag my successful transfer was a frozen one, sometimes it's more successful because your body isnt as full of hormones. Frozen embryo transfers are usually I closed in a multicycle round , with no limit. It's why I chose to do a multicycle package as I was shocked at the cost of a frozen embryo transfer, in case it took multiple goes! Really adds up. What stage are you at with your private cycle?

Included*

Your prices sound high. Our round (London clinic) is £5700 including a high dose of meds. ICSI would be £1200 on top (we don't need it) and freezing any embryos is £350 on top. So £7000 for one fresh round with embryos frozen. 3 cycle package is £9500 without ICSI or meds. I would shop around a bit more personally.

Another factor to consider is your age. Do you need to start right now? As hard as it is, could you wait and save up a bit to reduce your borrowing?

Ours is £3900 plus meds so similar to yours? Maybe a bit less. Plus we need icsi. Similar price

I'm 40. No time to waste sadly.

Thanks for responding

Thank you, really interesting. This is a really small clinic. I've just checked the cost for a 'frozen embryo transfer cycle ' and it's £2100 plus approx £500 for drugs. Doesn't talk about multi cycle frozen transfers.

The multi cycle costs they've sent just says a cycle, no mention of frozens.

Also just read payments terms/TS&C's. Says multi cycle package includes a fresh transfer or freeze but doesn't say frozen transfer...

Sorry, I must have misread your post. I thought you said £20k for 2 cycles.

I’m with CARE. Our NHS round failed so we’re private now too.

We weren’t eligible for a refund package, but we got a 2 multicycle with ICSI for £10,195. That includes frozen transfers if we are lucky enough to get anything frozen. It doesn’t include a few extras we are having, which we’ll pay on top.

The cost is a huge thing. We ended up getting a loan each (couldn’t take out a bigger one just one of us) to cover the costs as we just don’t have the money to pay for it upfront. We’re going to have to have a tight budget now though to pay it off. We have some of the loan leftover for medication costs. If this next round works, it’ll have not been financially worth it, but the minute we have to do another round or a frozen transfer we’ll have saved money so we’re playing the long game.

Can’t you go abroad? Poland and Czech Republic do it much cheaper

Your quote sounds really expensive. I did remortgage the house for the first 2 rounds of IVF I did which failed and that cost circa £20k but then I did a 3 cycle package of natural modified IVF with ICSI and all drugs and that was £13k and I had twins with frozen embryos still in storage so I wish I'd gone down that route first!

How old are you do you mind me asking? Age obviously has a huge effect on success rates x