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What's Next?

Making Crucial Fertility Decisions

By Teri Brown

What comes so easy for some couples can be excruciating for others. Having a child for those undergoing long-term fertility treatments can seem like an impossible goal. For some couples, it only takes a simple procedure to quickly result in a child. For others, the treatments can take years, with no guarantee of a happy outcome. At some point, these couples come to a crossroads and have to ask themselves, "What's next? Where do we go from here?"

Stephanie Dower and her husband underwent every test possible and spent years using ovulation predictors, Clomid and hormone injection therapy. Her fertility doctor diagnosed her with unexplained infertility and excessive endometrial scarring that prevented her from carrying a fetus to term. After several miscarriages, they were told that they had two options: they could continue on injected hormones for another three to four cycles, costing approximately $1,200 a month, or go straight to IVF, costing approximately $7,000 a cycle. The doctor's final opinion was that Dower should plan to take at least four to six courses of IVF, but the likelihood of success fell within the 20 to 30 percent range of conceiving and carrying to term.

"At this point, I was literally a hysterical, psychotic bitch on wheels with all those drugs running through my system, added to the stress of trying to conceive, the heartbreak of miscarriages and the constant struggle with our insurance company about what would and would not be paid," Dower says. "I finally had a galactic implosion when presented with my options."

Dower and her husband needed to regroup and consider their options. They looked at the prospect of spending $28,000 to $42,000 for medical procedures that would not be covered by their insurance. With only a 30 percent chance at success, they could spend the money and end up with nothing.

Want to see more?

• Priced out of Family: Facing the High Cost of Infertility Treatments
• Helping Hands: Groups That Navigate the Infertility Roller Coaster
• Difficult Decisions: Adoption After Infertility
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!