I'll Take "Financial Ruin" for $16,000, Please.

I had a conference call with our clinic's financial coordinator yesterday. Oy Vey, does this part suck.

This when the "oh yeah, this costs an assload of money" light bulb turned on. Not that I ever really forgot about it, but I'm wrapped up and snuggly in the idea that I might be pregnant in a few months so the rule of "Eyes on the prize" has jurisdiction over my brain. And my heart for that matter.

I don't talk about the financial side of this nightmare all that much here, mostly because I have a select few IRL friends and family that read this and I don't want them to feel bad, or like they should be doing anything other than supporting us emotionally - which if they have access to this blog they've clearly done an exceptional job at. I'm also a big believer in not discussing politics, religion, and specifics on finances (all to a certain degree). Really those topics just make things incredibly crunchy for me.

But in the true spirit of record keeping, and doing my best not to sensor myself , I find that I am overwhelmed with the urge to write about this. Mostly because I'm really struggling with it emotionally. We're going to be financing at least half of our IVF costs, and I constantly have to keep validating our decision to move forward to myself because technically, we do not have the money to do this.

If you've been reading my blog long enough you know that part of the reason we went the donor route before is because it was a lot more feasible financially. Which probably sounds callous but, after a few months of therapy I realized that our financial security is incredibly important to my sense of security in general, which translates to my overall well being. Not to mention how much of a burden finances can be on a marriage. And well, Infertility alone has already gone platinum on our asses so we won't be needing anymore of that, will we... We live very modestly. We haven't taken a real vacation since 2005. i.e. more than a long weekend that didn't involve a tent or the redeeming of hotel/airfare points, or bunking up with someone. Though our house was a big purchase it was a financially sound move.

Is it ridiculous that I'm still struggling with this so much, that I still feel the need to justify it even to a group of folks like you who totally get it?

I have to keep telling myself that this is a reasonable thing to go into (more) debt for.

That not spending beyond our means shouldn't apply to our dream of having a family.

That we can always make more money, but our window for having biological children is literally getting smaller every month.

So here's the actual genesis for this post: We will qualify for a 10% discount, but it can only be applied to a bare-bones IVF cycle that won't include medications (of course), extra monitoring ultrasounds during stims if needed; Cryo Preservation for the first year; or subsequent FET's (if the fresh cycle fails). So if the fresh cycle doesn't work it could end up costing us at least $3,500 more, not including meds.

Orrrrrrrrrr

We could pay $6k+ more for for the Two cycle program in which we would get first a fresh IVF cycle with unlimited monitoring, then FET's until we run out of embryo's. If all of that fails to get me to twelve weeks then we would be given another fresh cycle, and again as many FET's until we run out of embryo's, And it covers the first year of Cryo preservation storage.

So we can spend less (which we have the liquid cash for) on a BIG gamble, or sell a kidney to come up with the money to take less of a risk of us walking away without a baby...

Both options sort of suck. But either way, Top Ramen is starting to sound better and better.

Not Even Close

I've entered the loneliest place in my head yet again. It's the room where everyone has it better than me, and I wonder what we've done in our past lives to deserve all this heartache.

Friday night we went to one of my husbands client's houses for dinner. They have two ADORABLE kids. The oldest, a little girl who took right to me. She made almost constant eye contact with me hoping I was paying attention to whatever she was doing at the moment, and she wore my size 11 flip flops the entire night. Later in the evening, close to her bedtime, she got upset while playing a game and she began to cry. Her mother came over to comfort her, scoping her up into her arms, and whispering softly to ease her pain and turn her tears into laughter again. After a few minutes of rocking and a reluctant smile, mom convinced her to go get her prettiest nightgown on to show me.

"Sorry about that, they just cry really easily when they get tired".

I realize now that by the look I must have had on my face she thought I was upset by the little girl's crying. But I get that, hell I cry when I'm overtired - it was witnessing such a tender moment that killed me. Watching her rock, and whisper her daughters tears away is something I ache for to the very depths of my soul. And on the way home it crushed me even more to realize I'm not even close to being able to do that. I cried myself to sleep that night, and I haven't been able to shake it since. It really feels like it's never going to happen for us.

I know this break is important for healing, but how long is it really going to be? Is it just till we have enough money to actually do something? But what's 'enough' anyway? We've been talking recently about moving on to adoption, and while I'm very open to that, it feels like the more we deliberate over our options the father away we are from taking a real step. I feel lost again.

The Root of All Evil?

No, I'm not talking about Paris Hilton. I'm talking about money, you know that thing that makes the world go 'round and heiress celebutante's videotape themselves having mindless, meaningless sex while they make an extraordinarily bad role model to underage girls who idolize them? Yes, that. I hate money. And Paris Hilton in case you didn't catch on. Dumb bitch has killer thighs though.

I digress.

I had a good session with my therapist last night. We talked a lot about money. What role it plays in our lives, and how it means something very different to everyone. What we determined is that to me; it means security. If there's money in the bank- I feel safe. I know that if something terrible were to happen, financially I would be somewhat prepared. I am a saver. Or as Brian would call it "A tightfisted Biyatch". Brian and I pool our money, there is one bank account for the two of us, and I'm really, really careful with it. We worked long and hard to get out of debt that we had accrued when we were young and stupid and didn't have a mortgage payment or even rent for that matter. But then we got married and pulled our shit together and before we bought our house we lived with my dad for 10 (very fucking long) months so that we could bank roll some dough and pay off some debt. And believe me that moving in with my dad was a HUGE sacrifice for us. I love the guy to pieces but moving back in with a parent after you're married is not exactly conducive to newlywed status.

Anyway, speaking of my dad... Money was pretty tight growing up. We lived in a nice neighborhood, but had the ugliest, and least kept house on the block. (Teresa, you can attest to that.) I think that's partially because my dad hated yard work, but mostly because what little free time and money he did have, wasn't going to be spent sweating over a flower bed just to keep up with the neighbors. And as much as I hated the weeds peering out from under the redrock in our front yard, I sort of respect that. Money didn't have much significance in our lives, and maybe that was because we didn't have any. But I never really felt like we went without either. I just knew that money was spent carefully and tucked away for important things. (Which might explain why I went a little Catholic-School-Girl on my first credit card) I earned every penny my dad ever gave me, no allowance, I had to do chores above and beyond my regular duties. Which was fine. I definitely learned the value of a dollar, and the sweet, sweet reward that came from biking my ass to the Baskin-Robins. (I have always been a whore for ice cream.)

But money came easier to me then, and not having any didn't matter like it does now. I don't mean to cry poor. We're not poor. But we do live frugally, and every penny counts. And each penny means more to me then just the numbers on a bank statement, or as of late a medical bill and credit card statement.

One of the biggest problems I have with IVF is what a huge financial risk it is. It's actually terrifying for me. Could I get the money together in a month from various family members? Yes. Would doing so go against every manor of my belief system and decimate my pride? Yes. But is a baby worth going outside of my comfort zone? HELL YES.

As evidence of my childhood, I pretty much live by the: "if you don't have the money for it, you go without". But what I discovered tonight is that that rule just shouldn't apply to having a family. I hate to think that finances has been holding us back through all of this. Not just because of a few missing zero's in our bank account, but because I haven't been able to get out of my comfort zone. To risk something I have substantial control over... I can give you reasons all fucking day long as to why we should do one treatment over the other, but I need to stop rationalizing everything. I need to find out what my heart wants.

Why is that so damn hard?

I'm sure all you number crunchers out there are wondering why I'm talking about getting the money from family as opposed saving it ourselves, when I claim to be such a penny pinching money hoarder. The problem is time. While I don't need to make a decision this month, I can't fathom waiting more than a year to move forward with another treatment. You might as well reserve my straight jacket and padded cell now, cause it wouldn't be long before what's left of my sanity jumped ship. And it's not as if we'd be getting a free ride, they would be loans that we'd most definitely pay back. God knows how long it's going to take, but we would. And while we would do it in an instant, we can't refi our house. Brian is a new small business owner and we wouldn't be able to prove his income yet.

I guess the moral to my story is that money sucks when you don't have it. And I hate that I given it so much power in our decision making process. I used to say that I couldn't handle shelling out all this money that ended up in another failed cycle. It would be so crappy to pay of debt that was all for nothing. But when I look back at three of the six dIUI's that ended up on my credit card. I don't regret them. Not one bit. Because I genuinely believed each one was going to work. The payments suck on paper, but I'm not resentful about them. Because I went against every part of my logic and followed my heart.

In my last post I talked about how my decision between dIUI and IVF with Brian changes on a daily basis, well today it's IVF.