Shared Risk...What would you do?

[Anonymous]

So my husband & I need to make a MAJOR financial decision by Monday morning. Should we take out a loan and do Shared Risk or roll the dice, cross our fingers that the first fresh IVF takes or 2nd cycle FET (if we even get enough good embryos) works--we can afford those now.

FYI--I'm pretty young (32 on Sunday, happy bday to me), in great health, minus the PCOS. My DH is young (30) and has MFI (low morph is our big problem here).

What would you do?????? We have to decide by Monday b/c no matter what, my injections start in 10 days.

[Anonymous]

How long would it take for you to "breakeven" if you do shared risk? How much is the shared risk option? A single IVF? Does shared risk cover FETs? It's certainly possible to get pregnant on your first IVF, but a lot of people require more. If your chances for a family are going to disappear for financial reasons after 1 IVF and 1 FET, then you should probably do shared risk.

[Anonymous]

We did shared risk through Shady Grove Fertility and I'm very thankful we did. Not sure what their policy is now but at the time it was 6 fresh cycles for a set fee. If you do shared risk and get prego the first time - you'll be thankful and while you might think briefly "we should have just paid outright for one cycle" - I think you won't regret your decision.

I had just turned 30 when I started IVF for male factor (husband just turned 31). On paper - we looked great. My body however respondly horribly to the meds - I think my grandmother would have responded better than I did. It took me 4 fresh cycles to conceive our first child. When we decided to go for #2 - it took us another additional 5 fresh and 1 frozen cycle to conceive our twins. Clearly Shady Grove wasn't making any money off of us at that point. Well maybe they were but I could care less at this point!

IVF is a emotionally and physically draining process - try to take some of the financial pressure off yourself by doing shared risk if your clinic is offering a solid program. Hopefully it will take you just one cycle. But if it doesn't - you will have more attempts just in case you decide to pursue them. Statistically - I think it usually takes a couple of tries for success - but I'd check with your clinic in case their stats help you with your decision.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

We are similar, sort of, to you in that we're young and PCOS is the driver of our infertility. We did shared risk, but got pregnant with twins (there's another thing you might consider- does your shared risk program allow single embryo transfer?) on the first try. Love my babies, but man would that money come in handy.

Then again, if we'd rolled the dice the other way we could've lost so who knows.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to chime in. We had an experience similar to PP 19:44-- we looked great on paper (I am 32 the dx was unexplained) but we had 3 horrible cycles before decided to get our money back and go to Cornell. And I never had any embryos that made it to freeze.

The way you'll react to the IVF drugs is very hard to predict. [Although if you did an IUI with injectibles that is a good sign].

Also, I was at SG and they let me do an elective single embryo transfer (day 3 transfer) even though I was in shared risk. Ironically, the one cycle where we transferred 2 embyos was Cornell (because it wasn't shared risk and we spend arouond $20K on that ONE cycle) and now I am pregnant with twins.

Good luck with your decision and your upcoming cycle! I hope your first round works no matter what you decide!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Your PCOS may be one factor towards doing the shared risk, because even though you'll probably produce lots of follicles you won't know until you do IVF whether you'll produce good quality embryos, and you may need multiple cycles to figure out what protocol will get you good embryos.

[Anonymous]

Thank you to those posters who shared their stories here. I am not the OP but I am doing SG's shared risk program and just experienced my first failed cycle. I am similar in age to you (32) with male factor as our "only issue" that we know of. Like the other posters, I too look great on paper. no health issues. It's nice to know that I am not the only one who didn't experience success the first time around. I hope our upcoming FET (we have one in the freezer) will be successful but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm so glad we did the shared risk program because it definitely takes a lot of the stress off when it comes to figuring out how we are going to pay for all of this.

[Anonymous]

To the PP: I also experienced the devastation of a failed IVF cycle on our first try. I was 32 at the time with no known issues other than mild male factor. We transferred one and froze one. I just wanted you to know that our second cycle was successful - we transferred two and froze two and got pregnant with one. The good thing is that they learn a lot about how you respond from your first cycle and hopefully will tweak your protocol to make the second one better. Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much poster 13:40! You've definitely given me hope.