Choosing shared risk at Shady Grove?

[Anonymous]

We are about to move to IVF after 3 failed IUI's (trying to conceive #2) and are at Shady Grove. We are trying to decide between just paying for one cycle or entering into the shared risk program. We learned today that you can actually drop out at any time and still get a full refund. Has anyone done this? I'm pretty sure I don't want to do a full 6 cycles there - more likely 2-3 maximum so being able to quit is important to me.

[Anonymous]

we did 3 cycles at SG and then dropped out and got our money back (getting the money back was amazingly easy). But our nurse said almost everyone (she knew of only 2 exceptions and we were one of them) gets pregnant if they get accepted into shared risk. GL!!!!!

[Anonymous]

I am in shared risk at SG and am in my third cycle (I'm currently 7 weeks pregnant). I don't regret it for a second. Having the peace of mind that I have three more cycles if this one doesn't work out is a huge comfort.

I have a friend who did shared risk who got pregnant on the first round. She has zero regrets.

[Anonymous]

I also did Shared Risk and got pregnant on the 2nd round (one fresh cycle and one FET), so I technically "lost" about $5000-$6000. I still have no regrets. My first cycle resulted in a miscarriage, and I found it soooo much easier to handle the miscarriage and subsequent round knowing that it was costing me more money -- the money was already spent. And knowing that I could back out at any time and get all of my money back was a relief. I doubt I would have done 6 rounds, but knowing I'd then have some money left over to pursue adoption made a big difference.

And as someone above said, if they accept you into Shared Risk, it's because you're a good risk for them and likely to get pregnant.

Also, FWIW, spending that much in a lump sum put me over the threshhold (7% of income, I think) to be able to tax deduct my medical expenses that year, so I got a healthy refund. If I'd paid for the cycles separately they would have been in different tax years I wouldn't have hit the threshold for expenses.

[Anonymous]

I did two cycles with two cycle discount. Now I'm moving into the shared risk program. I wish I'd just started with shared risk. Would have saved us $15k.

Do the shared risk. No question.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks all for your responses. To the PP's would you mind sharing what your diagnosis was? Part of my decision is that everything looks good on our side except DH's poor morphology. We conceived DC#1 with no intervention 2 years ago so I'm hoping it will only take one round. I know its impossible to predict though, which is why we are looking into shared risk.

[Anonymous]

I'm 12:31, our diagnosis is severe MF. Dr thought chances were 60% (Esp since I'm 33) and that we'd get frosties.

The thing is you just never know what's going to happen once you get into it. If you're going to do what it takes to have a kid then you may end up doing more than one cycle. At which point you're going to be glad you were in shared risk. And if you get lucky on the first shot you'll be so happy I bet you won't even look back.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to consider (esp if you already have a kid) is that shared risk can take the pressure off to transfer multiple embryos - thus reducing your chance of twins. So you could (ideally) transfer one blastocyst with a 60% chance of pregnancy since you'd know you could do it again w/out paying for another cycle.

[Anonymous]

I'm 21:36 - diagnosis was also male factor, lowish count and poor morphology. No IF diagnosis on my side. I think that moderate MF makes us a pretty good risk for Shady Grove, because with ICSI and sperm selection, they can pretty much overcome that.

[Anonymous]

I am in the Shared Risk program and totally agree PP 19:23. We did our first IVF and transfered 1 blast...sadly BFN. We have 2 frozen blasts and because we're in Shared Risk, I felt so much better going forward with transfering 1 blast at a time. Each FET would be about $4K if we weren't in the Shared Risk plan, but instead it's only a difference of about $350 for us each time. We felt (and Dr. Widra) that given my age, 1 to tranfer was still appropriate and I felt absolutely no pressure to transfer 2 at a time.

[Anonymous]

10:44 poster here. DH had a vasectomy 20 years ago. Nothing wrong on either side. I think we've just had bad luck so far. All is looking good this time around, though. Fingers crossed!

[Anonymous]

I'm 36 and am currently in the Shared Risk program. Our first cycle was a BFN, so we are starting our 2nd cycle. The peace of mind of having so many tries is a huge plus.

I just wanted to mention that as far as I know you'll have to cover the cost of drugs separately out-of-pocket. I'm having to shell out about $3-4K per cycle for meds. I was hoping to find a way for insurance to cover my meds, but from everything I've read, plans like MDIPA and Aetna that have IVF coverage only cover meds for procedures that they are also approving, which excludes IVF cycles attempted through the Shared Risk program. If anyone has found a way to get meds covered, please chime in!

[Anonymous]

I've just completed two ivf cycles on shared risk with BFN. It is worth it. the peace of mind is huge.

[Anonymous]

Worth it! Got pregnant on first try with shared risk. I suppose I could look at it as losing money, but once you have the baby none of that matters!

[Anonymous]

It took us two cycles under shared risk to get pregnant. No frozen embryos. The problem was I have one ovary and no tubes. We did shared risk at 37. Now we had insurance and went back and did three more cycles with no luck. We do have a final chance with a FET but what we assumed would be no problem having a second child has turned into a situation where we will likely be a single child family.

Shared risk was great and now I am 100% happy to have gone ahead with it instead of waiting the extra year to get insurance in place. It may be the difference of having my amazing child to not getting the chance of being a mother.