Has anyone used the SG shared risk IVF option?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to decide whether to pay for one IVF treatment and hope it works or to go for the shared risk plan where you get 6 tries and your money back if it does not work.

[Anonymous]

What are your fertility issues? In general, I think if I qualified for shared risk, I would do that.

[Anonymous]

OP here, I am not ovulating. Tried Clomid and IUI and neither worked.

[Anonymous]

We used it, simply because we couldn't imagine spending money for one cycle of IVF and it not working and never seeing that money again. I don't do well with stress and knew that putting that additional stress on me during a cycle wouldn't be helpful.

Our first cycle worked, so we technically "lost" a significant amount of money. However, we don't regret it because we knew if it didn't and we got the money back, we could then begin to look into other options.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I wanted to do a shared risk program, largely due to the reasons mentioned by the PP....that the stress of it not working the 1st time and losing all of that money would potentially keep me from getting pregnant. Also, we felt that if we did shared risk and weren't successful, we'd still have some savings left for adoption. I had done 6 unsuccessful IUIs, but everything checked out with my husband and I so I assumed we'd be accepted. Well, we weren't. We were with a single doc practice, so he was probably more conservative than others, but we were really upset and freaked out by it all.

We ended up using a different practice (who didn't offer shared risk, but who was much more positive about our prognosis, which meant ton to us emotionally.) We were ere successful on our 1st try and we have plenty of good quality frozen embryos for the next go round if we need IVF again. One thing I realized with the non-shared risk way is that although the cost is about 10k for the 1st shot, if it isn't successful, and you have embryos to freeze, its only a fraction of the cost to try again with the frozen eggs. (I haven't done that yet, but I think its about 4k) My doc also is a believer in a day 3 transfer, (I know there are different opinions on this) but one plus about the day 3 vs the day 5 is that you loose fewer eggs and you would potentially have more to freeze.

On a side note, a friend of mine who wasn't ovulating and who also had no luck w/clomid, was ultimately put on Metformin and it worked for her. I think it took her docs a while to put her on it, but it only took 3 months for her to have success once they did. You may want to ask and see if it could potentially help.

[Anonymous]

I wanted to do IVF PGD for PGD reasons, neither one of us had ANY fertility issues based on testing, but I have a genetic disorder that could be inherited by offsprings so PGD was what we wanted to do. We did shared risk, it took 3 times to work, so we saved money in the end (I think after the 2nd cycle, you start saving money if you need to go further). I was told it would work on the 1st time, then it didn't, then the 2nd cycle was PERFECT but didn't work, then 3rd cycle had all sorts of problems, and it ended up working so go figure.

[Anonymous]

I was eager to do shared risk for the reasons previous posters have cited. I was devastated to find out that my condition precluded us from using the program. I fully expected we would try 3 or 4 cycles of IVF, without success.

I got pregnant on my first round of IVF, with 5 mature eggs retrieved. For anyone reading who finds out they don't qualify but who are still good IVF candidates, don't despair. You might be pleasantly surprised.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know what it takes to qualify??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know what it takes to qualify??

I was a poor responder at age 30 (due to endometriosis). I did not qualify. I think if you respond well to fertility drugs and you are under a certain age (sorry, I don't know what that is exactly), you will likely qualify.

[Anonymous]

For me, to qualify I had to do some blood work based on my cycle, have an us, do a mock embryo transfer, and I believe you must be 39 or under.

[Anonymous]

You need to be 39 or younger, have an FSH of 10 or under, and have no more than 2 previous failed cycles. Cases are all looked at individually by a panel of their REs but these are the general guidelines. There may be exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Also, you BMI must be under 40. If it isn't you must lose the necessary weight before they will consider you.

[Anonymous]

We were in the shared risk program back when it was 4 tries, not 6. It took us all 4 egg retrievals, plus both fresh and frozen transfers before it worked.

To be honest, I don't know if I'd enroll in a 6-egg-retrievals program. By the time you've done 2 or 3 of those (plus the transfers), you may wish you'd never heard of IVF. I only did the 4th try to get our money back. I didn't expect it to work.

[Anonymous]

I'm the 21:07 PP. Now that I think about it, maybe SG is counting on patients to drop out after the first 4 retrievals. That way, they keep the money. Wouldn't put it past them. It's all about the money to those doctors. (I don't have fond remembrances of them).

[Anonymous]

I was under the impression that the patient can back out and get their money back. Anyone know? I htink SG can also cancel on you at any time, but again, you get your money back.