That’s a good point, and part of the reason I’m thankful that it’s partly voting. We do appear to have a smaller chance of success then a couple that has never been pregnant before, and if it were directly up to the clinic, they will choose the couple with this highest chance of success in order to maintain their high success rates (which are published in the US). Who knows, maybe we will get voted in as finalists, but the clinic will ultimately decided to go with the couple who has the best chance of a pregnancy and take home baby.
As an aside, and on that note, should we win, we will be doing further investigation in to possible immune system issues that I may have, which might be the reason for the multiple miscarriages, before we do the IVF. I have had some preliminary investigation, but immune system issues are not really investigated for infertility and repeat loss, especially in Canada. We actually have to go through an American company for the most important testing because they don’t do it in Canada. And Dr. Sher is one of the leaders in immune system infertility and provides IVF and pregnancy medical support for those types of issues.
We did pay for and do one round of IVF here in Canada, where it’s a bit cheaper. We will do another if necessary. The thing with SIRM, and the reason we entered this contest, if because of the specific doctor, the clinic, and the types of infertility issues they deal with. They are much more expensive than most other clinics, and while it is within the realm of possiblity for us to afford it at some point over the next couple of years, for us, time is important. My age and our deadlines for stopping ‘trying’ are impending. So, in light of that, we felt that entering the contest in hopes of bumping up the timeline was worth it.
Also, IVF is a lump sump payment vs. paying for a childs needs over time.
This answer is for us only, I have no idea about other couples in the contest.
I was reading an article recently - well, “recently” - about how the major blood groups seem to have micro groupings within them, and how this subgroups can negatively affect pregnancy. Have you heard about this research? I can try to find the article again, if you like. It’s kind of preliminary, though. I was curious what people here at the dope would think of it.
This contest is about the tackiest thing I’ve heard all month but of course I wish you good luck with it.
I meant to add that the question doesn’t seem cold hearted to me either even though I am not sure being unable to afford an expensive IVF procedure means you can’t afford a child. But ZPG Zealot doesn’t think anything is cold hearted from what I’ve seen.
An IVF cycle at SIRM is just over $11K for the IVF procedure (monitoring of blood/ultrasounds, egg retrieval, sperm collection, fertilization and embryo transfer), plus the cost of med’s (which is about $2K to $5K depending on the woman / type of medication), and any additional requirements as they come up. When we did our IVF here in Calgary, it was $6,750, plus $3,200 in medication. We also used ICSI (where they inject the sperm right in to the egg) and that cost $1,500. We needed assisted hatching (the ‘shell’ on our embryos was a bit thick, so they help them hatch) and luckily it was free for us, but normally it’s $750.
Well, I can tell you as someone who went through several cycles of IVF and then finally had a child: The cost of the IVF was a LOT more than the cost of raising the child, at least for the first year or so. And a lot more concentrated, too. I remember having to make a payment to the IVF clinic of more than $20,000 one day. No payment of near that amount was necessary for actually caring for my child.