This week is a big milestone for the infertility community - it's the 40th birthday of the very FIRST baby ever conceived via IVF. Here's a really cool article about Louise Brown, that first baby who paved the way for so many others.
Over the past 40 years, improvements, tweaks, and all kinds of different protocols have been discovered by doctors all over the world in an effort to bring the treatment to a greater population, improve success rates, and somewhere around 6 MILLION babies have been brought earthside thanks to this awesome procedure.
One thing that isn't addressed very often is marriage and the many ways fertility treatment can impact it. Beyond the obvious frustration of having tried to get pregnant "the old-fashioned way" for the prescribed 6 months to a year before seeking treatment, I was surprised at the depth and variety of ways fertility treatment impacted my marriage.
1) FINANCIALLY
Obviously, or maybe not if you haven't been there, fertility treatment is crazy pants expensive and it can range quite a bit depending on your location, insurance coverage, etc. For us, we started treatment in a West Texas town with not many options for hundreds of miles around. As a result, the treatments we did receive were on average 1.75 times more expensive than they have been for us here in Utah where there are several clinics within 25 miles that offer fertility services. Most insurance companies will only cover very minimal diagnostic procedures (i.e. an ultrasound here or there), but your more comprehensive blood work, extensive ultrasounds and tube tests, semen analyses, etc are often not covered at all and these will typically run between a few hundred dollars to even more than a thousand per procedure. This is all before you even THINK about starting treatment or the accompanying medications - which, as with the tests, are nearly never covered by insurance. Be prepared to shell out between $50 (clomid, for me) - $5,000 (IVF meds, for me) depending on what your treatment protocol is. The more invasive treatments - intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization - can run you between $3,000 (in addition to meds) - $20,000 per cycle. PER CYCLE.
This can come with some pretty nasty sticker shock especially if you have not spent a lot of time researching. (My husband went pale as a ghost when he signed the check for our IVF). There are many options for payment. In some cases, you may be eligible for a grant or study that offsets some of the cost. Other options include several ways to finance treatments (which I personally don't recommend) or cash pay. Our preferred method was cash pay - this way, depending on the outcome of the treatment, you are not left with monthly reminder of a failed cycle that you're still paying for.
We went an average of 5 months between treatments so that we could save up the cash to pay up front. While it was frustrating to feel like we were stagnating in those in-between stretches, it was much better for us mentally and financially to have the peace of mind knowing we would be free to move forward as needed no matter which way it went.
To do this, we both worked hard and A LOT. For two years, we saw each other on Sundays and that was about it. Jeff traveled ALL. THE. TIME. for work, and I worked most holidays, every Saturday, and traveled a fair bit myself. While it was tough at times to be separated so much, it was actually a really nice outlet to have something to keep ourselves so occupied with and a blessing to be able to pay for our treatment each time.
2) TAKE A BREAK
I'm just going to put it out there that UNLESS you are some kind of unicorn, most women can not make it through being hormonally manipulated to unnatural levels even-keeled and unscathed. You will cry - even if you're not a crier. You will be angry at EVERYTHING FOR NO REASON. You will be bloated and pregnant-looking but not, which sucks big time. You'll be stressed - there's a whole lot of pressure on your body to perform when it literally has never before be cause you KNOW how much money and faith is riding on it and that's tough. Add to it all the physical side effects that come with your meds - which can make you sick, give you migraines, among other awesome things - it's a lot to deal with. A lot. So you're gonna be crazy.
This is hard on the menfolk who, though they may be aware of what you're taking and even help administer the injections if you can't, don't get to feel what you're feeling. It was so helpful for us to have Jeff be able to come to as many appointments as possible so he could be involved, hear feedback from the doctor, and have a better idea of what actually went into the procedure on my end. He definitely helped administer the shots until I had the confidence to do it myself, and would stand over my shoulder and make sure I drew out the right dosages after that.
Given all of this, it's not uncommon to feel a little off, out-of-sync, and have more arguments than you can count - which can wreak havoc on your relationship if you're not mindful. I think the biggest one we ever had happened the day Jeff went in for his semen analysis and I was so mad at him that I stayed at work forEVER after the day ended and didn't talk to him for hours after I got home. This is the kind of crazy I'm talking about.
The BEST thing we did was to take a break and go on vacation. After lots of tests, a failed IUI, and another one on the books, we were drained mentally, physically, and emotionally and looked at each other one day and said, "We need to get outta here." That was it. We booked a 7-day cruise, left our phones off the whole time, and spent an entire week just having fun together. We came back refreshed and ready to take on the world again.
3) BE ON THE SAME PAGE
We had more conversations than I care to remember about our individual levels of commitment and at which point we would need to be done with treatment. Most of these happened late at night and would result in one or the other of us feeling angry and misunderstood. I don't know if there's a good fix for this, but my best advice is to keep communicating and keep trying. When something feels right or not, you'll both know and it's easier for that to happen if you're both involved. While more extensive than the other procedures we did, the IVF cycle was by far the easiest in part because Jeff was able to be present and involved more than he ever had before.
4) GIVE EACH OTHER GRACE
I think this is the biggest. No matter who's got the issues - and there's 1/3 chance it's the woman, 1/3 chance the man, and 1/3 that it's both of you - it's hard on you both. Love each other, know that you each have the best intentions at heart and at times are hurting more than you're able to communicate, and have the assurance that you'll make it through this season of life one way or another.
On a positive note, on the other side in the sense that we have a child and another on the way, I can look back and see how this trial blessed our marriage. It's very empowering to have a common goal to work towards and it can unite you in a way that you'd never experience if everything was going swimmingly. We're also much more patient parents because of it, and we both cherish parenthood more than we would have otherwise.
Over the past 40 years, improvements, tweaks, and all kinds of different protocols have been discovered by doctors all over the world in an effort to bring the treatment to a greater population, improve success rates, and somewhere around 6 MILLION babies have been brought earthside thanks to this awesome procedure.
One thing that isn't addressed very often is marriage and the many ways fertility treatment can impact it. Beyond the obvious frustration of having tried to get pregnant "the old-fashioned way" for the prescribed 6 months to a year before seeking treatment, I was surprised at the depth and variety of ways fertility treatment impacted my marriage.
 |
| Our family with the doc who made it happen. |
1) FINANCIALLY
Obviously, or maybe not if you haven't been there, fertility treatment is crazy pants expensive and it can range quite a bit depending on your location, insurance coverage, etc. For us, we started treatment in a West Texas town with not many options for hundreds of miles around. As a result, the treatments we did receive were on average 1.75 times more expensive than they have been for us here in Utah where there are several clinics within 25 miles that offer fertility services. Most insurance companies will only cover very minimal diagnostic procedures (i.e. an ultrasound here or there), but your more comprehensive blood work, extensive ultrasounds and tube tests, semen analyses, etc are often not covered at all and these will typically run between a few hundred dollars to even more than a thousand per procedure. This is all before you even THINK about starting treatment or the accompanying medications - which, as with the tests, are nearly never covered by insurance. Be prepared to shell out between $50 (clomid, for me) - $5,000 (IVF meds, for me) depending on what your treatment protocol is. The more invasive treatments - intrauterine insemination and in vitro fertilization - can run you between $3,000 (in addition to meds) - $20,000 per cycle. PER CYCLE.
This can come with some pretty nasty sticker shock especially if you have not spent a lot of time researching. (My husband went pale as a ghost when he signed the check for our IVF). There are many options for payment. In some cases, you may be eligible for a grant or study that offsets some of the cost. Other options include several ways to finance treatments (which I personally don't recommend) or cash pay. Our preferred method was cash pay - this way, depending on the outcome of the treatment, you are not left with monthly reminder of a failed cycle that you're still paying for.
We went an average of 5 months between treatments so that we could save up the cash to pay up front. While it was frustrating to feel like we were stagnating in those in-between stretches, it was much better for us mentally and financially to have the peace of mind knowing we would be free to move forward as needed no matter which way it went.
To do this, we both worked hard and A LOT. For two years, we saw each other on Sundays and that was about it. Jeff traveled ALL. THE. TIME. for work, and I worked most holidays, every Saturday, and traveled a fair bit myself. While it was tough at times to be separated so much, it was actually a really nice outlet to have something to keep ourselves so occupied with and a blessing to be able to pay for our treatment each time.
 |
| Our FIRST positive pregnancy tests after nearly 3 years. |
2) TAKE A BREAK
I'm just going to put it out there that UNLESS you are some kind of unicorn, most women can not make it through being hormonally manipulated to unnatural levels even-keeled and unscathed. You will cry - even if you're not a crier. You will be angry at EVERYTHING FOR NO REASON. You will be bloated and pregnant-looking but not, which sucks big time. You'll be stressed - there's a whole lot of pressure on your body to perform when it literally has never before be cause you KNOW how much money and faith is riding on it and that's tough. Add to it all the physical side effects that come with your meds - which can make you sick, give you migraines, among other awesome things - it's a lot to deal with. A lot. So you're gonna be crazy.
This is hard on the menfolk who, though they may be aware of what you're taking and even help administer the injections if you can't, don't get to feel what you're feeling. It was so helpful for us to have Jeff be able to come to as many appointments as possible so he could be involved, hear feedback from the doctor, and have a better idea of what actually went into the procedure on my end. He definitely helped administer the shots until I had the confidence to do it myself, and would stand over my shoulder and make sure I drew out the right dosages after that.
Given all of this, it's not uncommon to feel a little off, out-of-sync, and have more arguments than you can count - which can wreak havoc on your relationship if you're not mindful. I think the biggest one we ever had happened the day Jeff went in for his semen analysis and I was so mad at him that I stayed at work forEVER after the day ended and didn't talk to him for hours after I got home. This is the kind of crazy I'm talking about.
The BEST thing we did was to take a break and go on vacation. After lots of tests, a failed IUI, and another one on the books, we were drained mentally, physically, and emotionally and looked at each other one day and said, "We need to get outta here." That was it. We booked a 7-day cruise, left our phones off the whole time, and spent an entire week just having fun together. We came back refreshed and ready to take on the world again.
3) BE ON THE SAME PAGE
We had more conversations than I care to remember about our individual levels of commitment and at which point we would need to be done with treatment. Most of these happened late at night and would result in one or the other of us feeling angry and misunderstood. I don't know if there's a good fix for this, but my best advice is to keep communicating and keep trying. When something feels right or not, you'll both know and it's easier for that to happen if you're both involved. While more extensive than the other procedures we did, the IVF cycle was by far the easiest in part because Jeff was able to be present and involved more than he ever had before.
 |
| Our little embryo-that-could with a picture of his embryo self. |
4) GIVE EACH OTHER GRACE
I think this is the biggest. No matter who's got the issues - and there's 1/3 chance it's the woman, 1/3 chance the man, and 1/3 that it's both of you - it's hard on you both. Love each other, know that you each have the best intentions at heart and at times are hurting more than you're able to communicate, and have the assurance that you'll make it through this season of life one way or another.
On a positive note, on the other side in the sense that we have a child and another on the way, I can look back and see how this trial blessed our marriage. It's very empowering to have a common goal to work towards and it can unite you in a way that you'd never experience if everything was going swimmingly. We're also much more patient parents because of it, and we both cherish parenthood more than we would have otherwise.
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