Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The dollars and $ense of MY family’s creation

So, I'm a little late to this party, but that's typical. This post, inspired by the blog hop at Write Mind, Open Heart, addresses the costs of building my family.

We are in the enviable position of having insurance coverage, having issues that could be discovered and addressed, and being extremely frugal. So, while we hate to spend any money on anything, the costs of building our family seemed very much worth it to us...until they didn't tell us anything or didn't work.

I don't have any idea of what our family building efforts cost, but most of it was testing and medication copays. Some of the testing was not covered by insurance, and it amounted to a few hundred dollars. All of the medication had copays, so I would estimate those costs at around $500. The unfortunate/fortunate thing was that all the testing I had to pay for revealed nothing. The testing covered by my insurance gave my full story...but that couldn't be taken for granted.

If my child were to ask me how much she cost, I'd tell her I didn't know...but whatever it was wouldn't match her value. No matter how many times a day her father threatens to sell her on eBay. And then I might tell her that I wish I'd been able to pay whatever emotional cost it took to provide her with a sibling. I do have a file of most of that information, but I've never actually reviewed all of the data.

In some ways, our finances did determine the extent of our family building efforts. Because we are older parents and savers, we had enough resources to say that our secondary infertility was something we could throw money at to see if we could solve it. We did not succeed, and while we could try again, the emotional cost far outweighs the monetary cost.

Going outside the country would not solve the problem that I'm old and my eggs are...past their sell-by date. Spending more money wouldn't help that either.

All in all, we have been extremely lucky to not have money be our main consideration in our family planning efforts. We were more focused on finding the problem and finding a solution.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for participating!

    Hopefully if your daughter questions being an only child later, she'll be able to appreciate that you made a choice to save the emotional cost and give her happier parents.

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  2. Literally, I lolled at this:

    "No matter how many times a day her father threatens to sell her on eBay."

    Like you, emotional costs turned out to be more the deciding factor than financial concerns.

    So glad you posted on this. And you're DAYS ahead of the deadline!

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  3. YOu are right. Valuing your child based on how much it cost to conceive is the equivalent of valuing a Picasso on the cost of the canvas and paints.

    Not that I am implying that your daughter has an eye the size of her left foot and a breast on her left arm.

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  4. Kids are priceless. And pricey.

    My aunt and uncle moved from Japan to Boston just to try fertility treatments here in the US. It left them financially strapped and I'm sad to say, after many, many years, they returned to Japan without a baby. It took a financial toll, but I can see even now, it left a huge emotional dent.

    I wish they had come to a peaceful decision, but eventually, they stopped not because of the emotional toil but because they could not afford to continue.

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  5. Yes, some things are worth more than others.

    We didn't actually pay anything to conceive but the lead-up to getting my body working right and the actual pregnancies have been costly and not always especially fruitful.

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  6. Beautiful post and the emotional toll exacts a heavy price, truly.

    Please let me know if you list your daughter on E.BAY when she hits puberty, that might be an option for my sons NOW!!!
    Maybe they want to list their perimenopausal crazy mother?? Hmmm.
    Thanks for the sweet words as always, AYKM, ((HUGS)) to you and your family.

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  7. I loved this answer so so much: "If my child were to ask me how much she cost, I'd tell her I didn't know...but whatever it was wouldn't match her value."

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  8. Love the post.

    And I was smiling broadly about the eBay statement.

    Money hasn't be our prime consideration either.

    I do not know if you do awards, but in case you do, there is something there for you on my blog...

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  9. Why haven't I clicked on your "a" sooner and found your blog?! Or have I, and then promptly forgotten? I'm an idiot that way.

    I so get this post. I, too, have savings and insurance and had to pay relatively little for all the testing and procedures and what not. However, the emotional cost... omg, that is a big one. I think that unless people have gone through it, they cannot even begin to fathom what that is like. Everyone always talks about the financial costs of IF, but if they only knew...

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