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We had our official consultation with the fertility specialist on Friday. It went really well, she didnt tell us anything we didnt already know, but she did say it. And she explained the whole situation with the endometriosis, what it is doing to my insides, and what are options are. I feel really educated, and I like our doc.
What she said:
Our only option is IVF if we want to get pregnant. I am kind of ok with it, most days. I pretty much knew this before, but now I know why. We also went through the whole process of IVF with her explaining every stage in detail. That was awesome. I am so amazed at the way God designed our bodies. We told her that we believed that life was at conception and that we needed to be able to protect that life at every stage. She said that they were willing to work with us and our stipulations. I dont think she necessarily agreed with us, but respected our beliefs. I appreciated that.
So now we have to decide. The major factor for us is protecting the life and feeling comfortable with the proceedure. The other big factor is the money. We will have to save or raise up the money, we could take out a loan, but we have to make sure we can pay the payments.
I would love to hear some creative ways that yall raised, barrowed, penny pinched, sold plasma, whatever you did to get the money.
I think I am going to start with a bake sale!
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9 years ago
4 comments:
We've been raising money for our IVF. But, honestly, the fundraising isn't making enough money to support the IVF alone. We make saving from our income a priority, but also stay focused on raising as much money as possible!!
We had a yard sale in May & are having another one in Sep. The 1st one, we used our stuff that we needed to get rid of & made $400 (minus gas for a borrowed truck= $350 put into our fertility fund). For this one, we started asking for donations in June. We have been storing them since then. My goal is $500, but I truly think we will surpass that (praise God). You would be surprised how much you can get by sharing your story & asking for donations. Even furniture!
We also sold a ton of stuff on Craigslist. In fact, we got so many clothes for the yard sale... I put an ad on craigslist & starting selling the clothes @ 50cents each. And I've already made $152 in like 1.5 wks. We also did a TupperWare fundraiser. Not too much, but every bit helps. If you really outreached with the TWare, you could raise several hundred dollars.
And God has provided so much that we wouldn't have expected. Like a small check from a church member, an extra check from our insurance, OT opportunities @ work, etc etc.
We decided after recently getting our of debt, that we didn't want to get into debt for IVF. For two reasons... we didn't want to go back into & we didn't want a monthly (payment) reminder that the procedure didn't work (if it was not a BFP). Talk about adding to the pain.
So, we've been busting our humps. Some other ideas I will pursue if we need to raise money for another IVF or adoption:
** s'ghetti dinner @ church or house with set price or donations
** v'ball or frisbee golf tournament with participation fees
** raffle w/ donated items from friends, families, or businesses
** Temp or seasonal work on nights/weekends
** Yard service business (we have a riding lawn mower & hubby could edge), not like ongoing, but hit up a neighborhood one day & mow as many as possible. Over & over again.
Feel free to contact me. I'm excited about the opportunities God has given us, although it is rough.
We are also struggling with the embryo status. Our RE has a research program to freeze eggs, but the success rates are so low & the cost so high. Also, the PN or Day1 or Day3 or Day5 embryos are very much prayed about. Since blasts really give the embryos the highest chance of survival, I think we may end with that choice... but we are very much praying & open to His will.
Very happy you found an understand, non-pushy RE. I know it's hard!
Thank you for your question on my blog, I'm still working on answering, so stay tuned:-)
As far as fund-raising...We did a bake sale and raised about $400. I had friends bake and donate it. We made posters and posted the info on myspace. I set it up at my church on a Saturday, and then sold the rest after church the following Sunday.
We also sold bbq ribs. My dh is awesome at bbq and does contests, so ppl know about it. We did it as a last minute thing, and ended up raising about $600. DH and 2 of our guy friends grilled and then delivered it to everyone. We charged $17 per rack. As a side note, there was a lot of pos. feedback and it spread word of mouth that we're planning on doing another one in October and hoping to make it a bigger ordeal.
Aside from fund-raisers, we also took out an FSA loan at my work (flexible spending account). Don't know if you know about it or if you have access to one, but you can choose to take out a loan up to $5000, and every mth a certain amount of money is taken from your paycheck to pay it back. You have it for a year, so the only problem is that if you haven't used it all by the end of the year, it's just gone. Then again, it doesn't take long for it to disappear when it comes to treatments.
We've also talked about a yard sale...not only with our "stuff" but having others donate items for the sale.
I made a jar at a pottery place here in town and decorated it as the "Baby Fund." I have it on a lamp stand and we put our extra change in there when we pass by it.
DH also does some side jobs like putting in lights on vehicles (for guys at the fire department), along with bbq contests and the wins go towards the fund (he recently won $300 for 3rd place).
I'm looking fwd to seeing other's ideas too!
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
garage sales are good.
We have several friends who used IVF to conceive and are currently up to $60,000 in debt and they all say the same thing: "It's worth it".
Alicia
I don't know much about it, but I read somewhere once about loans for infertility treatments and that you only have to pay back a % if the treatment is unsuccessful. You might want to try andlook into it.
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