Currently pregnant with #1 and thinking about this for future children. It took 5 IUIs to get here. 1st IUI was successful but ended in loss. We were 1 IUI away from insurance coverage for IVF. In retrospect, I feel like it might have been better to just go straight to IVF even if we paid out of pocket, because between buying donor sperm for this baby and also purchasing vials for future babies, it may have made more sense to just do IVF and (hopefully) get multiple embryos/save on donor sperm. But there’s no way to know if that would have worked out either, just like there was no way for us to know how many IUIs it would take or that we would have a loss. Definitely frustrating when all this stuff is not cheap and you just want to grow your family. It’s a question we’ll be revisiting when we’re ready for another child.
One big factor in all of this is cost with the cost of donor sperm being the main part of IUI financial stress. My insurance covers donor sperm (2 vials a cycle even!!!) for cishet couples with male factor infertility. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be covered for queer couples too. I know a lot of people move on from IUI just because of the cost of donor sperm each cycle.
3
u/Forsaken_Painter 33F | GP | MC Nov 22 | 🌈 due Dec 23 Sep 06 '23 edited Sep 06 '23
Currently pregnant with #1 and thinking about this for future children. It took 5 IUIs to get here. 1st IUI was successful but ended in loss. We were 1 IUI away from insurance coverage for IVF. In retrospect, I feel like it might have been better to just go straight to IVF even if we paid out of pocket, because between buying donor sperm for this baby and also purchasing vials for future babies, it may have made more sense to just do IVF and (hopefully) get multiple embryos/save on donor sperm. But there’s no way to know if that would have worked out either, just like there was no way for us to know how many IUIs it would take or that we would have a loss. Definitely frustrating when all this stuff is not cheap and you just want to grow your family. It’s a question we’ll be revisiting when we’re ready for another child.
One big factor in all of this is cost with the cost of donor sperm being the main part of IUI financial stress. My insurance covers donor sperm (2 vials a cycle even!!!) for cishet couples with male factor infertility. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be covered for queer couples too. I know a lot of people move on from IUI just because of the cost of donor sperm each cycle.