23rd May 2014 | by MFC Team
Taking out a loan to build our family
Chad and I have been married for 7 years. We recently had our 35th birthdays. We have been trying to get pregnant for the last 5 years and are pretty desperate to have a baby before we’re too old. After having two first trimester miscarriages, our family doctor referred us to the local fertility clinic. After having a raft of fertility tests done, the doctor said that given our ages, our best option is IVF. When we asked how much that will cost, we were floored to learn that with all the medications, one round of IVF is about $12,000! She said some of the medications might be covered if we have an extended health insurance plan, which unfortunately we don’t have. She also said that if the cycle goes well and they get enough eggs, they could freeze any extra embryos so that we can try again if the first cycle doesn’t work, or try to increase our family size if we’re lucky enough to have a baby from doing IVF.
After finding out how expensive IVF is, we told the doctor that we needed to give it some thought. We came home and crunched the numbers. It didn’t look good. Chad and I both work full time – I’m a supervisor at a local restaurant, and Chad works in construction – but we live in an expensive city. After paying for food and rent and all our expenses, there isn’t much left at the end of the month. We try to keep our expenses down by not owning a car, but we only have about $2,000 in savings – $10,000 short of what we’ll need if we want to do IVF. Chad lost both of his parents when he was young and my parents aren’t in a financial position to help us out. Things were looking pretty bleak, and I was beginning to give up hope when Chad suggested we take out a loan to pay for IVF. So we met with the loans manager at our local credit union. We were both nervous because the stakes are so high. Fortunately, the loans manager was really helpful and said that he could set up a line of credit for $10,000. We were so relieved.
Even though it’s costly, we decided that we’re going to do IVF. We don’t know if this cycle will work, but at least we will have tried and won’t have regrets later. However long it takes to pay off our line of credit, it’s worth the peace of mind of having tried.
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