The Baby-Making Business
“Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income.” — Dave Barry
As mentioned before, Jeanine and I want to have children… or at a minimum a child. We’re on our fifth try this year with the artificial insemination process. I promised Jeanine that I wouldn’t reveal too many personal things about this experience out of respect for her privacy.
I have written a few posts on this topic found at Donor XY and Baby Race. If you’re interested, here is a link to other fertility stories. It shows what extraordinary lengths people will travel in order to conceive. As active participants, we’re beginning to understand the emotional toll.
I did ask her if I could post about it in terms of money. Money is actually the easy part. I can tell you this; we’ve never spent $8,000 so fast and with such little concern about where it’s going as with this experience. To be honest, I had to ask Jeanine to add it all up the other day because I said I wanted to write about it and didn’t have any idea about our expenditures to date. There’s a part of me that really doesn’t want to know. I know that’s so un-Suze Orman of me.
So far, the charges were for sperm, sperm washing, doctor visits, tests and lab expenses, and now we’re using a fertility specialist with the high cost of fertility treatments. We planned a certain amount this year in our budget… thinking that we might need to use about $25,000 from savings. If we graduate to in vitro fertilization, then we’ll soon need to revise the budget. This runs about $10,000 – $12,000 a try. I had no idea. Believe me.
Women and couples can spend $50,000 trying to get pregnant without even batting an eye. This is like spending money for the kid’s first year of college before he or she even sees the light of day. But we want a child and for some reason the dollars spent seem irrelevant in the big scheme of things.
I saw this quote on the plane last night in the American Way magazine. Mark McClanahan, a financial planner, wrote, “Rich people plan for generations; poor people plan for Saturday night.” We’re all about planning for generations and hope that parenthood will enrich us in more ways than one.
I knew it was expensive, but never realized just how much. I need to sit down when I read those figures. Of course adoption isn’t a trip to the 5 and 10 store either from what I’ve been reading.
Of course, you can’t put a price on love and family.
What boggles my mind is — how anyone could think gays and lesbians shouldn’t and won’t be good parents. If you can make it through this process, then the child is TRULY wanted. Not always the case in some straight marriages either because getting pregnant was a surprise (oops, honey…) or because they feel they “should” have children.
Best of luck to you two!
WoW! That takes a toll on your wallet! My partner and I are thinking about asking her brother, to turkey baste it with me. It’s cheaper, and the kid would have similar features as my girlfriend and I, because her brother looks identical to her.
I wish you two luck! It must be a trying process, but hopefully you’ll have a bundle of joy in no time!
God bless!
Check your medical insurance policies- once a year of trying has passed, Jeanine may actually qualify for “infertility treatments” as strange as that sounds. Some of the costs once this happens may be absorbed by the contract benefits. I know this as I work at an insurance company and we frequently have to review cases as to when couples like you meet criteria and when our responsibility towards treatment kicks in…
I’m hoping that somehow you guys are lucky and get a break, because we’ve seen friends go through money like water in the pursuit of parenting. Again- it all depends on the medical insurance contract verbiage, exclusions to coverage, whether or not your home state has mandated infertility coverage, etc.
Hey Nina,
As the son of two moms, all I can say is GO FOR IT!!
Best,
James