Infertility treatment became my Las Vegas craps table. Even with a less than 9 percent chance of a pregnancy, I kept gambling that I would win. The pay off was high because I would walk away with my much wanted baby. Each attempt featured a slight modification that might at last guarantee success-a change in medication, protocol or even doctors. Other women I met in the hospital were just as desperate. Credit cards were maxed out and second mortgages were obtained. Each IVF trial cost ten thousand dollars or more. Most insurance companies do not cover IVF. I had a fantasy that my infertile sisterhood would meet next in New York’s Penn Station, homeless and dressed in tatters. We all would have gone broke from spending our last dollar on IVF. If we had lived in Massachusetts, where IVF treatments are covered, we would have been in better financial shape. One New Yorker even faces the possibility of jail time. She absconded with almost $100,000 from the PTA in order to pay for her infertility treatments and birth a second child. After five failed IVF attempts, I finally had to cease and desist from using my own eggs. As the doctor originally recommended, I would try donor egg with an increased probability of pregnancy.
