The hubby and I were doing the taxes last night in anticipation of not really having any time as it gets closer to tax day. We got to the category marked medical expenses and we pulled out the file of receipts that I had been saving.
Holy smokes Batman! Lets say I was a little anal in keeping every clinic, acupuncture and pharmacy receipt. We ended up with quite a bulky file.
While the added amount of what we accumulated in out of pocket infertility costs is a little disturbing we had a good laugh about it. I'm not done with the tally yet but my non-infertility medical costs were about $300 for teeth cleaning, glasses, contacts and a couple acne gels, my husband spent a whopping $189. Kiddo took over 20K just to get her there (and that was just 6 months of 2011 not counting the 2010 cycles.)
We laughed at the pile of receipts from each ultrasound visit and the fact that as we were inputting the dates into a spreadsheet that often they would only be a day or two apart. We laughed at the mail-order pharmacy receipts for each shipment of follistim and laughed harder when we found the $5 copay for the pre-cycle birth control pills (which was the one drug my insurance covered).
It feels good to laugh about it now because we certainly weren't then. We were both working extra shifts to try to make up for a fraction of it, but it was a bit of a tight time with no end in sight and certainly no guarantee of results.
I am the type of person who clips coupons and doesn't buy things unless I need them. I bought most of my maternity clothes at garage sales and I have sewn quite a bit of things for the baby because I see something that costs more than I can make it for. All of these things I do save pennies compared to what we spent on infertility but I can't say that I regret it at all.
Sure I regret that we had to go through it, but I regret the pain it caused, the tears we shed and the stress it inflicted. They say that money can't buy happiness, but this may be an example of where it actually can and did, although I also know how lucky we are.
I have one of those big ole bulky files too. I am sure our accountant is shaking her head over all the money we spent on fertility treatments. But, like you, now that I have achieved pregnancy and hopefully a healthy baby in 3 months, think it was money well spent - you can't put a price tag on having a child. My husband was better about releasing all the financial stress of fertility treatments. All I can say is phew! I am glad that that part is over!
ReplyDeleteLove this post! Kind of reminds me of the MasterCard commercials where it goes over the cst f everything and in the end it is priceless - just like your little girl. :)
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