Hearing the words, infertile, severe abnormalities, and specialist come out of a Dr.’s mouth can be scary for many reasons. Emotionally these words lead to a terrifying journey and one that I have learned involves growth, fear, extreme highs and lows, and submission to a complete lack of control...which brings on a whole new level of fear.

Financially...the journey is about the same. When Michael and I first learned that we are “fertility challenged” it felt like emotions that we never knew existed were shot out at us with the force of a close range cannon. One of these emotions involved our feelings of helplessness towards the financial aspect of dealing with the costs of this “new home” we call the fertility clinic. At this “new home”, we are given the opportunity to see our dreams of becoming parents devastatingly shattered, or beautifully come to life. Regardless of what path our dream takes, getting to this path requires heavy amounts of finances... finances that we do not have.

Luckily for us, we have been blessed with lessons along the way to help make this infertility epidemic that plagues our life, less of a door closed because of a lack of finances, and more of a tool to widen our path the will one day lead us…hopefully...to a child of our own.

1. The biggest lesson we have learned is get involved with a study. Search them out, ask your doctor about them at your first consultation, scour through virtual chat rooms for others who are involved in them. Every bit of time you put into this will be worth it. Michael and I have been accepted into a study that is bringing our $20,000 Invitro Fertilization bill, down to a $1500 - $3000 bill. Like I was saying, the time looking into this and the extra Dr. appointments for the study, are well worth it!!

2. Another huge lesson we have learned comes in handy with the many prescriptions that are fed into my unassuming body at a price comparable to several very expensive bottles of wine. I would much rather have the wine...but that is not an option. So, we have learned how to lower this cost so that we can use that money on other things we enjoy, like wine, shoes, clothes, or even those important things like food, electricity and water.

• ·Ask your doctor for generic. MANY infertility specialists do not like doing this, but, if you ask, they can review your chart to see if they are comfortable with this for your individual situation.

• If you have insurance, when at the pharmacy ask the pharmacist to charge you for each pill individually instead of your insurance co-pay. I just got back from the pharmacy, where my co-pay is $40, the price of the pills was $2.22. I was so excited I almost ran to the shoe department right then and there to spend my 37.78!

3. Instead of spending $40 a month or more on the prescription pre-natal vitamins that they “require” you to take, go to Target or any other grocery/drug store. Buy the generic pre-natal vitamins that will last over a year, and then buy a supplement of Folic Acid. My nurse informed me that if a person is getting 1000 MG of Folic Acid then they are meeting the requirement that is desired to be met with the expensive pre-natal vitamins.

4. Don’t forget that all of your medical bills are a tax right off! Keep track and submit them all!!!

These are all lessons learned the hard way. Luckily though we learned them and the money we are saving is helping to keep our credit card bills low and our spirits up. And every now and then, we feel so good, we spend a bit of the money we are saving, and celebrate with our beloved bottle of wine...the cheap kind of course.