Chrissy & Lee's Journey ($25,000)

Our journey is what sparked this website! Our out of pocket costs were $25,000 including IVF. Here's how we did it!

As I always tell everyone, being informed is your best chance at being able to afford surrogacy. I am a researcher by nature, if research and details aren't your thing it will be difficult to save money while having a beautiful journey without incident. (not impossible! just more difficult.)

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Our expense total was: $34,584.16
Breakdown:

• IVF/Medical= $10,000
• GC Compensations/expenses/PTO reimbursement= $12,000
• Lawyers/contracts/PBO=$6,000
• Misc= $6,500

We received $10,000 in the forms of a grant and donations, so our actual out of pocket expenses were $24,584.16.

Here's how we afforded surrogacy:

• Health Insurance for IVF: We live in Maryland one of the few states with an insurance coverage mandate for infertility treatments. BUT both my and my husband's employers are exempt from that mandate. 

• Try to run things through insurance anyway: My RE is also my regular gyn, and happens to be a surgeon and specialist in my condition (MRKH). I've been seeing her for years, have had surgery with her, etc. She is with John Hopkins and I believe (no proof) that being within a hospital practice more items were covered by my insurance then they would have been with a stand alone IVF clinic.  Things like monitoring ultrasounds, bloodwork, and anesthesia for the retrieval were all covered by my insurance. Some of the medication costs were also covered by my insurance. The embryologist and transfer were not covered. 

• HSA Account:  We utilized an HSA account for our Qualified High Deductible Health insurance plan, this is money we prepaid (tax free) into an account that we could then use to pay for medical expense.

• IVF Medications & Pharmacies: I used a pharmacy in Israel because after researching they were the best prices I could find. I only got medicine that didn't need to be kept cool, so there were a few things I purchased locally. 

• IVF Grants: We were lucky enough to be award a $5,000 Family Building Grant from the Cade Foundation.  

• Natural Cycle Embryo transfer: Our clinic allowed us to do a somewhat natural embryo transfer (no suppression of our GC's cycle, we did use progesterone to support the pregnancy after transfer) since she is married to a women, there was no risk of pregnancy. This helped us save money on extra medications and possible complications from the medications. 

• 401K loan: We took out $10,000 loan from our 401k. We were comfortable with the risk.

• Ask Friends and Family for donation: We were very open with our journey and posted on facebook about how much money it was costing us. By doing so we had people donate money through an online portal which totaled $5,000!

• Have a friend or family member be your surrogate: We were very lucky that a friend of a friend offered to be our surrogate. We did pay her in addition to reimbursements, but it was FAR LESS than finding someone independently or through an agency.

• Going Independent:  Since we had a GC lined up, and I'm a details person anyway, we did not see the need for an agency, so we went "indy"

• Surrogate's health insurance: Our surrogate's health insurance was AMAZING! we were able to get in writing that they cover a surrogate pregnancy, and she has $0 deductible or copays for prenatal care and delivery. So it was an amazing savings for us! 

• Surrogate with family & friends nearby: Our surrogate has an extensive network of family and friends very close, we did not have to reimburse for any daycare costs for her child, as her family/friends were able to watch him during transfer and delivery, and he was in daycare during the week as usual, so for appointments there was no reimbursement for him to attend.
• Surrogate Local to you: Our surrogate lived about an hour away from us. This allowed us to attend all of the doctors appointments without having to take much time off work, or have any travel/hotel expenses. It also allowed us to work up until she started labor.
• Use of an Escrow Company: Since we went Indy and our state does not require an escrow, we use a savings account instead, we showed her and her lawyer bank statements during the contract phase showing we had sufficient funds and linked her account to it so we could easily transfer money when needed. 
• Contracts: I did attempt to draft a version of our contracts on my own. While this is not advisable in most states (including mine/Maryland), and I did end up retaining a lawyer to draft our actual contract (our RE requires a lawyer), what it did do is educate me and our surrogate on what should be in your contract. We negotiated all aspects of the contract before any lawyers were retained. This was possible because we were friends, and were able to communicate respectfully with each other, and we knew we were all on the same page from the very beginning. This helped cut down on lawyer fees since there was no back and forth negotiating or redrafting at all. This can be uncomfortable for some people especially if you "hired" a surrogate. Even if you do retain a lawyer I HIGHLY recommend doing your own research or asking other IPs for what "special clauses" they put in their contracts or any issues they came across. 
• Delay embryo transfer: We did delay on purpose, but we went ahead with an IVF retrieval with no surrogate lined up since we had the Cade grant that needed to be used during 2014. I am happy we did do the retrieval before going through anything surrogacy though because it allowed us to focus on one thing at a time. Make sure we had embryos to work with before spending money on a surrogate's clearance, etc.

None of the money saving tips we used/listed above caused any issues, or difficulties because of them. They had no negative impact on our outcome or experience. To be honest we had an AMAZING surrogacy journey. Zero drama, heartache, stress, or delays. We know that's not the case for everyone, but we are proof that you can have an amazing AFFORDABLE surrogacy journey. Read more about Bram's journey and birth story at our personal blog here.