Meghann & Brian Palouian ($15,000)

Meghann & Brian Palouian live in Pennsylvania and were diagnosed with PCOS, low sperm count, and a septate uterus. After 3 surgeries to try to correct the abnormalities they turned to surrogacy.   

After one successful double embryo transfer their daughter was born in August 2017.
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Amazingly they were able to spend around $15,000 total for their IVF and surrogacy journey. 

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How they afforded surrogacy:​

​Find out what your health insurance covers: Meghann’s health insurance covers 90% of IVF so anything to do with HER or the embryos was covered. 

​Choosing your IVF Clinic: They shopped around and decided to go across state lines to Cooper Institute in New Jersey, because it was the cheapest in the area with their IVF packages being about half of all the other local clinics.

Find an altruistic or reduced compensation surrogate: Meghann’s sister offered to be their carrier, and she is not getting compensation. They are reimbursing her for any expenses. 

​Find a surrogate with her own health insurance, without a surrogacy exclusion: Thankfully Meghann’s sisters insurance is "surrogate friendly" and covered the pregnancy, they did have to pay her deductible ($2,000). 

Infertility Financing Programs & Loans: They took a loan with Patient Solution’s LendingClub and used credit cards when needed. They were also able to use their tax return refunds to offset any expenses.

Pro bono or Reduced Fee Services: For the required psychological evaluations they used a member of their church that is a licensed psychologist, and she provided the evaluations pro bono.
They also shopped around for a lawyer to find the cheapest one in their area.