If we pay in cash... $7200 for IVF, $1400 for ICSI, not including drugs. We can stretch to meet these costs, but will be more in debt as a result. We have the option to submit to insurance, which I think will cover up to $2500, but then the clinic may charge more. Or less. Our whacked out health care system at work. The fact that medical procedures have variable costs whether you pay or your insurance pays is incomprehensible.
Is it worth it? I think so... but I sometimes wonder if my reasons are too selfish, and if I'm defying natural order by going down this path.
I'm Catholic, and the church's official position is that IVF is immoral. In a statement made by the US Council of Catholic Bishops, they reason it is immoral because
"The new life is not engendered through an act of love between husband and wife, but by a laboratory procedure performed by doctors or technicians."
On one hand, I can take a step back and see their technical point.
HOWEVER, they have not gone through infertility, nor have they felt how severely it tests your love and your relationship. I am more apt to argue that going through IVF requires a disproportionate act of love between a husband and wife. Without love for my husband, would I be willing to subject myself to invasive procedures, drugs and injections that will undoubtedly make me a hormonal freak? Without love for me, would my husband be able to summon the strength to go through this?
Maybe I am naive, but I think that while it requires a laboratory procedure performed by doctors, that the lives created are sometimes more respected than those conceived through traditional lovemaking because they are so precious to those involved. When I think of the embryos that will be created for me, it reminds me of the first time I drove with my baby nephew in the car. I was overly careful. Didn't go over 30 miles an hour. Kept glancing back at him to make sure he was secure. My hope is that the doctors & technicians treat me and mine with a similar level of care and respect.
And doesn't God still play a part? The embryos have to implant. A lot has to happen after the doctors put them inside of me. Couldn't God interject if he thought it was a bad idea?
Maybe I'm justifying this so I feel better. Maybe it really is OK.
On Thursday, during a discussion with a friend who works with women placing children for adoption, she said, "My hope is that whatever decision the women come to, that when it is done, they can wake up in the morning and feel it was the best decision they could have made." Thats all I want for myself.
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