Unforeseen costs can add up if you have trouble getting pregnant

Most people save for a wedding, a house, and for retirement, but are you saving in case you can’t get pregnant?

With more people waiting longer to settle down an increasing number of couples find they’re having trouble getting pregnant without medical intervention.

Once couples start seeking out information, many are hit with sticker shock of the huge financial costs of fertility treatments. Procedures that oftentimes are a gamble.

At 42 years old, Bernadette Woodson didn’t know if starting a family would be an option.

That’s where faith and fertility treatments played a bigger role for Woodson, “In our hearts, we had faith it was going to work.”

“[We were] apprehensive. Should we go ahead and do this, should we not do it? But we knew if we never did it, we would never know if it could work or not, so we had to give it a chance,” Woodson said.

And soon, the pitter patter of little feet… Six to be exact, “My husband mimics it very well. He says that my jaw dropped, just didn’t know what to else say.”

Triplets.

A happy ending for a couple where the odds, were stacked against them.

That gamble… you never know if it’ll work, or how many kids you’ll end up with, “Put a coin in a slot machine, pull the lever and see what’s going to happen.”

But those treatments came with a big price tag and low odds.

$20,000 for a one time shot with a 15 percent chance of success.

Fertility treatments can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars up to $50,000. And new statistics show more women are playing the odds.

According to the CDC, for the second year, more women in their 30’s not 20’s had kids for the first time in 2017.

The only age group where birth rates went up is women between the ages of 40 – 44.

Dr. Jacob Glock, Medical Director of Southwest Florida Fertility Center says the age factor is really important, “The biological clock is a very real and a woman can be perfectly healthy, have a strong family history of reproduction, but if she starts to get close to age 40, all bets are off.”

Dr. Glock says, in Southwest Florida, business is booming, “We’re as busy as we’ve ever been in Fort Myers and I’ve been here 24 years.”

But not everyone is as lucky as the Woodsons.

Treatments aren’t guaranteed, leaving around half of those who attempt treatments, unsuccessful. And one of the biggest factors standing in the way is age, “A woman can be perfectly healthy, have a strong family history of reproduction but if she starts to get close to age 40, all bets are off,” Dr. Glock explains.

But for the Woodsons, the risk paid out — they hit jackpot.

Some local employers cover fertility treatments, so check your insurance policy. And many doctor’s offices do offer financing options.

Because women are waiting longer to get pregnant, some turn to freezing their eggs. The cost for this procedure can also add up.

Cost of freezing eggs

• Medications and initial procedure: $8,000-$10,000
• Storage: $300-$400 annually
• Final Procedures: $5,000-$7,000