Our IVF clinic has a publicly available price sheet[0] so that is correct (thought he prices are higher now): $75k total for us. My wife and I are relatively old. Friends who were approximately 10 years younger collected some 50 eggs on a single cycle. There is a drop-off in egg -> embryo but the women with the 50 eggs are likely going to end up with more usable embryos than us.

Insurance coverage is broader now. When we did it, we used cash pay but nowadays where we live in California there is SB 729 that means most big insurance plans will cover IVF. Personally, I think that's a bit regressive. Older, more established couples like us are benefiting from what will be primarily paid into by younger couples. But if pre-implantation testing becomes widespread (a good thing, imho) then IVF will be more widespread so perhaps this is a forward-looking policy. Still, expanding the child tax credit and raising it to 10x what it is would be good, I think.

0: https://springfertility.com/finance/

I went through this with my partner and it cost around CAD $30K all-in. Thankfully it was 100% covered by insurance (for the drugs) and by a provincial program (for the procedure).

The drugs for stimulating follicle growth cost around $500/day and the first cycle didn't result in enough mature follicles to be worth attempting the egg harvesting. In the second attempt, the duration was extended after a scan to let more develop. Every extra day, is an another $500.

If it weren't for the government program we were seriously looking at going to one of the many clinics in Mexico offering these services.

We weren't so lucky with the numbers though; here's significant attrition at every step and if you aren't starting with a good number it can look like: 5 follicles > 4 mature eggs > 2 embryos > 1 child

Didn't read that account but I went through it with wife. The egg collecting / embryo creating process is the expensive part, so depends on how many times you have to do that process. The re-implantation was significantly cheaper, so also depends on how many times you have to do that part but at least its less costly.

We ended up doing 1 extraction and 2 implantations. If I remember it was roughly ($15k-20k) then (~$5k * 2). This was about 8-9 years ago. We had no fertility issues and had other reasons for doing IVF, but if you do have fertility issues it's more risk the extraction and embryo process will fail and need repeating.

This is a common question we get. I will ask her again and add it there, but she described:

* feeling bloated during the process (and feeling heavy in the stomach)

* the discomfort of the actual injections (there are two daily)

* pain post-retrieval that was reminiscent of cramps

One of our other friends who had many eggs retrieved on a single cycle actually got ovarian torsion which is supposed to be outrageously painful.

I've been through six egg retrievals. I've probably been lucky in the the physical effects weren't bad for me (but I've had/have endometriosis so I'm pretty used to just dealing with pain and discomfort). The emotional effects were harder. Not just the stress of not knowing whether it was even going to work (most times it didn't), but also the hormonal shifts resulting in rapid mood swings and irritability - which my partner found hard to deal with.