re: This week is National Infertility Awareness Week

TIL. That's cool if they pay for a round of IVF.

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That's cool if they pay for a round of IVF.

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That did seem surprising to me

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When St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opened a fertility clinic for patients in June of 2014, many young men and women with cancer suddenly were given hope.

Located on the St. Jude campus, the Fertility Clinic is available to both current patients and long-term survivors. The service offers hope to interested patients whose age, treatment stage and disease status make them eligible to participate. Not only does St. Jude cover the cost of harvesting eggs or sperm, but the hospital also covers the cost of storing those samples until patients reach age 35.

“At St. Jude, we’re committed to providing options to survivors,” says James Klosky, PhD, of St. Jude Psychology. “In many cases, survivorship comes at a cost. We want to offer interventions to relieve some of those difficulties.”

“I don’t know of any other institution in the United States that offers such a service,” says William Kutteh, MD, PhD, medical director of the clinic.

Lukas Etchison arrived at St. Jude last fall to begin treatment for the brain tumor medulloblastoma. One of his chief concerns was fertility preservation. “Because of this service, cancer survivors can go on to live normal lives, doing all the things that they dream of doing and that they think about as they’re growing up,” says his mom, Denise.

James Klosky, PhD
“Here at St. Jude, we’re committed to providing options to survivors,” says James Klosky, PhD, of St. Jude Psychology. “In many cases, survivorship comes at a cost. We want to offer interventions to relieve some of those difficulties.”

Like Lukas, many cancer patients have a high risk of infertility as a side effect of surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or the disease itself. As survival rates have improved, fertility preservation has become increasingly important to patients and families. Klosky estimates that half of adolescent and young adult male cancer patients are at increased risk for infertility, with about 10 percent of female childhood cancer survivors having acute ovarian failure and an additional 15 percent entering menopause prematurely.

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How difficult is this process? I always thought it seemed more difficult than it had to be, at least adopting overseas.

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Going overseas to adopt is easier and guaranteed, but it costs a lot of money in adoption, travel, and lawyer fees. Adopting through the state, which is what we are doing, is 100% free, but not guaranteed. We told DCFS (used to be CPS) that we only want a kid under 3 years old, which we may get, but it isn't guaranteed that he/she will be available for adoption. For a lack of a better analogy, we will be a hotel for a kid with shitty parent(s), until we get a kid who's parent is shitty enough that a judge terminates parental rights.

ETA: Getting certified to foster/adopt in Louisiana was really easy. We went to around 5 Saturday classes, had 3 home visits with a social worker, and filled out some paperwork. The whole process took around 4 months.

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Adoption isn’t an option we wish to pursue for numerous reasons.

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Go on.

I actually wouldnt consider adopting either. Unless it was a family member or child of somebody we knew that lost parents for some reason.

Yeah I had to take out a loan for IVF (I was not the problem).... soon to be ex wife chances went from 20% to 5%.... put such a strain on our marriage it failed. She couldn't get over the fact that the problem was her and not me. She doesn't want to split the loan and is doing everything she can to not pay for it.

Got a good friend that had to go this route. First time they had a miscarriage but the second try worked! Got a beautiful baby boy now.

Infertility is not a weakness or a sickness and insurance should not cover it. Besides only wealthy people are infertile and they can afford it.

Right. I was all for it. But the marriage failed mostly due to that and other things.

Like the doctor looked at me and said I wasn't the problem and she just couldn't handle that. She was trying to find ways which made me the person to blame.

We never got to the actual IVF portion cause of how bad her numbers were.... it would have been a waste of time and money.

Good luck with IVF! Sending all my positive thoughts to you and your H.

I'm concerned an IF workup will be in my near future, so this has been on my mind. I'm fortunate that my insurance pays $25k towards treatment/procedures, but I know that doesn't go far at all.