For women carriers

[StevenMincey]

I was wondering if any female carriers on this forum had any type of in vitro fertilization in order to have healthy babies? My sister, who is a carrier, said that the cost was too much for her and her husband. Or maybe someone has heard of a woman who has done this.

[DennyB]

My daughter went through this and has a very beautiful daughter. Here in New Zealand the government funds 40 high risk cases a year. I know it would be a very costly procedure if they had to pay for all of it. They say that it is 98percent successful.

[Hillary]

Hi Steven, I am a female carrier and was offered PGD, Pre Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, after my son was diagnosed. In UK it is available to carriers of ALD free of charge and has been for some time. I don't know about the USA but I would be very surprised if you had to pay full costs. If you are a carrier of a genetic condition that can cause the death of a child if born with the condition, it should be at the very least, something that you would get financial, practical and sympathetic help with.

Best wishes, Hillary

[SongStream]

Hi Steven,

I was just reading a profile of a forum member of the ULF Support Community of Inspire.com who has a daughter in the U.S. who underwent PGD and writes:

My dear brave daughter had a trying and eventually highly successful experience with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and we are so blessed to have a wonderfully healthy little boy in our family.

Steve

[menaborges]

Steve, I am a carrier and live in the US. I just got my pregnancy test yesterday and it is positive. Such a relief after all the bad news the last 2 years.. We started the treatment last June, we went through all the genetic tests... It is a long process.

Our health insurance is covering everything, I do have a great coverage, but what I am hearing from the doctors is that the insurance are starting to cover some procedure, because it is cheaper to cover Pgd than to cover a carrier kid etc...if your sister has a health insurance, she should go to any clinic that does the Pgd and talk to the financial people at the clinic, they can help finding out what is cover and what is not.

I did all the treatment at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

If you have any question please let me know. You can tell your sister that she can email me

[e-mail]

[StevenMincey in reply to menaborges]

Thank you everyone for your replies!

[Loribeth82]

Hi Steven - delayed response on this... My husband and I are in the early stages of pursuing IVF with PGD, and our insurance will not cover any of it. According to the reproductive center we're working with, that is still pretty standard for the vast majority of insurance providers in the US. Very disappointing...

[StevenMincey]

I can understand why, they've made tons of money off of my family for 20+ years. Our country requires you, by law, to carry health insurance but it doesn't require health insurance agencies to cover everything.