Erica Hoke, an infertility coach, walks through three ways to cut IVF costs: check your reproductive health basics first, get proper testing (sometimes a $10 antibiotic fixes the problem), and always get a second opinion before spending big money.
Chapters
Hello, I hope you're having a beautiful day. I wanted to talk to you today about something that's been on my heart, and it is about how to save money during the IVF process and during the infertility process. If you don't know me, I'm Erica Hoke. I'm a mom of 4 despite having almost every infertility problem known to medicine kind, mankind. And I, uh, am an infertility mentor and an empowerment coach. And what I want to talk to you today is about making good choices with your money when it comes to IVF. So if you're watching this on YouTube and you like what we're talking about today, go ahead and hit that like and subscribe button. And I'm going to say this up front just because I want to be sure to let you know all this information that I'm going to be talking about, um, is going to be in my Flourishing Through Infertility group in a call that I'm doing tomorrow night. Sorry, this is like a little bit backwards. Um, I'm going to do an interview tomorrow with a young lady and, um, that's where you can find the information just in case I forget to mention it later. So when you're talking about IVF, a lot of people I work with, feel like it is a first line of defense, um, thing. So they get an infertility, uh, unexplained infertility diagnosis or a secondary infertility diagnosis, and they think, well, I'm going to go and do IVF. That's what people do when they have this, right? And what I will tell you, and what the person that I'm going to be interviewing tomorrow will tell you, is that is not a good use of your money. There are a lot of steps in the infertility process, and in my opinion, in her opinion, and by the way, she is a registered nurse and a nurse practitioner, and her journey led her through a 6-year odyssey of doctors and procedures, and some of them could have been avoided. Some of that money could have been she could have been spared spending some of that money, which is why I'm talking about this today. So when you're talking about IVF, you want to make sure, and I'm going to say this like in the nicest way possible, you want to make sure that the plumbing is working. So in so many cases that I see, there are basic reproductive plumbing on the male and the female side that's never tested until after you've spent $30,000 on a round of IVF. And the doctor said to her, uh, well, maybe we should test for that, maybe we should check that. And she was dumbfounded, uh, you know, wanting an explanation and not getting one as to why that wasn't tested for ahead of time to rule any complications out instead of just going forward with the IVF procedure and spending that $30,000 dollars unnecessarily, and also the heartache of what that brings, right? So when we talk about plumbing, you know, on the female side, we're talking about, um, blocked tubes, blocked cervixes, um, surgeries that might need to be done ahead of time, like to remove, in my case, uterine fibroids or polyps. Or ovarian cysts. Like, we want to know that the anatomy of the body that we're going to plant in, um, for lack of a better description, is as healthy as possible. The same thing similarly in this woman's story. Um, she and her husband— her husband needed testing also. It wasn't done until after the failed IVF. So again, this is just general testing, blood work, um, evaluations that should be done ahead of time of your IVF to save you money and to really to save the heartache of going through an IVF procedure that then ultimately fails, only to find out, to add heartache on top of heartache, that you spent a lot of hard-earned money on something that could have been safed. So you can see why I really want you to get in my group. I'm going to drop the link. It's Flourishing Through Infertility. And take a look at this interview I'm going to do with her tomorrow. So the second thing is, so we talked about plumbing on both sides, male and female. The second thing is, is testing. So we want to make sure, and oftentimes people will say to me, oh my gosh, I've had so many tests. They couldn't possibly, they, the doctors, couldn't possibly have missed something that would be super important to my fertility or to my, um, IVF procedure, my IUI procedure. That is simply not the case. Doctors are humans and doctors also have their own protocols. So, um, again, if you're looking for stories about these women that have overcome these small but very important details in their medical, um, and their medical process and gone on to have kids, go ahead and check out my YouTube channel. Erin Banks' story is amazing. So, um, that's on YouTube, and you can also, um, chat with her in my group. Also, she needed a $10 antibiotic, you guys, a $10 antibiotic. She went to 6 doctors to figure that out. She suffered for secondary infertility for 2 years. Okay, so this is again a simple test. I'm not a medical doctor, but it's a simple test from what I understand that you could be tested for. She could have saved herself so much money, so much heartache And it's just basic testing. So we need to make sure and advocate and educate ourselves and feel empowered to go in and feel like you have a checklist of what you want to make sure that you have your bases covered on, okay? The third thing is I would recommend getting a second opinion. I don't care what, um, other medical accolades this person has. If you are starting out in the infertility world and you've been diagnosed with something unexplained, um, for your infertility, I would recommend, no matter how much you're in love with your doctor, I would get a second perspective, a second opinion. Now, does that sometimes come at the cost of more money? It does sometimes, but in the long run, you're going to feel better about what your, whichever doctor you have, you go ahead and go with, has to say about how to proceed. So I liken this to a little bit like car shopping. We would never imagine just looking at a car on a lot saying, I like that, it's gonna get me from point A to point B, I'm gonna hop in it and I am going to go for a ride. Right? We're going to make sure that it has good tires. We're going to make sure that it has a good service history. We're going to make sure that it hasn't been in any accidents. So all the time that we spend researching something like a car, I find very often people do very little research on the doctors that they are spending literally as much or even more than a car. I know that that's kind of a weird analogy, But it's true if you think about it. Spend some time doing some research on the doctors that you're partnering with for your healthcare. All right, that is all that I have for you today. Check out my group for more stories like this, and I hope that you'll join me tomorrow for Constance's story. Um, it is a doozy, you guys. She did get the babies that she wanted in the end, but it was hard fought and a long battle. So health and blessings to you guys. Have a great rest of your week. Bye-bye.
