Oh! Grants! There are also grant programs like baby quest you can apply for. 
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I am not sure if you’ve retyped this all above, @bracken_joy, but here is the guide you wrote ages ago…
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Oh hey good reminder!
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Donor egg is more expensive than own eggs and way more expensive than donor embryo, which is the route we went… BUT you might qualify for a money back guarantee for donor egg, and if you are looking to have just one child, frozen donor eggs are available, like, immediately and many donors are willing to be contacted after the child is 18, if that’s a consideration for you. We didn’t do donor egg because we had already spent maybe thirty grand on egg retrievals and failed transfers, and the Boy didn’t care about the genetics, he wanted to do the easiest, most likely to work thing. We were burned out on waiting for results.
Obviously I wasn’t successful with my own eggs; many people our age are and we did have the added challenge of bad sperm (which was actually why we were doing IVF, but then I didn’t make good eggs). All the decisions involved are soooo tough and sooo expensive and everything is so unknown and so dependent on personal priorities that most people never have to rank. I’m pulling for you!
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Yeah, we haven’t ruled out embryo adoption either, because I do have a friend who has offered me some of hers. But I think it’s like . . . Plan C? After trying my own eggs at least once and then seeing if we can find a way to afford donor eggs, if that doesn’t work.
Does anyone happen to know whether donor eggs are less expensive if you know the donor? Like is it the PROCESS that is expensive, or the egg itself? I feel like if I asked my younger sister to donate eggs, she probably would. She’s only 20 months younger than me, but that’s something, and she is the most selfless person I know and has two living children, having gotten pregnant each time at the drop of a hat.
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My moderately informed guess is that it wouldn’t be a way to save money? (Edit: this is fake news, see below) Depending on lots of factors, it might take longer or be more complicated than to obtain eggs from her, vs. a donor who has been screened for this in particular. You’d also have to get your own legal paperwork in place: even when everyone involved is a reasonable person, there are some absolute horror stories out there of what can go wrong. CA has good laws about this stuff and I have to imagine there are lawyers out there that have figured this out and make it an easy process.
That said, if it ends up being the right fit, this could be an incredible way to go! One benefit is that if you end up with a kid who wants to know who their bio relatives are from an early age, you’d have that accessible to them. You also have some built-in screening to know that it’s someone you like and trust, in case it’s important to the kid to build a relationship with them and they’re present in your life.
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From what I’ve read, yes it’s less expensive. Because then there’s not all the matching fees and recruitment fees and donor compensation. But I think most clinics will only take donors that are under 34 or 35 and have good reserves and such.
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This makes sense! I wonder if one way to approach it might be to find a clinic that does a lot of reciprocal IVF for double uterus couples, since they’d have to be comfortable with using “donor” eggs from someone in particular.
@wooljaguar this is just to say that fertility clinics can be less onboard with “grownups get to do what they want with their bodies,” than you might expect, so if you run into initial resistance to a plan like this, there are big informal networks of people sharing info to get around it. For legal reasons this does not apply to me 
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Right, one clinic told me that using a friend or relative saves $7K. But using someone over 35 reduces your chance of success by a lot.
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Our legal fees were “only” $1500ish total, so assuming similar expenses, it would be cheaper to go this route. TIL! And maybe this number already accounts for legal fees?
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Uhm…
Weight stuff
The calculator seems to think my peak chances of success will be if I lose about 15–20 lbs. Given that it sounds like there will be a couple of months before I’m able to go through with trying, should I be working on that between now and then? That’d still be within the “one to two pounds per week” deemed healthy. I ate all the things over the holidays and was planning a cleanse anyway . . .
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Summary
I think this is a case of correlation versus causation in most cases. A ton of women have PCOS, and that makes you more likely to carry extra weight and also more likely to be infertile. The weight is secondary to the disease process there. I think rather than thinking about the number on the scale at all, it’s best to just eat in a way that you know is health promoting for your body, makes you feel strong and energetic, includes lots of fruits and vegetables with lots of phytonutrients, and covers the macros that we know are essential for growing babies like plenty of good quality fats. weight changes either will or won’t follow that depending on your current setpoint, genetics, and disease processes.
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Weight
Not on the IVF train at this time, but it’s very discouraging how many articles there are on weight vs conception chances without clear detail on the correlation vs causation deets. They’ll say “it seems as though there is a reduced chance of success in overweight women, even those without PCOS.”
But it doesn’t mention the many other things that correlate with higher weight that could in theory be the cause of lower odds of success. Is it weight, or higher sugar intake? Or less exercise? Or lower intake of vegetables? Or any number of things that can be changed instantly and with less psychological impact than drastically changing your weight?
Weight, more specific/my own #s
I’m mainly grasping at these potential other causes that are correlative, because I’m 60 lbs from the top of a “good” weight and there is almost no way I could get down to that weight in a healthy way by the time I would want to start looking at IVF if things don’t go as planned. I can change my sugar intake and increase my exercise and produce consumption much more quickly.
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Summary
OK, that’s a good way of looking at it. I was already planning to do no booze, lots of healthy green smoothies and homemade juices, homemade full-fat yogurt, and big salads with nice fatty dressing, as just part of an overall cleanse. Because I really did eat all the things and feel puffy and sluggish in an unhealthy way because of it. Plus, I went to the dr. today and my BP was up by, like, a lot, like 20 points on both measures since I last got it taken! I blame absurd amounts of greasy Thai food, wine, baked goods, and pizza recently. Plus not being able to exercise a lot recently either.
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Summary
Replace Thai with Indian and this was my November/December.
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OK, so, success rates…SART lists 18 clinics within reasonable driving distance of my apartment (~15 miles in L.A. traffic). I looked at success rates for both 2018 and 2019 for my age group (38–40). What I wanna know is how can the clinics vary so very wildly in their success? Are some docs just THAT much better at this stuff than others?
I averaged each clinic across the two years and there’s a range of 10.25%—50% success rate for the first transfer. (Depending on what stats I put in, the calculator for my specifics gave me anywhere from 20% to 33%.) The clinic with the best rates actually recently opened a location within walking distance of my place! And the next best one is less than three miles away. I have no idea yet what any of these cost—next step is getting $$ numbers—but I’m just wondering: are some docs just THAT much better than others?
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Yes, some clinics are just better! Some of it may be the lab, too. But, also some clinics either don’t take very tough cases, or steer them more aggressively toward donor eggs, which would inflate their success rates.
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Yes, exactly. It doesn’t even have to be an overly unique “tough” medical condition either. Hormone level cutoffs are pretty common—one of the few clinics in driving distance to me wouldn’t have had me for own egg due to my FSH level, though I didn’t think much of their statistics regardless.
One thing you might ask in a consultation is about their experience/success rate with patients like you* to get a better idea than broader categories.
*You general. And you specifically, but not like only you. It’s a question anyone should ask in a consult.
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@BiblioFeroz I guess I should clarify that I was ONLY looking at the “own eggs” tab, to try to rule out success determined by donor eggs. From the info, neither of the ones I was looking at that are nearby seem to use donor eggs as much compared to own eggs.
@frogger So if they wouldn’t have you, that means you had to do testing for them before they decided that? Like, then you had to go through the process all over with someplace else? Or did you come to them with some tests already run?
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Right, but they could have talked people out of even trying with their own eggs!
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