The decision to become a single mother is a challenging one. Maybe you had envisioned having a partner at this stage in your life but haven’t found that special person. Yet you’re ready to have a child, even if it’s on your own. Fortunately, it’s possible for you to fulfill your dream of being a mother with or without a partner. IVF for single women makes your dream a reality. Here's everything you need to know about this miraculous process.
How to Know If You’re Ready
Most of us know a single parent who didn’t consciously make the choice to be one. Death of a partner, divorce, or an unintended pregnancy are have put them in that situation. Being a single parent always comes with challenges, yet plenty of healthy individuals come from single parent homes.
How does a single parent provide everything their child needs? Love is of course the most important factor. But you’ll also need a support network and financial security.
Ask yourself who your support system will be when you need extra help. Rest assured, all parents need extra help sometimes, even those with partners. Make sure you know who in your corner you can call for backup.
You’ll also need to be sure that your income is sufficient for taking care of your child and yourself. Consider all the costs that come with raising a child: food, shelter, clothing, diapers, education, childcare, health insurance, etc. Be honest with yourself about the costs and make sure you know how you’ll cover them. Choosing IVF for a single woman is a big decision, but you may be ready for it.
Age is a Factor
We all know that age is a factor for women who want to conceive. Your age determines what kind of fertility treatment is right for you. Typically, a woman’s ability to conceive naturally ends about 10 years before she enters menopause. Starting at 28, a woman’s fertility starts to slowly decline. At around 35, it declines more steeply and accelerates again between the ages of 39 and 42. (
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IVF for a single woman is always unique to the individual who wants to conceive. No matter your age, the first step is to consult with an endocrinologist and find out which fertility treatment option is right for you. Women under 35 may be able to conceive with donor sperm via intrauterine insemination, or IUI. Women over 35 may have better results with IVF treatment while women over 40 may want to consider donor eggs.
What You Should Know About Sperm Donors
IVF for a single woman requires a sperm donor. Once you’re ready to move forward with IVF or IUI, you’ll need to select your donor sperm. You can use a sperm bank or a donor who is known to you personally.
If you do choose to use a sperm donor who is known to you, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the parental rights laws in your state. You’ll need to make important decisions, such as if you want the donor to be involved in the child’s life or not. You may want to consult with a lawyer who specializes in reproductive law.
Your chosen donor will need to be screened for sexually transmitted diseases. You may choose to also have them screened for genetic diseases. Certain fertility centers do not do fertility treatments when a known sperm donor is involved due to the legal complications. You’ll need to find a fertility center that works with sperm donors known to the mother.
If you don’t have someone in mind to be your sperm donor, donor sperm is available through sperm banks. In most states, anonymous sperm donors do not have parental rights relating to any children who result from their donation. Therefore, an anonymous donor is the best way to go if you don’t want your donor to have any relationship with your child. All anonymous sperm donors are screened for sexually transmitted diseases and some hereditary diseases as well.
What is the Process Like?
If you use IUI as your fertility treatment, typically your fertility specialist will first give you Clomid to stimulate your ovaries to produce more eggs. Once you’re ovulating, you are inseminated with the donor sperm at the fertility clinic. You may opt to for your specialist to monitor you to ensure you don’t have a high-multiple pregnancy.
With IVF for a single woman, fertility drugs are injected by your endocrinologist. These injections stimulate egg production and help eggs to mature. Once your eggs are mature, your specialist will extract them from your ovaries via syringe. The eggs are then fertilized with the donor sperm in a laboratory setting. These embryos develop over 3-5 days. The best one or two embryos are transferred to your uterus.
How Much Do Fertility Treatments Cost?
IUI typically costs somewhere between $300 and $800, plus the cost of donor sperm. Monitoring to make sure you don’t have a high-multiple pregnancy also comes at an additional cost.
The average
cost of IVF treatment
is about $12,400, not including the cost of the donor sperm and fertility medications. Fertility medications for one cycle of treatment range from $4,000 to $10,000. Costs may be higher for older women as they will likely require higher doses of fertility medication to successfully conceive.
Obviously, it's more expensive than traditional conception methods. If you're concerned about paying for IVF, there are treatment packages and financing options to help you afford treatments. One option is a pay as you go plan. This prevents you from overpaying in advance for treatments you don’t even end up needing. There are plenty of options out there for IVF for single women. There’s a plan out there that will work for you and your budget.
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