Having a miscarriage is expensive. I shudder when I add up the doctor’s bills, home pregnancy tests, fertility treatments, and emergency room visits. The financial impact of a miscarriage compounds on the already tragic loss of your baby.
So far, my pregnancy loss expenses include:
· Prenatal vitamins for three years: $90 for a three-month supply = $1080
· Acupuncture visits = $750
· Copays for ultrasounds prior to the pregnancy loss = $500
· Copay for Cytotec: $5 for using it three times = $15
· Copays for three visits to confirm pregnancy had been completed= $250
· OPK tests: $30 per pack = $150
· Pregnancy tests: $20 per pack = I’ve lost track of the number of pregnancy tests I’ve purchased these last three years! I’ve probably purchased about 40 packs of pregnancy tests. So let’s estimate I’ve spent $800 on pregnancy tests.
· Emergency room visit for one pregnancy = $500
· Ongoing blood draws to confirm miscarriage is complete: $5 per visit, every other day for three-weeks (twice) = $100
· Genetic testing (that showed no results) = $650
· IVF doctor visit and workup = $1000
· Functional Medicine doctor = $4500
· Vitamins prescribed from functional medicine = $2000
· Hysterosalpingogram = $300
· Hysteroscopy = $250
· Genetic testing for the fourth pregnancy= $150
· Therapy for grief around loss = $175 per visit over 16 months = $2800
Total amount paid for four miscarriages = $15,045, and no signs of a baby
Writing this number makes me nauseous. As you embark on family planning following losses, your savings dwindles, your credit card balances rise and hit their max. And all to honor the dream of building your family, when there are no guarantees.
To compound this issue, after multiple miscarriages, subsequent family planning steps are highly expensive. If you’ve spent the money you had to support the pregnancy loss, you might not have the money for IVF, a donor egg, donor embryo, or a surrogate. All of these options are expensive! In the state of Connecticut, surrogates start at $150,000. And in some states, like California, I’ve seen some surrogate agencies charging $300,000. I could buy my dream home on Lake Waramaug in Kent, CT for that price!
And don’t think adoption is any cheaper. Adoption is expensive! In the adoption community, I’ve heard some people lament that when they start a GoFundMe to support their adoption fees, friends and family will balk at them: “If you don’t have the money, then you shouldn’t be adopting.” This dismissive and tone-deaf statement fails to recognize the extent to which people are willing to go to grow their family. People will do anything to have a baby, including amass massive amounts of debt to hold their child in their arms.
Typically, when we pay for something, we expect something in return. When I put a down-payment on my Subaru Forrester, I got the exact Subaru Forrester I asked for. When I pay for therapy, my therapist shows up and sits with me for an hour. When I buy groceries, I pay for exactly what I walk out of that store with. But with pregnancy loss, we are paying for something we may never have. We are paying for a hope and a dream, and *deep breath, fingers crossed* maybe a baby. What else in our lives do we throw money at without any guarantee of getting anything in return?
The impact of all of this can lead to financial trauma. Financial trauma can compound on our experience of emotional and physical trauma that is in pregnancy loss. Like other expressions of trauma, financial trauma is exhibited by engaging in destructive behaviors around finances, avoiding finances, or experiencing a heightened agitation around finances. People living with financial trauma might become hypervigilant
about their finances, such as swearing to a “spend fast” for one year, only purchasing things that were necessary for life, denying simple pleasures such as a glass of wine or a scented lotion, because every single purchase made was less money toward credit card debt (yes, this is a real example. I only made it one week, not one year).
How do we cope with our financial trauma? First, it’s important to acknowledge it. It is important to acknowledge your feelings around money, and how those feelings are impacting your behaviors. Second, once we acknowledge the trauma, identify the thoughts around your finances, what behaviors those thoughts lead you to engage in, and how else we can respond to the feeling these thoughts are eliciting.
The Scarcity Mindset
Maybe after your pregnancy losses, you think that there will never be enough money, no matter how hard you work or earn. In response to that thought, you work 16 hours a day, six days a week. You don’t have time to see your loved ones. You feel lonely, removed, disconnected, hopeless. You feel like you will never have enough money, love, or support.
To respond to this, identify the areas in your life where you are experiencing abundance: “I might feel like I don’t have enough money, no matter what I do, but I do have a loving marriage, and healthy friendships.” These relationships can be fostered with or without money, and can enhance feeling loved and supported.
The Reckless Spender
Maybe you think, “what does it matter? No matter how much I spend or save, I’ll never have a baby.” So, you take the little money you have and book a $10,000 trip to Bali, buy a new motorcycle, and max out your credit card on all of those things you absolutely NEED on Amazon. After your frenzied spending, you are further in debt, feeling potentially further traumatized.
Instead of spending to numb our feelings, identify other things that help through hard feelings. For example, when I think I will never have a baby, I feel hopeless. I turn to what gives me hope: I feel hopeful when I spend time with my husband, and hopeful for the future our relationship holds. I feel hopeful when I watch a sunset, believing that the new day ahead of me holds promise and renewal.
Financial trauma in the face of pregnancy loss is real. It’s complex and fraught. Just as we honor and heal our emotional and physical trauma, our finances deserve the same level of attention and care.
I'm so sorry for all that you've been through - from a fellow person who's been through recurrent miscarriage. I am based in the UK and while miscarriage care is far from ideal over here, we did not have to contend with a financial cost on top of everything else. (Although we would have had to have paid for IVF, had that been a route we wanted to consider - ironically we would have qualified for NHS-funded fertility treatment if I'd never been pregnant). Seeing the costs written down like this really adds to my sense of outrage that so much of what is offered by way of treatment for miscarriage is often not evidence-based/ little more than educated guesswork. As you say, when we pay for something we expect something in return - but how little we know about miscarriage medicine really explodes that deal. Thank you for writing this. xx