Taxing

Throughout the last year, I knew that we were throwing a lot of money at our fertility issues. Because I was so desperate to make our dreams come true, I didn't stop to see exactly how much it was costing us until it was time to itemize our medical bills for our taxes.

As it turns out, IVF is a very taxing process, in more way than one. Since we did IVF last fall, we spent more than 14.5% of our income on medical bills, after insurance paid out: prescriptions, doctor visits, dentist visits, and lab work. That is over double the amount you need to claim an itemized deduction on your federal taxes. We did just that, plus we itemized our charitable giving and educational expenses (graduate school). We ended up getting a return big enough to pay back the loan we had received from my in-laws last fall to help soften the blow of paying for IVF in cash. I can't wait until it is processed.

The point of this is to say, please, please, if you are reading this, living in the United States, and seeking fertility treatment, be sure to keep bills for all prescriptions and lab work. As for doctor and dentist visits, I found that the easiest course of action was to call each office and ask for them to mail a year end statement to us. That way, we didn't have to sort out the dozens of visits to the male Dr. B, on top of several visits for Wisehubby and I to Dr. P and our dentist, Dr. H, each.

IVF is taxing, but you may get a little bit of relief at tax time if you remember to itemize!