French IVF Trivia

I'm a Canadian, married to a French, living in France. We qualify for 100% financial coverage from the government for IVF. I admit that sometimes I complain about living in France, but thank you thank you thank you for being such a great country for women who struggle with infertility. Vive la France! I don't want to get overly enthusiastic, as we do pay a lot of taxes in this country, therefore in turn there are a broad array of social benefits that are provided.

Here are some French IVF facts:

-To qualify for IVF coverage:
1. The couple has an infertility problem
2. Must be married or living together for a minimum of 2 years
3. The woman must be under 42 years old
4. The obvious, but I should mention, you need to have the French "Carte Vitale" (French social security)

-The government will sponsor up to 4 IVF cycles (what a good and generous government)

-3 is the maximum number of embryo transfers allowed for 1 cycle (reasonable)

-33% is the average success rate that results in live births (wish it was higher and I hope I can contribute to raising this average)

There are many other details to IVF in France, however this is the basic information, just to give you an idea of how it works in this country.

From my understanding, Canada does not cover IVF, however Quebec recently passed a law covering IVF for its province. I hope the rest of Canada follows its lead.

I know a lot of you out there have to dig deep into your pockets to pay for IVF, without any kind of guarantee, so I do feel for you. There are others out there that need IVF and simply can not afford it. That sucks and my heart goes out to those in this situation. If the French government did not pay for our IVF it would certainly make a huge dent in our wallet.

I probably will not have any new postings until I start treatment at the end of the month, so over and out for now.