Quick quiz: How much do you know about your fertility?
No matter your answer, we can tell you one thing: Every way you look at it, it's pretty darn expensive. First, you foot the costs of hormonal birth control (the Pill, an IUD) or condoms. Then, if you're struggling to get pregnant, intrauterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) cost about $900 without insurance and $12,500, respectively. Need a surrogate? Well, then you're talking over $100,000. Sadly, it's enough to bankrupt some women.
But you just want to get your fertility checked, you say? (This includes procedures like ovulation testing to figure out if and when you're ovulating, as well as tests to measure the levels of different hormones that go hand in hand with ovulation.)
Well, that'll cost you, too. When Afton Vechery, co-founder of Modern Fertility—a just-launched company that's lowering the costs of fertility testing with $149 at-home tests—went to a fertility clinic, she was left with a $1,500 bill.
The cost of fertility testing, of course, varies depending on the kind of testing, where you have it done (all states have different regulations), and whether or not your insurance covers the testing (often, it doesn't).
But the high price tag wasn't Vechery's only issue with the fertility test she got. "I was excited about the data I would get back," she says. "But when I got the results, it was just a list of numbers and ranges that were really tough to understand."
She adds: "There is so much room to improve the experience." Modern Fertility, for instance, makes the information more accessible (with at-home tests) and more affordable ($149)—but their results are also more straightforward, says Vechery, "so it's easier to understand what these hormone levels mean and how they impact you."
That's important because, as Leahy puts it, when it comes to fertility, there's an information gap: "We spend much of our early lives preventing pregnancy and have far less information to plan for it."
'Waiting and seeing,' she notes, can sometimes seem like the only option. Case in point: "In our research, we found that 86 percent of women have anxiety about their ability to get pregnant in the future. We need to be talking about fertility and women need better information."
Modern Fertility comes about in an age of badass ladies bringing innovation and empowerment to the forefront. But Vechery points out: "Women have made progress in so many areas—but the discussion about fertility has not kept up. Many women are waiting until later in life to have kids and they need to be able to understand their bodies and how their fertility changes over time. That information is powerful."
Their advice to women when it comes to getting that information and being as informed as possible when it comes to fertility: Speak up. Ask the questions. Start the conversations. "Fertility is complex and we talk to women who wonder about fertility but don't talk to anyone about it," says Vechery. "Talk to your doctors and talk to your friends. Fertility is something human that we should be discussing, not avoiding."
Modern Fertility tests are available for pre-order now.
This article originally appeared on Shape.com.
