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\t\t\tA screengrab of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, left, and his wife Amy Gertner announcing on Saturday they will be traveling to Norway for in vitro fertilization treatment.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA screengrab of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, left, and his wife Amy Gertner announcing on Saturday they will be traveling to Norway for in vitro fertilization treatment.<\/p>\n
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner and his wife Amy Gertner announced on Saturday that they will be headed to Norway \u2013 the country, not the Maine town \u2013 for fertility treatments. The couple said the cost of in vitro fertilization in Maine motivated them to seek the procedure abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expense of this, in the United States, is astronomical,\u201d said Platner in the social media announcement<\/a>. <\/p>\n The couple, who reside in Sullivan and were married in 2024, said in the video announcement released on Saturday that they have been trying to conceive for a year to no avail. Five failed rounds of the intrauterine insemination, the first step on infertility intervention, left them disappointed month after month, said Gertner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The next step in fertility treatment is IVF. In New England, one round of IVF treatment without health insurance costs $25,000, according to the announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gertner and Platner said they tried to have IVF covered through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs first, as Platner is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they found the treatment was not insured because the couple is not facing male infertility exclusively.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that was the end of the road for me to have a baby. And I\u2019ve wanted to have a baby ever since I knew that it was something the female body was capable of doing,\u201d said Gertner in the video announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Facing financial barriers, Gertner said her doctor recommended looking overseas for treatment options, as another one of her patients found it to be affordable in Norway. Without insurance, one round of IVF costs $5,500 in Norway, according to Platner\u2019s announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEven when you add on plane tickets, it\u2019s incomparable,\u201d said Platner. \u201cNot to get political, but it\u2019s a real indication of how flawed our healthcare system is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Platner spoke about fighting in the Senate for a universal healthcare system that provides fertility support, as well as to have the VA support infertility treatments for both sides of a couple, not just the veteran.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, the Senate campaign is a way of making sure other people do not have to go through the exact same things that we\u2019ve been through,\u201d said Platner.<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s announcement was met with an outpouring of support online, including from Gov. Janet Mills, one of Platner\u2019s opponents in the Senate race.<\/p>\n \u201cWishing\u00a0@grahamformaine<\/a>\u00a0and his wife, Amy, the best as they pursue IVF, and I hope they find success every step of the way,\u201d\u00a0wrote Mills on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mills and Gertner did not share when exactly they will be in Norway.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI really wanted to share this story with any of you who have experienced infertility. I don\u2019t know if I have all the answers, or if sharing this story makes you feel like you\u2019re part of a community of infertility, but I hope this can offer you some hope,\u201d said Gertner.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A screengrab of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, left, and his wife Amy Gertner announcing on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-509549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115879060673166155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}