Fertility appointment

I’m sorry you’ve had news you weren’t expecting, @Turkeyface- it can be a huge amount to process.

I went through fertility tests and IVF over an 8 year period and now have my two IVF babies. It’s intense, it’s emotional, it is incredibly physically and psychologically gruelling. But going into it eyes open and focusing on why you’re doing it makes a big difference and without it I wouldn’t have my amazing kids so it was clearly worth it - obviously I can say that now with the benefit of knowing I was lucky enough for it to work in the end and that isn’t a guarantee but if it’s what you need then its amazing what we can push through.

If the issue is sperm quality then there’s lots you can do to improve it. It’s likely to be a while until you’d actually be able to start IVF with so many hoops to jump through and having to wait for cycles to start etc so I’d be looking into all that in the meantime as it will help both the possibility of natural conception and IVF if that’s where you end up!

I’m in the north west and out first appointment with the fertility clinic was in July, detailed investigations and tests in August and started on ivf drugs in September. I was really nervous about ivf, especially as I have pretty bad health anxiety, but found that if I just took it one step at a time it was totally manageable. All the luck to you!

@Turkeyface did they actually say your only chance might be IVF? I'm just surprised they've worked that out so early into getting the more specialised tests done. Have you had a hycosy or anything yet? Like @EmPeEf said I'd see about rolling things back. Good that you're getting a repeat SA test as well

How come you are anti IVF? As someone who had an ectopic, my partner and I actively wanted IVF because it’s the safest way to get pregnant and also ensure that your embryos are healthy and in the right place. But we were recommended to try Letrozole first, which we are doing just now

Wow that sounds intense, I didn't realise the first appointment was more than just a consultation. It's good that they're getting so many tests done already though.

Was it a bit of a shock for them to suggest IVF so soon? I would have thought they'd look into other things to try first.

Wow. Thats a lot to take in. Maybe it would have been kinder to ease you into the idea of IVF than just state it first time. Sorry it’s gone that way.
I’d say there may be the chance to roll things back a little and see if their motility can be improved in other ways first though. Do you have a second appointment lined up with them? What’s the next step?

I've not even had a link to book an appointment or anything, it just says I'm on a 21 week waitlist. I think I'm on week 19 of that waitlist now so I'm gonna give it a couple of weeks and phone the hospital, if I'm not anywhere near the top of that list we'll look into going private.
So frustrating your first appointment got cancelled, that happened with my husband's SA too. At least we've had the results from that now. And I get exactly what you mean on just wanting to have a plan in place, it would be nice to have things being looked into rather than month after month with no change!

Wishing you all the best with it all!

Hi there, I was on waitlist for fertility appointment with the hospital but it took so long my fiancé and I decided to go private. However, even then, because things were so fully booked it took us about 3 months to get all the necessary tests out of the way.

The first appointment was us talking about a plan.

we then had an appointment for me to do ultrasound and bloods and my partner to do Semen analysis.

then we had an appointment to discuss results and what steps we would like to take. And what would be needed for each of those.

I had to have another appointment to check my thyroid just in case and also time for rubella vaccine and to collate other evidence of cervical smear from gp.

finally we had to set an appointment to receive our meds.

then an appointment to take my bloods to see where I am in my cycle.

and then if I hadn’t ovulated, I would have been instructed to induce a bleed using the progesterone pills. But because I had ovulated I waited to bleed naturally and was told to tell them when my first day was.

all of this took very long, and because it was the ovulation induction method we chose we eventually were able to start, but when talking about IVF it would have been another couple of months wait after that.

wishing you the best 🩷

I'd also be interested to know how long you had to wait to get the appointment. I'm Midlands based too and was referred in February, I still haven't been given an appointment yet but I know the wait time is long.

How long did you have to wait for the appointment once you got given the date? I'm worried that I'll finally get the letter then the appointment won't be for another 6 months!

Sadly not, it’s more making a plan about what tests to do next - of course it might be different for if you previous results were different to mine. He basically said all your results so far are normal so this is the standard next step. I think my pelvic ultrasound was about 2 weeks later but they don’t let you book the HSG until the first day of your next period as if you did happen to be pregnant it would cause you to miscarry. They then said I would hope to be seen in 1-2 cycles but if I hadn’t been given an appt they would try and prioritise me for the next one - this is why the follow appt was booked for like 10 weeks after the first to allow you to have had both these tests and they can collate the results.
if you think about it though you are seeing a doc in the fertility clinic which is a comptlely different area of the hospital to ultrasound where you’d see a sonographer and provide a report so they can’t really so everything on the same day, and I said the HSG needs to be planned!

Hi @Turkeyface do you mind if I ask how long you've waited? I'm in a similar area & have just been referred for an ultrasound, have my blood test in a couple of weeks