AIBU to question the GP

[Sofa1ofa]

Me and DH are waiting on our fertility clinic referral after no success trying for 2 years. I’ve had my initial bloods which came back with a couple things elevated and was told any follow ups and retests would be with the clinic and not the GP. DH had his side of initial tests a few weeks ago and was informed by the GP they had the results back and would call him to discuss in two weeks.

On the call he was told basically there is no chance of conceiving naturally and that they want to send him for a repeat test to confirm.

AIBU to think that phone call should have been a face to face appt with the both of us present?
I’m also questioning why this isn’t being handled by the fertility clinic and still in the GPs hands when I was told these were just starting tests so we could be referred.

Any advise from anyone who’s gone down the route would be greatly appreciated as it was a massive blow to us and felt wrong such news was delivered over a 3 minute phone call.

The alternative is you wait weeks for a face to face

I know which I would prefer

over the phone and immediate

Did your DH make it clear he wanted a face to face appointment with you present to receive the results?

In any case, don’t get hung up and waste energy on this op

We got most of our bad news face to face. However, it may be that referrals to the clinic have changed and they may not longer accept anyone without testing.

This appears in my experience to becoming more and more the case. My GP is now expected to run tests before the referral is even done. This is to cut down on waiting lists and to restrict access to consultants and treatment.

My GP surgery has only an duty doctor on the site and nurses at times. Most of their work is over the phone. If I need to see my named GP I now need to go onto a waiting list for an appointment in about 2-4 weeks. Only the Duty doctor sees anyone and these appointments are allocated daily with the 8am rush.

I guess your DH has had a sperm test and it was low?

This means your options to conceive are going to be limited and there will be questions made about access to treatment and what the NHS will pay for.

The clinic in my experience was pretty cold and brusque on options, chances and time frame.

We didn’t realise they would go over the results on the call.
I know it might sound stupid but because the gp had initially said that everything would be discussed with the fertility clinic we naively thought that they were just needing the test to be redone or something along that line.

We’re the first of any of our family and friends that have had to go down this route so have no clue what to expect and I feel a little out of my depth.

You would have waited weeks for a face to face in all likelihood

to accept you have the information, for which I am sorry, and focus on plan of action

GP. DH had his side of initial tests a few weeks ago and was informed by the GP they had the results back and would call him to discuss in two weeks.

Quite clearly the fertility clinic were not going to contact r you to discuss these tests

Even things like cancer diagnoses are given over the phone now, sign of the times.

Make an appointment if you really need F2F.

DH and I got the same news (in a slightly better format).

however, the important thing to remember at this stage is that low sperm count is actually about the most fixable problem that IVF can deal with. if you go straight to IVF-ISCI with only this problem, the success rates are pretty good. We have 2 dc from 2 embryo transfers!

so I know you are disappointed right now with how the news was given, but if you can move on to getting the full clinic referral then you are on the way to the next steps.

I was told I had cancer over the phone. What else are they going to do? Tell you "We have your cancer results back, we need you to come in to discuss them"? You're going to know that it's not good news then anyway, and things might not be as bad as you feared. It's better to tell you these things as soon as they can rather than delay things unnecessarily..

My DH had tests for prostate cancer this summer. He got a text message 2 days later with a link from the GP surgery to make an appointment to discuss his results. He got an appointment the next day and was given the all clear for cancer. He was amazed at the speed of this.

Yes that’s exactly it! These were the initial tests before the referral.
DHs results came back with low count and low morphology so more tests and IVF are looking to be the route we’re needing to go down.

I understand people may want quick answers, especially when time is of the essence with things such as cancer, but when there are two people involved I thought they would speak to both of us. DH felt bad having to come home and tell me the news when he didn’t fully understand everything himself and we had no opportunity to ask questions.

Happy to accept though if this is the normal way of things for fertility treatment.

That’s speedy! So glad your DH got the all clear

I would much prefer over the phone! Although I would have liked for them to make it clear we would discuss that so we could listen in to the call together.

As someone who has been going through this for years, there is A LOT of shitty care in gynae/fertility etc. but it is also a really sensitive topic and hard to get right - the approach that would be right for one couple wouldn’t necessarily work for another.

I would give them a bit of grace and hope the fertility clinic are better

Some men really might not want their wives there when they are told their sperm is not good. Similarly some women might not want their husbands there when they are told their eggs are not likely to be viable. Sometimes you need to digest these things yourself first and it is very personal information although it does affect you as a couple as well.

I'm sorry you're going down this path.
I've been there and it is absolutely brutal (out the other side successfully after IVF).

We found it impossible to get referred by GPs.
We found out which Consultant ran the one infertility clinic at our NHS trust and then saw him privately to speed things along.

The Infertility section of Mumsnet is very supportive, you will (sadly) find lots of women going through similar who will be able to advise.