calling all those who have gone private

[tasmaniandevilchaser]

hi, been ttc for a year (with a miscarriage in the middle) and I'm no spring chicken. I know that my local NHS fertility clinic won't accept a referral as we have a child. I've had a lot of acupuncture but it doesn't seem to be working this time around. I don't seem to be ovulating. I wonder if I might have PCOS (have some of the symptoms), but never been tested. It might even be Too. Late.

So my question is, if we go private, what will they do? How much will all this cost? We don't have private medical insurance and we are not rich. Also can anyone recommend someone in London? Can I call them and discuss or do you have to go in for an appt before they'll discuss.
Thanks!

That's a very broad question. An initial consultation will probably be a couple of hundred quid. And then you pay for tests. Treatment and drug cost varies according to what they find. If you end up having a couple of rounds of IVF you are probably looking at £15k+ at some clinics. It is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" questions, I'm afraid because you don't know what the problem is, what investigations will be required and what treatment will be needed.

Sorry I can't be more help. Could you go to the GP and have some investigations for PCOS (without making it ttc related)?

Hi devil,

The NHS fertility clinic should still see you even if you have a child. I am seeing the unit at my hospital now in London (and have a child).

What they won't do is give you IVF or IUI if you have a child. But mine will investigate any fertility problems and will treat with anything like Clomid etc. They will certainly give blood tests and scans for PCOS - actually, even your GP should do this. My GP took bloods immediately and referred me for a scan to check for PCOS when I complained of fertility issues.

If you want to pursue private care, of course you should. But your doctor should be able to do the PCOS scans almost immediately or the fertility unit should do.

Since fertility treatment can easily run into many thousands of pounds, could you pursue this through the GP/fertility unit initially and save your money to go private if you need IVF?

Good luck.

Hi there, thanks Eurochick and Ruby that's really helpful.

I definitely will not go down the IVF route and anyway it's totally unaffordable for us. I didn't know that the NHS clinic would still see us for general tests. Thinking back the person that told me they wouldn't had gone the IUI route first time around, so maybe that's what she meant.

I'll try the GP first and see what happens. Thanks again.

Good luck. If you have any trouble getting the GP to take action, come back here, but you should be able to get PCOS tests from your doctor without too much bother.

Thanks! I'm hoping my GP will be sympathetic, she saw me at my absolute lowest, after the miscarriage. She was very very sympathetic then and said to come back in 3-6mths if nothing happened. It's been just over 2 months so I'll give it a couple of weeks and go see her. Thanks again.

Hi Tasmanian sorry to hear about your ttc story.

DP and I decided ttc last year, we're not spring chickens either so we went privately straight away to get checked out - i had an AMH (blood test to check my egg reserve) and an internal scan, he had his sperm analysed. All that plus a diagnosis with a fertility consultant was about £300. Expensive but within two weeks of our first appointment we knew where we were.

We had these initial investigations at a hospital that shall remain nameless - the consultant was so unsympathetic i could not and would not ever point anyone in his direction.

Since then we have started fertility treatment with Dr Venkat at Harley Street Fertility (www.hsfc.org.uk/). We were recommended to go to her by a friend who got pregnant there with just one egg and so far we are really happy with our treatment (first IVF attempt got us a BFP, sadly 7 weeks in we had a blighted egg so it didn't progress, but we are looking to go again in the next couple of months). I've also heard good things from other girls on MN about the Lister and ARGC - all three of these clinics are in London.

I'd sugggest calling all three, telling them your situation and just ask for their advice - they should guide you and explain things to you. And ask for prices too and timings (some have longer waiting lists than others).

I know you say that you wont do IVF - for the record some clinics offer free IVF if you egg share so that might be worth consideration too...

I'm on a couple of other MN threads with other girls in the same boat - check them out too as there's so much knowledge people are willing to share;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/1376542-IVF-ICSI-FET-any-more-for-any-more

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/1288928-Assisted-Conception-and-all-the-bits-in-between-volume-8

Btw, most private insurance doesnt cover for ANY fertility investigation or treatment so that wouldn't have helped anyway.

Best of luck to you

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