Weeeeell, there are a number of reasons I'm choosing Serum pebbles, to be honest. Bear in mind these are completely my reasons, and may be irrelevant to anyone else!
First and foremost is a combination of cost - full DE cycle is 5000?, full OE cycle would be 3000? (not including any meds you need) - alongside the really excellent and personal treatment you get there, so I've read from many ladies, and so I've found from talking to Penny myself several times. Secondly for me is that egg donors in Greece (in most EU countries actually) are still anonymous, whereas here they have to be registered. That means not only are there less egg donors here now (numbers of both egg and sperm donors here dropped sharply when the law was changed requiring registration in 2005), there is no potential future possibility that they may be allowed to track down the product of their donated eggs - if you see what I mean. Thirdly is that I know Serum do their utmost to match you with a donor that has as close a match to any requirements you might choose to specify, not just the standard height/weight/hair/eye colour that so many places do. Plus I know Serum screen their donors really carefully, a lot of them are personally known to the staff at Serum, and they always make sure they have a full medical history as well as doing various tests on the donors themselves. Also I understand they really look after their donors, as well as they do their patients/recipients. Fourthly is that Serum really do tailor medications/programs with fine-tuning for each and every individual, rather than putting most women on the 'standard' protocol of drugs/tests etc that so many IVF clinics seem to do.
Additionally consultations are free, and follow-up/aftercare is excellent, so I've been told again and again. And costs of things like LIT and intralipds is a fraction of what they are here - intralipids alone I think are something like
Success rates for fresh DE cycles are I believe something like 60 to 70%; I don't think they publish OE cycle success rates as I think they believe those largely irrelevant given that every woman generally brings with her a history of problems that have to be factored in. I could be wrong about that last, but I don't recall seeing success rates published for OE cycles - although I think you could easily email Serum and ask them, they're very helpful.
I know none of you are looking at donor eggs so some of my reasons would be irrelevant to you. And it's such a very personal choice too, everyone has different reasons for where they choose to go and all are extremely valid to the person choosing. There is no right or wrong answer, I feel, just what suits you personally. These are simply some of my personal reasons for choosing Serum. To me, the advantages of going to Serum outweigh the undoubted pain in the @rse of having to fly there.
Apologies for the long post, I'd honestly be really interested to know why people choose the clinics they do - and more apologies for taking this thread completely off the original topic!