Fertility Clinic Appointments and Beyond..

[dogmam]

New thread for us to continue our fertility clinic appointment progress...

Some of us are waiting for initial appointments, some are having tests and some are starting treatment!

@JeanieJ we were decorating the guest room and the room that would be our nursery is a box room and now gym equipment slash printer room. It’s not big. But a few years ago when my husband suggested moving I had a complete freak out about that room not being our nursery like I’d envisioned when we bought this place in 2013. Looking back now that feels like a completely different me. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever have a nursery and it being in this house isn’t the main concern.

A sewing room sounds like a great idea. In the gym room I have a set of wide drawers with some art stuff in I keep meaning to spend time using. It’s definitely a haunting i of sorts

Hey ladies, how are you all?

Sorry I've been quiet, took a break from everything, bit I'm back on the IVF wagon and am actually mid FET cycle number 2. Feeling different this time, kind of just going through the motions so far as obviously know what to expect in terms of medication and appointments so.

I'm going to have a read through to see how you're all doing x

Wishing you the very best of luck @dogmam.

@JeanieJ I’m in the middle of doing up my office at home here and it’s so satisfying! Nice to be accomplishing stuff that’s nothing to do with ttc. Re work juggling all that is a major factor in favour of the clinic nearer us. Just starting a new job so going to be tough to juggle it all and definitely will be using annual leave in February for some of the IVF days. I need to decide whether to mention anything but think I’ll put it off as long as possible. Feels very vulnerable opening up about it in work….

I think I've got a good boss when it comes to this! Yesterday he said how he'd definitely hire a pregnant candidate if she was the right person for the job which made me feel relief. His Mrs is pregnant and they had a loss earlier this year - she's also actively interviewing so I feel he has a lot of empathy for this kind of stuff. He took six months parental leave for the last kid so clearly a good egg!

Although we have fertility treatment leave at work and what seems like a supportive boss I don't think I'll use it, as it's such a new job and I'd feel super awkward about it. He did mention though that if it were him, he'd take annual leave for fertility treatments and then if successful he'd retroactively adjust it to fertility leave. This was off the back of his pregnancy chat and me saying that at my old job women were too scared to use the fertility leave entitlements as you're then quite exposed from an employment law pov.

@juno231 what a great boss! It's certainly refreshing to hear 😊

@juno231 your boss sounds lovely, so nice to have that support there!

@dogmam I hope your cycle is going well!

I finally got the call today, nurse consultation on 1st Dec, more than likely start IVF in January! So relieved to finally have some dates in!

@beckyCarlos amazing!! Hopefully @thislittlebird will join us too 🤞

@Juno231 he sounds fab.

Phoned the nhs today and spoke to a lovely nurse who told me that its approx 8 week wait until initial assessment but then months for treatment. Think we still can't decide what to do!

Good to hear you’re back in for a FET @dogmam

@Juno231 wish we had fertility leave, hate having to use my days off but at least it’s not man

God, I’m so annoyed I don’t know when I’ll be starting still. Everyone seems to get calls for January but not me, Guys just leave you hanging 😑

@thislittlebird is it worth giving them a ring tomorrow to enquire about timelines?

@TheDaydreamBelievers is this the first fertility clinic appointment? You never know, the timelines might change completely by the time you go to your appointment?

@Juno231 yes sorry this is nhs fertility services. DH wants to wait for their intervention, I'm not as sure

@thislittlebird I've rung my clinic SO much! I have a reminder in my calender every fortnight to ring and (politely) ask where we now are in the queue. I dont know how much this has helped, but it made me feel more in control. Also, if you get someone who says they cant tell you timescales that's usually b.s. ring back another day and get someone else!

@thedaydreambeliever I think its different in different parts of the country, and even in the same area sometimes. We've talked about if we'd known we'd end up here we might have gone private etc, and some days I have a wobble (low ovarian reserve will do that for you lol) and wonder why we didnt just pay, but having the time and space to process everything has been good (also very frustrating though) x

There’s no free IVF in Ireland yet so we had no choice but to go private and pay. However there’s definitely advantages to that in that you control the timeline and there’s a bit more equity to it. Sounds like a lottery based on where you live from reading your stories ladies. Hope ye all get sorted soon. I love your idea of persistent scheduled calls @beckyCarlos. There’s a lot to be said for persistence paying off!

@Juno231 your new boss sounds absolutely amazing! And fertility leave is incredible. My workplace has nothing like that. In fairness was they’re flexible so hopefully I’ll be able to flex work around appointments as much as possible and only take a day off around egg collection etc but wish there was something there. My manager in my old job had asked me if everything was alright when I was always asking for flex time for appointments over TSI cycles the last few months and I kept it vague and just said I had something on the health side that I was just getting checked out but everything was fine. Will try and do the same for the next few months too 🤞

@Juno231 I emailed them last night in annoyance to say since my 4 months of waiting will be Dec 31 (which is when they claim they’ll be calling to plan, despite originally telling me 2-3 months), so will I be called before or after Christmas. I will ring the reception and ask for a waiting list update too, but it’s always as expected when I ring. I rang at the end of October and they were up to early July patients I think, something like that.

@beckyCarlos who do you speak to when you ring? I’ve been ringing them every couple of weeks but they just say they’re up to June or July patients. I was added in August. They won’t give anything away about when I’ll be contacted.

I’ve also wondered why I didn’t go private already. And I was going to in September but then they (falsely) told me it would only be 3 months until our funded round. I’m tired of the moving goalposts. I don’t have ovarian reserve issues, but I am getting on a bit :/

@Gracie2021 the postcode lottery here is a joke tbh, but I am grateful for our one funded round. It’s sad everyone gets treated differently. We had planned a private round in September and then it didn’t go ahead because my NHS funding came through in August. It’s frustrating.

Hi all, I'm new to this thread, so have to admit I haven't been through all the posts yet. Hope you don't mind me jumping on the thread.

My GP made a referral to the NHS fertility clinic back in August, so about three months ago. I have rung the clinic to ask where I am on the waiting list and they just bluntly said "another 6 months" which I knew was BS straight away as she didn't even bother taking my name or any details. From everyone's experience, how long a wait could it be to get a first appointment as I am wondering if to go private as seems like I'm running out of time.

Thanks all and wishing good luck to everyone of you xx

@Tinkerbell098 - my trust has just said 8 weeks to initial appt but we are just talking about fertility care being a colossal, unfair postcode lottery.

@Tinkerbell098 my referral went through November last year and initially I got an appointment for May 17th which shocked me. In reality it got rescheduled and I had my appointment in February - so a three month wait? I think three months seems to be fairly standard but it just really depends on the area

@TheDaydreamBelievers @Juno231 thanks ladies. I'm hopeful I'll hear back next month/early in the new year. Fingers crossed"

Hey @Tinkerbell098
It's super varied. Mine was 6 weeks from GP referral. Got lots of tests done quite quick, but then another 3 months to wait for a 10 min phonecall to discuss results ... now on another waiting list for a lap (supposedly 3 months, but it's been 4 already).
Fingers crossed you get seen before 6 months xx

@gracie2021 its totally against my nature, I hate feeling like I'm making a nuisance of myself, but someone said to me ages ago that the only person who actually cares about this is me (of course medics care professionally, but its not a major life recalculation for them if I don't have a child) so I should do whatever I need to do, which helped reframe things for me a bit :)

@thislittlebird I'm always tempted to 'press 1 for private patients' to see if I get quicker/better answers but I know they'd have me back to the NHS line in seconds! When I'm asking about appointments and wait times I just get reception - some are great, some are like talking to a brick wall, it does seem to ve luck of the draw. When I was waiting for test results and a second consultant appointment I was speaking with my consultants PA though and she was SUPER helpful, she seemed to chase things actively and even slotted me in to a cancellation appointment which got me seen quicker.

@tinkerbell098 I hope your wait is short! As everyone else has said it seems to be really varied for how long it'll take, but for some context my referal was done in March and we had our first consultant appointment in June so three months, but it was a cancellation and we were originally told at least 4 months wait. Then depending on results theres a wait for any further tests too (i waited 2 months for an internal ultrasound and amh test, and my husband waited 6 weeks for each of his semen analysis as well) x

@JeanieJ @beckyCarlos I have just rung my GP to ask about the referral and she said they have a massive backlog and it'll take up to a year! She agreed to do some other tests in the meantime though, so that's something!

@Tinkerbell098 great 🙂
Your doc should be able to arrange an SA & initial blood tests ... maybe even an ultrasound if you're lucky

xx

@Tinkerbell098 agree - ask GP if they can do day 3 and day 21 bloods, arrange semen analysis, and a pelvic structures scan for you. Alternatively, lots of private clinics will do these as a package deal (check first if your NHS assisted conception clinic will take private assessment results)

@beckyCarlos @Juno231My email number 38473948 seems to have done the trick! I have a form to complete about starting Jan/Feb which is about right since my periods are the end of each month.

@beckyCarlos when I've called before I've even asked about private treatment and was told we're all the same list and contact numbers at Guys :/

@Tinkerbell098 I didn't go the usual route because of various cockups, but if I had it would have been about 3 months from GP to gynaecology and then a month or two from referral to IVF clinic, and then another 5 months to IVF.

@beckyCarlos @Juno231 aw so exciting you have start dates for January. Have you both been given your protocol yet?

@thislittlebird fingers crossed for january/February time! Feels like you've waited a long time for this so as others have said just continue with the chasing and phone calls. My clinic doesn't have waiting lists as such, you just have to ring and hope there's space to get booked in, they'll pencil you in after the third month if there was no space. You're on a short protocol aren't you? The cycle itself at least won't be long if so.

I had my a scan this week to check my lining was thick enough to start progesterone for in the lead up to transfer, but it wasn't. So I'm not on 4x daily estrogen tablets for another week and have another scan Thursday.