Hi everybody ? I am new to this thread. Have read the last 5 pages or so to catch up on the discussion. I am a former (private) IVF patient and thought I would share my experiences below. If anybody has any specific questions, I am happy to answer.
I am 41 and 9 weeks pregnant after undergoing 3 IVF treatments and 4 IUI treatments -in my opinion IUI is a waste of time, especially at my age. My husband cannot father children because he had the mumps as a child, so we required donor sperm if I wanted to get pregnant. This is so difficult in the UK with the latest legislation and so my first clinic here in the UK, Oxford, recommended that we consider going overseas to Denmark for donor sperm. If you get donor sperm from Denmark, you cannot legally re-import to the UK so we then considered going to Denmark for the entire treatment.
I went for secondary advice to Hammersmith IVF in London re doing treatment in Denmark. As it turns out, Denmark is the leading country in the world for fertility treatment and research, and has made a huge business out of exporting ?donor sperm?. Many countries such as Canada and the US import donor sperm from Denmark to help families produce their own little ?vikings?. I decided on a clinic and kept my consultant at Hammersmith IVF for advice before each treatment, and they also did all my monitoring (scans, blood) for each cycle here in the UK, so that I had to go overseas only for actual treatment. For frozen cycles (and IUI), these were day trips ? home by supper. Fresh IVF cycles meant being away for 3 or 4 nights. Both the UK and Danish clinics were amazing. Great, caring people and straightforward dialogue, with leading edge personnel and technology. If you are considering going overseas for treatment, I would recommend this ?collaborative? approach.
I did 3 IVF cycles over 13 months and had committed to doing 5 treatments max. My consultant at Hammersmith had ?valued/aged? my ovaries at 36 or 37 based on my excellent response to stimulation, so I guess I had hope enough to do this 5 times. It is expensive of course and the pound falling this past year has made costs much worse, as you can imagine.
On the subject of costs, Hammersmith IVF has the cheapest drugs in the country ? no doubt. My drug costs for each cycle were in the range of £800. I actually got a quote from Healthcare at Home on a prescription for the identical £800 drugs (initially not on Hammersmith letterhead) that was £1100. I always had drugs left over ? some had to be thrown out, others could be used in subsequent cycles.
I also was offered the IVF ?volume discount? pricing deal. The reason clinics do this ?buy 2 get 3? deal is because your odds of getting pregnant are so much better with 3 attempts BUT it most definitely helps their statistics to look better. Harsh as it may sound, no clinic really wants patients who only intend to try once ? it worsens their stats.
Unfortunately, and finally, I got moderate to severe OHSS on my last IVF treatment. This was exacerbated TREMENDOUSLY due to pregnancy. At one point three weeks ago I had >400ml of fluid in my stomach, my ovaries had swollen so big and I was almost hospitalised. No potential harm to embryo luckily, which was good, but I was home for 10 days. Not trying to scare anyone off but this is the big IVF risk. This time I was on half the dose of the stimulation drug vs. my first IVF (when I had no sickness) so this really is not predictable with any sort of regulation of ?dosing?. I am now dealing with some painful ovarian cysts (not due to IVF) but I think the worst is over and the best is yet to come. The month of December certainly has been bitter-sweet.
Well that?s my story. If anybody wants any more details about overseas treatment, I am happy to answer. Happy New Year to you all and I hope everything works out for you in the assisted conception dept!