Fertility clinic recommendations in London?

[Tropicaliyes]

Hi all,

My partner and I are a SS couple looking to start our journey TTC however I am a bit confused as to what clinic I should go with.

We are looking at doing IUI first as I have no known fertility issues that we know of (which will be tested at the clinic) and am thinking it is best to have it medicated than unmedicated.

I have done a lot of researching and initially was going to choose Manchester fertility as they said they had the most diversified donor sperm in the U.K. however being based in London and reading peoples reviews about having to get to the clinic within the hour or so after they contact you means I don’t think somewhere like Manchester would be doable as that would take 4+ hours via train and not sure how many visits would be needed.

So I looked into LWC and saw they done a 3 IUI cycle package which was cheaper than a single cycle and seemed better as I think I would be jumping the gun to think I would succeed the first attempt however I sent them an email with some questions a week or two ago and still have received no reply.

I then saw CRGH and the prices look reasonable however they were not exactly clear but the success rates are great, the donor sperm is cheaper than LSB (which is ideal if I need more than one vial for treatment) and I sent them an email and in roughly 2 days got a reply (although it was not a full response so now waiting for another response to further questions).

I have been searching mumsnet like a crazy woman trying to find recommendations and peoples experiences and have found no matter the clinic people have always got at least some bad reviews on the clinics but not so many for the ones mentioned above compared to the good reviews.

As mentioned above I’m in London and willing to commute anywhere that is within reach so would travel to just outside London but any further and I’m afraid I won’t make it should I be told to come down at short notice.

Does anyone have any recommendations for places that are good with what they do but also reasonably priced? The best LWC near me is the Essex one which has the best reviews over the London branches but then the price is slightly higher than CRGH from what I can tell and don’t know if CRGH do packages or if I would have to do single cycles instead.

Thanks in advance, I plan to make initial appointments next month

I've heard Guy's is good. You can go private and I know other SS couples that did IUI and were successful.

I went for IVF at London Womens Clinic Harley Street and liked them. I also liked that it was really easy to use the sperm from the associated London Sperm Bank.

The only other thing is do you feel you can afford IVF if the IUIs don't work. The success rates for IUI are low and although a lot of people are successful a lot are not. However whichever clinic you go to can advise better (and your tests will also help). I guess I'm just saying keep an open mind about IVF.

All the best

Hello, thanks for your reply

I briefly looked into Bart’s but I need to do some further looking for them.

I was so dead set on changing and going to LWC because of vicinity however their sperm bank sells one vial for £1300 and for the package we are choosing we would need to buy the very least of 3 vials with the cost of treatment on top… for a little more than all 3 vials of sperm, Manchester clinic do the same package but include the cost of sperm also and that’s with the 3 vials included 😵‍💫.

We are using saving and we have the money for Multiple cycle packages of IUI however with many of these places they don’t do a multi cycle package and not a single one of them I can find that include sperm in the cost also.

LWC we are looking at over £7k for a multi cycle package and that’s natural with no additional help.

With Manchester we can get everything included and if needed medication added on top for under £7k so as much as Manchester to London is quite far, I have figured once I start driving (hopefully by next month) I can drive to Manchester instead of paying the additional price on the train.

A lot of the initial consultations are also on Zoom on online now also so that’s one less visit.

Also to answer your question we can afford the IVF if we choose to go down that route but will need a few more months to get the amount. We figured we will do the initial appt first and if all with fertility is okay and since I’m only turning 30 in a few months we will try IUI still for the multi cycle but if they don’t work out (I’m hoping to be allowed to medicate from the 2nd attempt) then we will jump to IVF.

Part of me still feels undecided and might skip the IUI all together and do IVF but there is also the chance that doesn’t work for a lot more money! I would want to do one of the packages that gives you a 100% refund but of course that will cost the most!

Decisions decisions!

I’d really recommend going for a fertility MOT, before going further ahead. You never know what that might bring up - and it will help firm up the best route forward.

Then do some independent reading on national success rates for your age (don’t get hung up on specific clinic success rates - they’re all basically doing the same thing). I have been really surprised at clinics recommending IUI with donor sperm, in instances where the success rate might only be 5-10% per try. It’s like they’re blind to the cost of donor sperm and so encourage you to roll a dice that is really not in your favour.

I do agree with what you have to say and I also agree that it can seem really suspicious to include donor sperm given that the cost is from what I have seen near or over 1k and more… Manchester is the only place I have seen to offer it with IUI also especially in a 3 cycle package which doesn’t reflect in the price and going to other clinics mean that’s over 3k just on donor sperm then up to 5k+ for the treatment. In that case I’m paying almost 10k with the inclusion of the hidden fees and such so it seems very strange to have the whole package at such a subsidised rate.

i have checked and it says 35 and older they recommend IVF as your chances start to decline… I’m just turning 30 this year so hoping I should be okay but nonetheless the package on most clinics include a fertility MOT which is to be done first.

i do worry however that I could be told one thing so I go ahead and turns out it isn’t accurate and I end up spending more in the long run just to go with IVF so a part of me says save the money and do the IVF with 100% refund if no conception occurs. I then have the issue that I feel like it is such a large cost for the eventuality of there being no results or an error or similar.

gg without children has never seemed like such a good idea as I don’t want to go back to the drawing board with donors again as that was a big old mess!

*going I was meant to say

Hi, I don't live in the UK anymore, but am also in a SS couple undergoing IVF. I would suggest somewhere close to home is a major factor. During a cycle you may need to go in every day/two for a week for blood tests, scans etc - so I can't see that being do-able from London to Manchester. If you work out of home and don't want to publically share that you're doing IVF, it's great to have a local clinic you can pop into at 8am on the way to work for a quick scan when you need.

I would also consider IVF over IUI. IUI success rates are MUCH lower. If you're paying lots for donor sperm, I would consider going straight to IVF. All the best!

we had treatment at the Wolfson fertility clinic in Hammersmith - happy to send you the consultants name if you PM me…..not in a SS couple but they do this and I’d recommend them highly

@Tropicaliyes I’ve already posted but your latest post came up. Have you looked at all the different IVF packages there are? I know there are some where you get quite a lot of goes if you’re under late 30s and they may be cheaper then the refund one. Also how does one go of IVF compare to the IUI package? You could do a round of IVF and then save up for future rounds if that doesn’t work? If you have a number of embryos frozen from that first round then subsequent transfers are significantly cheaper. Would be worth asking the clinic how much they would cost. I have 5 embryos left and was told it would cost £3k with medicine if I wanted a transfer with one of them. I’m not sure if that’s the usual price or not.

I understand how difficult it is as you don’t want to pay more money then necessary. I had the same dilemma - although being older was told to go for IVF and didn’t have as good package prices. In the end we decided to pay for the one round of IVF and then to wait and see what happened.

I do think though if you are doing IUI the multi cycle package does sound the best to give you the best chance.

You may want to shop around for fertility mots. Some are more extensive then others, with good prices. Herts and Essex fertility have a good one (one stop fertility assessment). As I had it a few months before starting at LWC they didn’t have to re-do most of it - they just re-did the bloods to check for HIV etc. It also meant I had 2 opinions from 2 clinics on what I needed to do next.

One last thought is you just never know what’s going to happen with anything fertility no matter what age you are - you could be the lucky one to get pregnant on IUI first time or it could take till the 5th go on IVF. I think whatever you decide when you have your child you won’t care how much it cost - whether you paid extra up front unnecessarily or whether you ended up racking up the bills over years.

Not expecting a response - just putting some ideas out there for you to help you consider all options.

@BritInAus
hey, we decided we would wait until I was able to drive to Manchester and back for us to try and embark on this journey. Some other people had said about potentially having to visit daily for a week or two just to get things started up so we had a slight idea of this beforehand.

I had contacted the clinic to ask roughly how many visits up there we would need to take so we can plan our travel accordingly and was told that maybe 3/4 times would be actual visits and then there would also be a online consultation due to covid.

@TheGlitterFairy I have never heard of the Wolfson clinic.. I done a search on it and they don’t seem to have a website but think I see it down as Hammersmith NHS hospital and a part of imperial. It’s so much harder getting info on these things when they don’t have websites to refer back to. Thanks for making me aware they are a thing.. I will try and find an email to get general info.

@Overlyanxious
hey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to leave it so long and make you think I might not get back. I had my notifications turned off somehow 🤦🏽‍♀️.

you have to spend a further £3k to use one of your embryos?

I have checked out all the IVF options available however since I didn’t want to embark on IVF at this stage I didn’t really consider what I would choose and so on.

I don’t like the idea of having my eggs taken out of my body and put into storage with these people when it seems they are short on eggs as it is and are always trying to get women to donate their eggs even when they don’t want to.. they have tried to persuade women into an egg share just to get cheaper treatment simply because their stock of eggs are low..

what gets to me more is the fact that if they extract more than you plan to use, and you stop paying storage for the remainder, they said they will destroy them however how likely is that to happen when they are non stop hounding for donor eggs?🤔🧐.

I have my own reason as to why I won’t donate my eggs and having them out of my body and within a facilities care makes me feel uneasy to be honest. Not to mention having to pump my body of drugs to get it to release more than one egg at once with other needed drugs and the invasive method that goes along with it all kind of turns me off the whole IVF thing… I’d much rather Natural insemination over that which is saying a lot.

I agree that the multi cycle which includes donor sperm in the package would cost a lot less than every other option available and you are correct.. it may not work and may take up to 5 IVF attempts however I feel after the cycle is done, I would be more willing to explore other options and methods but just not knowing if IUI could work for us or not is enough for me to at least want to try before I take more drastic and less likeable options. Hopefully the end of this month or next month we would be able to explore our chances.

Thank you all for the messages.. we are still exploring our options while also taking the time to enjoy the last bit of freedom we have before embarking on this next chapter. Take care all

I have just put my two ivf CRGH babies to bed. I know you are focusing on iui but the expertise is not dissimilar!

We went with CRGH gaming started the journey elsewhere. Dr Serhal!

I should say though, they are 9 and 7 now!

@TimeToChangeItUpNow Dr Serhal comes up quite a bit however I don’t think he is in the job anymore, many reviews have said that service has declined since he had left which is such a bummer especially since some travelled far and wide just to see him.

Im really glad to hear it worked out for you and they are peacefully sleeping now.

like I said I can’t totally rule IVF out since I have not had fertility testing yet but I really hope I don’t have to take that route just because I don’t know how I will handle the method😬. I don’t know how people like you handle it.

If you had to do it, you'd handle it. I'm the least likely person ever to be able to cope with it but the want for a baby was just bigger than any of my embarrassment/squeamishness or fears! I sort of gritted my teeth and did it!

That's a shame about Dr Serhal although to be honest, whilst he was our named doctor, we didn't always see him. I'm not sure now, but in 2013/2014, CRGH as a whole had the best success rates across all treatment types and that was why we ended up there. We started at the London Bridge Clinic and were less than impressed.

We did one iui that didn't work and then luckily child 1 was from our first ivf and child 2 from a frozen embryo that was stored from the first fresh cycle. So 2 goes at ivf, 2 babies. I do realise how fortunate we were though.

What I will say though is that the number of appointments and the cost were both much higher than we initially thought so I would really think about not travelling too far (we lived in London so CRGH was also very convenient for appointments before/around work). The appointments are high in number as at CRGH they monitor everything (which goes a long way to their amazing success rates).

When we went back to plan child no 2, we met with Dr Serhal again, and he asked to see a photo of number 1, I really got the impression he was genuinely thrilled by his existence!

@Tropicaliyes I also meant to say I know what you mean about eggs being stored outside of you but having been through the process, I had no fears. Everything was extremely by the book and I felt accounted for with lots of information as to where both my eggs were and the embryos we got were. For 4 years, we had the spare embryos frozen and we got annual letters!

I had 2 rounds of IVF at Guys and found them very good. I'm not in a SS couple, but there were various gendered couples in the waiting room too. Here is their price list:
guysandstthomasprivatehealthcare.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ACU-Self-Funding-Price-List.pdf

I would check what the qualification requirements for IVF/IUI are where you live and IF anything can be claimed via NHS. Some areas cover non smokers, others have BMI requirements and most have an upper age limit. Some areas (most of Essex) cover NO IVF at all! I didn't understand all the acronyms of all the hospitals you mentioned, sorry.

I would think as a general work up- you should have a day 21 blood test (to check you ovulate), ultrasound and hycosy/HSG- to check shape of uterus and patency of tubes, STI check, bloods for thyroid/sugars etc. I also agree with choosing a clinic reasonably close to home. My 1st round of IVF- I had to return every 2 days for scans/bloods etc. The 2nd time, was less often, but do choose somewhere with an easy- quick route.

@Tropicaliyes Your original post was back in April so I hope I am not late to the conversation now that it's June. If you are still looking for fertility clinics, there are so many out there, it's best to attend any Zoom introduction talks online that the clinic offers or in-person talks before making a decision. I went to like 4 - 5 different clinics over a period of two years, it's like trial-and-error.