ABC Infertility

[Bubblegum89]

Looking at potential IVF options and to stay with our current fertility clinic, we’re looking in the region of about £6k for IVF including medication. I have come across ABC in London a few times and I’ve also seen women on ttc/infertility fb groups talking about having their IVF done there.

I understand it’s known as “shoebox” IVF which is why it only costs £2500 including meds, scans etc. Which is amazing to be honest when you don’t have thousands and thousands to spare like we don’t. I was just wondering if anyone on here was considering going, is currently or has been through IVF with them and if they’re worth it? I feel like it may be a “too good to be true” situation but if it’s not, it would really be a step in the right direction for us money-wise

@TryingForMyRainbow oh I didn't realise. Thank you for letting me know x

if you are starting a new cycle I would recommend. For the price I think they are good. But I am wondering why not many of their embryos make it to day 5 or maybe it’s just a coincidence...
overall other than me being at risk of ohss and having to pay extra for the frozen trainer I can’t fault them. The nurses and everyone there is nice and informative.

Btw The initial consultation is not included in the £2500.

*transfer

@TryingForMyRainbow it's not just your clinic I had the same issue with my clinic. I'm on day six waiting for a miracle to have happened to my embryo.
Best thing we can do is prepare our bodies physically and mentally for the next round and do as much as we can to get our eggs in tip top shape! My DH is going to be on so many supplements for his swimmers he will rattle when he walks 😂
We got this 💪😊

@Babymamawanna I’m gonna take a little break I think. My period is now 3 days late but I think that’s from the meds as I had a bleed 11 days after egg removal so this will be my next period. No one told me though that my period would be late which has kind of annoyed me I was secretly hoping I may be pregnant but after all my googling looks like most people’s second period are up to 10 days late. Does anyone know about this ? Also everyone at abc is really nice and help book times that are convenient with work etc x

@PBR123 it's such a shame we aren't told so many of the things that happen. Make sure you take care of yourself and not let what's happened consume you. This result doesn't define us!!
We will Be mothers one day 🤰🏻xxx
Good Luck to everyone going through this. I have a new found respect for women and their partners going through this xxx

@PBR123 I asked Abc about that as my FET will start with my second bleed (currently having first) and I was informed that the second one can take time to come as it may take your body time to adjust. So expect it to be later than usual. Hang in there x

@Babymamawanna
I hope you do have a day 6 miracle! And you’re right need to prepare our bodies so we can have the best results. Thanks and good luck to you all!

We shall all be mothers by next year Mother’s Day 🙏🏻

@Babymamawanna god I just nearly cried at my desk there !!!! X

@TryingForMyRainbow thanks I wish they told me but maybe cause I never made it that far I’ve emailed them so assume they will just confirm.

Best of luck to everyone x

@PBR123 bless your heart 💖 always here if you need a shoulder x

Hi guys
Really hope you don’t mind me popping in, me and my dh go for our very first ivf consultation at abc on the 3rd of may so so nervous could anyone give me some advice on what to expect.
Thanks 🌸🌺

Hi @Sarahloub1
Don’t be nervous it will be fine- you will just meet with the nurse who will talk you through the procedure and explain everything in detail. Be prepared for a trasnvaginal ultrasounds, where the nurse will check your follicle count see your lining ovaries etc and take your weight and height. They will roughly discuss your treatment plan in terms of medication dose if you decide to go ahead with it depending on your age and antral follicle count and that’s about it- you can ask any questions you have. If you are happy with everything you will then be told to book a treatment consultation, if I remember correctly I believe that will be roughly 2 weeks before your period as that way you will have plenty of time for your medication to be delivered to your house.

Good luck

Thank you for your help I'm a nervous wreck honestly I'm 34 and my bmi is 27 how much under 30 do they ideally like it I'm crash dieting our running every night it's just not coming down I'm so worried there going to say sorry your too heavy for our criteria 😥😥it's so stressful and we haven't even been yet.

They require BMI under 30 so you’re fine. Don’t crash diet. Just work out regularly during the week and try to cut out all junk food etc and have a healthy balanced diet.

The last thing you need is to stress especially at this stage. It is all straightforward simple and nothing to worry or stress about. It’s all over before you know it so please try to enjoy the experience to make it better for yourself.

Hi All!! After 4 years of trying for a baby, we’ve been looking for 2 weeks for IVF treatments abroad. We have a couple of Skype calls booked in for this week. However, we decided on Friday last week to look for UK clinics that office IVF - we had thought it would be too expensive so hadn’t looked before. We came across ABC and thought ‘too good to be true’, but after doing a lot of digging over the weekend into them and stumbling upon this thread, I have, this morning booked our initial meeting with ABC at the end of the month. Feeling a lot of mixed emotions re our appointment - excitement, worried, apprehensive and all the bits in between. But we know there is a long road ahead and we are very realistic in our expectations but I am glad that there is a company out there who allow people like us a shot at IVF without spending £8k+. I don’t normally get involved with forums like these but for this process I feel like we are all here for one clinic and we can all help each other throughout our different stages xx

@MrsSharp29

Hi welcome! I hope you have success and lots of luck with everything! I am having my frozen embryo transfer with ABC with my next period! Xxx

Wow! How exciting! Please keep in touch and let me know how it goes (if that’s okay) as I’d love to have someone else’s journey to read through and someone to speak with about it xx

@MrsSharp29

Hi
We are booked in with ABC on the 3rd of may for our initial consultation I am so nervous wondering what to expect panicking over bmi how much under 30 do they want it, please let me know how you get on maybe put my mind at ease haha 🤞🏻

Good luck

My appointment is on 29th @sarahloub1 so will keep you updated. Just had a lovely chat with them on the phone actually which was nice - and helped with a lot of my initial questions as I’m very new to all of this as we’ve, as a couple, not done the NHS route as my cycle is all over the place and trying to get an appointment for the hormone blood test on day one of the cycle with my doctors was a nightmare and I have missed 5 cycles worth of blood testing. And my husband was given the wrong sized sample pot twice so both samples were deemed useless. So private is the way forward for us.

The BMI thing is a bit unknown really - I can happily ask and pass it over to you before you go :) the BMI and age doesn’t bother me as much as the egg reserve because I haven’t had any prior testing so it’s so much of an unknown to me xx

@MrsSharp29

Definitely that would be brilliant thank you,
I know it's all a bit scary.
It's all new to us really I'm just going on what I've been ready online and on there website to fit there criteria.
We've not had any tests at all we've been trying for 2 years now and still nothing all we do no is my husbands sperm count is a little on the low side so hopefully if we go for the ICSI option we might get what we've been wanting.
I've been googling YouTubing going on this ridiculous crash diet honestly I'm making myself crazy.

@sarahloub1

Well I wish you both the best of luck. Happy to provide any feedback from my meeting to you and any BMI info also. I know what it’s like going into the unknown. My cycles are so out of sync I am concerned re my egg reserve. And hub hasn’t had any results yet so we don’t know whether he has a low count. But we are heading in with an open mind and will see what they say. We’ve obviously paid for the initial consultation but we’ve also paid £100 for hubs to be tested before 29th so that they have all tests ready there to view and they have our full picture xx

@MrsSharp29
Before we went we asked out gp to give a form for my husband to get his swimmers checked- you should of got it done on the NHS and saved £100. He was sent to hometown and the results were very quick!

@tryingformyrainbow

Absolutely, do NHS where possible but after a couple of attempts trying to submit a sample from my husband and after being handed the wrong sample pot and both times rejected, and another time we got stuck in traffic (we live 45mins in good traffic from the nearest semen testing hospital) we both got fed up. Where we are it’s not that easy to get to the hospital 1hr after ‘donation’ has been made, and my husband works in central London so it made sense. And considering we had saved to do this treatment abroad, we have the savings to allow for this testing.

Hope you don't mind me joining.

I had my initial consultation today and I have a couple of things that I thought it might be worth sharing. You'll need an FSH blood test (less than 3 months old) and a rubella blood test before they will agree to a treatment consultation. You need to be up to date with your smear and have proof that it was all fine. Your partner will also need a semen analysis (less than a year old). If you want to do the blood tests and semen analysis with them they told us it would be approx £100. If we get pregnant we were told we'll need to take progesterone tablets from our positive test all the way to week 12. You have to pay extra for these and they're approx £31 a week apparently so an additional £250ish that I didn't see mentioned anywhere on their website (we would also have to take progesterone after egg collection until the pregnancy test but they would be included in the £2500 cost). Freezing of any additional embryos would be £995 for two years. Unfortunately that all means unexpected delays for us which is very frustrating.

Hi
Was this all at abc?

@MrsSharps29 oh I missed you post where you mentioned that. Yeah that makes sense as it would be most convenient
Good luck with everything.

@Marmite83
Welcome, of course you can join in.

I was also surprised at the additional cost. But they reassured me that perhaps my GP would be able to prescribe the progesterone and could be free as it is needed to maintain pregnancy so NHS could possibly cover it. Also I was even more surprised at their freezing cost and more so having to be told we now have to pay extra £750 for having to have a frozen transfer due to risk of OHSS (which I did not develop and only had 9 eggs collected) did they mention this to u as I do not recall having being told this but we have no choice but to pay. Also ok advise you to go for a day 3 transfer as many don’t make it to day 5 from what I’ve been seeing across ABC ladies- 8 of our 9 fertilised but None of 7 reached blastocyst which was so shocking - luckily they had frozen one on day 3 so that is what we will be using.