Just wanted to share my frustration.
I’m 37. Been TTC for nearly 3 years. Had MMC last October.
Have been trying to access IVF. After first seeing our GP in autumn 2016, we finally got our first appointment with a consultant at our local hospital five months ago (Nov 2017 - shortly after the MMC) and they sent us for blood tests (DP had semen analysis last year which came back fine). We were told we'd be called back for a follow-up appointment in three months. Still haven’t heard anything (it's been five months) so phoned up today and was told there’s an 11 month backlog on follow up appointments! They said they’ll put on a note on my file to try to get me bumped up the list. So frustrating!
Our next appointment will hopefully result in a referral to the Fertility Institute at Neath Port Talbot.
I've been struggling to work out when is the best time to “resort to” IVF. I wouldn’t mind waiting a bit longer and hoping it will happen “naturally” (having been pregnant once now, it seems like it’s not impossible). But also aware that if I am going to have IVF, it’s more likely to be work now than in a few years’ time (those graphs are scary). Also, even though I've been pregnant once, I can't help thinking the MMC might have been down to my age and declining egg quality, and thus related to our struggle to conceive.
The fact that we may be moving away (to England) within the next year or so makes me think we should get on with having IVF while we’re still in Wales so that we don’t have to start the appointments/tests/referrals process – which, it seems, takes years – all over again.
We were living in a different area (England) when we first started TTC and tried to start the process of accessing IVF there (had some blood tests) before we moved and had to start again from scratch. So in total we've been trying to access IVF for around 2 years now.
I'm going to keep phoning the hospital (every 2 weeks or so) until they give us our next appointment and, in the meantime, draw strength from mumsnet!