IVF abroad - things I wish I'd known . . .

[RedPandaFluff]

Hi everyone - I recently had donor egg IVF in the Czech Republic and thought some of you might find my "lessons learned" useful. I think I would have valued a post like this when I was doing my research, so thought it might help someone else trying to make a decision whether to have treatment at home or go abroad.

1. If you're unlucky and your procedures fall on weekends or holidays, you can end up spending more than you bargained for on flights and accommodation. One set of flights for us ended up costing £300 each due to bad timing - all in all, that one visit cost close to £1000.

2. Factor in costs of ultrasounds and prescription meds, and how easy it is to get these in the UK (e.g. is there a UK partner clinic that will issue prescriptions to you?) We spent around £200 on ultrasounds here, and around £400 on meds that we could only get once we were in Prague.

3. Find out whether you will be able to communicate directly with your doctor. We had to go through a "patient coordinator" and if we had questions we could only email them and then it could take several days to get a response. This felt like an additional series of obstacles, caused some misunderstandings due to language barrier, and definitely added to my frustrations and anxiety.

4. If you go for a "guarantee" package, check for admin fees. We paid for a package that included a FET guarantee - i.e. that there would be at least one embryo to freeze and we were told in emails that the FET procedure is included in the package price. Now that we're trying to arrange the FET, we're being told there is an additional "admin fee" of €700. They managed to hide this as a tiny one-liner in the contract - so although I have emails confirming it's included, we still have to pay the "admin fee" as it's our own fault for missing this in the contract.

5. Beware of other hidden expenses - prior to the frozen transfer we've been asked to have another consent form signed and notarised, as the clinic needs one for every procedure. So that's another £80+. You'll also need STD tests and other examinations prior to starting treatment - check that these are included.

I guess the overall point to consider is that if you're going abroad primarily to save money, you might not save as much as you think. Our base package cost was £6500 but in reality we spent around £10k.

I do think I had a bad experience with our chosen clinic - I had to correct them a couple of times when I was there having embryo transfer (nothing serious, just which package we were on etc.) but it was unnerving.

Happy to answer any questions, and good luck to everyone starting out on this path

Dunya Clinic said we are going to stay 10 days. We may not have regular access to speaking with the doctor but it has to be through the patient coordinator.

Have you tried contacting Gynolife, @Rintusa? We were told this time we needed to be out there for just 7 days but have chosen to do 2 weeks to give me time to rest post embryo transfer.

Things we’ve done differently this time.....

1. consultant wanted scan as well as bloods on CD2; we got them done at a local clinic called Ultrasound Direct at a cost of £162 plus £6:50 for expedited post delivery of blood samples. Got scan results by email the same day as well as printed report. We we’re lucky the clinic could fit us in with almost no notice around Christmas/New Year and that we got to the post office in time to send the bloods off.

2. if we booked our own flights (10 days notice of when we could fly out) and took their accommodation package the cost would have been approximately £1700; by booking a last minute package holiday (at a hotel the clinic list as being one they use), private transfers to/from airport and then pay clinic for transfers to the clinic for all appointments, has saved us best part of £600!! This will cover our extra spends and anything we do while out there as well as coach travel to and from Heathrow and hotels overnight either side of our flights.

3. we have booked back into the same ultrasound clinic for our day 9 endometrial thickness scan (£79) and will send the report to clinic when received by email. This means we can fly out 4-5 days later than we would have had to otherwise.

4. we organised all our drugs in advance so they are in a crate ready for us - old GP wrote private prescription for us as we knew we’d be moving not long before the treatment so couldn’t be sure of what private services there were available in our new area.

5. we’re going to discuss using embryo glue with our consultant for this cycle and see what his opinion of it is. We have changed egg donor in case the issue was incompatibility between myself and the donor.

6. I am not working at the moment (thanks to moving) and we were able to afford for me to be not working or a few months while having treatment and awaiting (hopefully) our bfp. Last time I was back at work 4 days after embryo transfer and, while no one can say it has any effect, we felt the fact I couldn’t rest and do as little as possible until my OTD might well have affected our chances of success.

I understand it is cheaper to have treatment abroad but how do you all feel about having an anonymous donor... are there any concerns regarding your child asking for information about their donor/s and half or full genetic half siblings in the future and not having any or only limited information to give them?

Hi everyone, sorry to jump on here but I've recently been researching ivf again (already have a dc conceived via ivf) but I have come across this clinic (I had some of my treatment there previously) and they offer a 'pure ivf' package as they are partly nhs funded but open to private/ public. Good luck everyone on your journeys.

www.cambridge-ivf.org.uk

We have discussed this and, unless there is something genetic to worry about, decided we won’t discuss the matter with our dc if successful.

@Mummyshark2018, looks interesting but is only any good if you are under 38, don’t have PCOS, low AMH or MFI problems. Sadly, many people seeking private funded ivf do so because they don’t meet the NHS criteria or are over age.

@SeaWitchly - that's one reason I've chosen to stick with UK treatment for the time being. I'm not saying I'd never ever go abroad (I thought I'd never have IVF, or use donor eggs, and yet here we are) but my strong preference would be to keep the future option of having more information about the donor open for any children I might have. I'd plan to be very open (I'm single, so a certain amount of explanation would be needed anyway, and on the donor egg front I figure there are now so many ways they might find that out, and I'd anyway want to normalise it and acknowledge the wonderful gift of my egg donor) - so for me, UK treatment is the better option.

My hubby suggested since we have already been in contact with 2 clinics, that we should just narrow it down and choose from those two, to avoid getting confused. So we are seriously looking at both of them. The Kyrenia and Dunya clinic.

@Rememberallball

My hubby suggested since we have already been in contact with 2 clinics, that we should just narrow it down and choose from those two, to avoid getting confused. So we are seriously looking at both of them. The Kyrenia and Dunya clinic.

@persipan

If you are using donor sperm and egg then you may want to consider embryo adoption. There are quite a few places in the UK that offer this. If you do this abroad it will still likely be anonymous but it might sit easier with you if you are concerned about the ethics of egg donation

I am from the UK and had IVF with donor egg at Serum IVF in Greece. I was very happy with them and would recommend them. Also New Life in Thessaloniki in Greece gets great recommendations amongst the ladies I know.

I would never do IVF in the UK again. If I was starting now, I would look at Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic and Spain. I think you have to prepare for it to cost the same as the UK. Don't see it as the cheap option, but just better care.

Plan to either buy your meds out there or arrange where you can get them at home. Bear in mind most UK pharmacies won't accept email prescriptions. Also if you need somewhere to do your trigger shots or you plan to have IVIg or intralipids, find somewhere in advance. normal private clinics won't always do these especially if you bring the meds with you (bitter experience)!

scoobette69 are you in Cyprus already? Pray everything works out well for you and @Rememberallball. I am from the US too. Is like many in this forum are from the UK.

@rintusa, the Mumsnet forum was conceived in the Uk so the vast majority of its members are uk based - but there’s are members all over the world with all sorts of experiences!!

Although we're comparing to UK facilities, I think a lot is still relevant if you're coming from the US, although coming all the way to Europe is obviously not a cheap option!

I second @IloveCheese11 I used serum for a donor egg cycle and couldn't fault them

@Rememberallball, thanks for the explanation. How's the weather in Cyprus now?

Hi @rintusa, it’s been 15/16c during the day and some cloud. A bit breezy at times but nothing too bad. We’ve been out each day for a walk and just taken light fleeces with us!! In fact, we might ask them to turn down the heater in the car when we go to the clinic on Wednesday as it was so stuffy on Saturday I felt yuck when we got there!!

@RedPandaFluff what clinic did you go to? I know this was a long time ago but would like to avoid based on the experiences you had. Hope it was successful in the end through x

Hi @Greggars thanks for reviving this thread. Was hoping to connect with other ladies who had treatments abroad like we did. We went to Dunya IVF in Cyprus, it was recommended to us by our OB in Dublin. I've been reading some of the posts here in this thread. Glad to say we have not experienced too many hitches. And definitely we did save off costs if we had our second treatment done in Ireland.

@rintusa and @Rememberallball how did your treatments go? If i read right you both went to Cyprus too?

@RedPandaFluff thank you for the info you posted, I am sure this is helpful to all who wish to have ivf abroad. Sorry to hear that you experienced those things. As for our experience, gladly we were very happy with it. We saved money and the process was smooth. I just want to know if you got the baby you always wished for in the end?

Hi @Maeve88Troy,

Yes, we went to Cyprus for our IVF in January. For us the 2 cycles of treatment cost less than 1 here in the UK would have done, including the 2 weeks accommodation and flights. We knew before we flew home that it had been successful and, at 7 weeks, we found out it was twins.

We became parents of twin boys on 22nd August after 34 weeks of fairly healthy pregnancy for me but twin 2 didn’t grow very well hence their early arrival. They were small at 4lb 15oz and 3lb 6oz but didn’t spend any time in NICU and we’re only in hospital for 3 weeks. They are 14 weeks old now and showing us their individual characters!!

So lovely to hear successes :) I’m also using a northern cyprus clinic British Cyprus IVF, on my second round :)

@Rememberallball congratulations on your twins! I'm 23w4d and glad to be in my second trimester. I'm just praying baby will pull through and in my arms by March next year!

My partner and I are planning to visit Dunya again in May to show them our little treasure! (God be winning!)

@Woodcottage1 good luck on your second round, what phase are you in already?

@Woodcottage1,
I am also considering British cyprus clinic. Hoping to start with my March cycle.
What stage r U on?
Could you possibly share Ur experience with them please please

Hello! So sorry for the late reply. Right now I’m 2 days post 5 day frozen transfer. I had my transfer on Thursday. Fingers crossed during this 2 week wait x