Coronavirus and fertility clinics.

[mabel92]

Has anyone’s fertility clinic told them they will close due to Coronavirus? I’m due to start treatment and now confused as what to do or whether I’ll be able to start. Thanks.

I think that is a good idea @Dia12 I think that in a month or so we should really work to challenge the HEFA to recognise that denying women IVF treatment for a prolonged period will destroy lives. There seems to be no organisation that is willing to argue on behalf of infertile people except for the director of Create (you can find her on Twitter). The rest seems to say: it is sad- here try some therapy to get over it. I have nothing against therapy but it will not help to get treatment restarted as soon as possible. I think we need to argue for the urgency ourselves.
6 months is such a long time didn't they say though that at that point- with it being autumn- a second wave of the virus may hit the busy hospitals? I really hope that these are all worst case scenarios and that this horrible situation gets better much quicker xxx

I really understand what you mean @Wesstywoo Were you at a NHS clinic? Perhaps there will be a way NHS patients can be helped by private clinics. Care fertility already provides this service to the NHS funded patients in many places. Xxx

@Matilda128 I am private but every month that ticks by my already slim chance is fast disappearing and I fear that my last chance (like so many others in the same situation) will be gone. I'll look at setting up a Twitter account to contact them xx

@Wesstywoo I completely understand what you mean. It is such a horrible situation. Take care xxx

@Matilda128
I think Create are really vocal about it more than other clinics as they are one of the very few/only clinics which will treat women with very very low AMH which other clinics won't accept as patients x

Has anyone had coronovirus after egg collection or during treatment?

I got it four days after egg collection (to freeze). Feel horrendous, not sure if worse due to recent steroids/hormones effect on immune system.

Interested if it affected the quality of anyones eggs retrieved?

Also - will we need to prove immunity to Coronovirus before they will allow for any embryo tranfers? They currently say no transfers as dont know if CV safe in pregnancy...

I agree @itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted I also think that the director is great and dares to speak her mind. Because of this I would choose Create if I would ever come to a point to consider more treatment. I do think that the whole corona crisis has exposed the fertility industry and how they treat infertile couples. Especially those clinics who dropped their patients mid stim in the first week-before HEFA even advised to wind services down. I really think that that is unforgivable and horrible. Xxx

I have been thinking about proving immunity before treatment @LondonIVF12 but I do not think that this would be the case. There will be many people that will not get the virus at all and as such it would be unfair if they would never be allowed to have treatment (I guess people would go out to try to get infected just so they can get treatment ). I hope you will feel better soon
Research suggests that only extreem conditions such as chemotherapy would affect egg quality.
The reason why people who are not infertile are told there are no risks of Covid-19 in early pregnancy is because there is no scientific evidence that there are any. But being very ill with a high fever is always dangerous in pregnancy (like with flu and food poisoning).
People who are relying on fertility treatment are told there is no medical evidence that there are no risks. This is a really big difference. You shouldn't be able to deny medical treatment without any scientific evidence.

@Matilda128
I agree - Creates policy was to keep going until they were specifically told not to but they still got everyone who started through egg collection and they were still allowed to do transfers if they weren't having virus symptoms

I've stuck with them through 5 rounds and wouldn't go anywhere else. My hope is that they will be one of the first to restart treatment and hope that they are lobbying the HFEA during this time

With the death rate shooting up today I would think the HFEA will say that that the number of new cases needs to be in decline before treatment can stray again xx

@LondonIVF12
The issue will also be if all the nurses doctors and anaesthetics are able to prove immunity as they won't want to risk one of them transmitting to a patient

Thanks @Matilda128. I mention it however as I thought the reason they stopped the transfers was because they were not allowed to get people pregnant as they didn't know the risks of coronovirus in pregnancy and also as drugs to treat coronovirus contraindicated in pregnancy... or are they now backtracking on that and it is just a resource issues/stopping the spread. It is confusing, as if their initial argument is true, surely we need to wait until they prove pregnancy+cv is safe...

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted Yes. I think the doctors and nurses will all get it in over the next months. My sister is a doctor and she got it from colleague at work this week. The health staff are all spreading it to each other as they can't social distance when working and need to come into work. She tells me they have triple backed their rotas as they expect all staff to get it then come back to work immune.

That is the controversy @LondonIVF12 HEFA and BFS started by pointing out that there was no risks. Then when the government placed pregnant women in the vulnerable group- HEFA wrote that this was just a precaution and there was no evidence of any risk. When there were some transmissions in later pregnancy between mother and baby- they highlighted that all reported cases were mild and there was no risk in early pregnancy (I think this is still the stance of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists). The real change came just before social distancing measurements were announced.
If you read all the official literature there is an emphasis on infertility patients putting extra strain on the NHS. They allowed clinics to wind down treatment and to stop on the 15th rather than stop completely as soon as social distancing measurements were announced. The 15th of April is when all non-urgent and elective surgeries are asked to stop so my assumption is that it is connected to this.
But who knows- they are still being completely vague (they added a new line on their website today which adds no information to what was already said) xxx

www.hfea.gov.uk/treatments/covid-19-and-fertility-treatment/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-patients/

Thanks @mabel92

Yes totally vague. I hope they have a solid answer soon!

X x

Sorry I meant @ Matilda128

@UncleBrynsfishingtriptrip @Rumtopt

I've been thinking of you both. Did you manage to freeze some?

Does anyone know if clinics would blanked freeze all rather than waiting until blastocyst stage?

• blanket freeze

My clinic said they would freeze all. I had a day 3 embryo and a day 5 blastocyst but sadly neither were good enough quality to freeze!

@Piddy
It depends on the clinic. Mine has a policy that they have to freeze at least one on day 3 so that they can culture it to day 5 when it's thawed and it's "active" I guess when they transfer (compared to thawing on day 5 a couple of hours or less before transfer

I'm doing a 3 cycle package for cycles 3, 4 and 5 and I have mix frozen - top quality on day 3 - the grade 1s are frozen on day 3 because these have best odds of making blastocyst and then any that were grade 2 or 3 were cultured to day 5 and if they made blastocyst were then frozen x

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted

Thank you for explaining. It sounds like a good policy to freeze at least some of the embryos, so you at least have a chance of getting one put back when the time comes.

Fingers crossed for everyone XX

Hi my partner had a sperm test three weeks ago and we've been chasing.. Indeed it seems they did send the result but we're waiting our GP to get it. Do you know whether these investigative procedures also stopped? Does it mean even if they find a problem it means we can't do anything at the moment?

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted ..... Thanks for your update . I’m being a bit slow - why do they freeze the top grade at day 3 instead of letting them develop to day 5 ? If they were top quality wouldn’t getting them to say 5 then freezing be better ? Is it better not to let them get to blastocyst stage before freezing in this case ?

@Xx40yearsyoungxx
It's a bit confusing isn't it! Im still not 100% sure I understand either - my clinic said if you are only doing one single round of IVF (say for financial reasons) or you only get two fertilised eggs then the policy is to freeze day 3 so that it gives them the option of doing a day 3 transfer if the embryo is struggling when it thaws and they think it might do better back in the uterus rather than the lab.

That way they don't "waste" any potential embryos for transfer

They froze the best ones in my case on day 3 as they were confident given the quality that they would make good blastocysts (but I had already done 2 rounds last year with the same clinic so they were confidant that they have knowledge/experience of how my eggs fertilised and progress). The low grade ones they said would be 50/50 whether they made blastocyst so to be able to decide which were the best to transfer (when we eventually bloody get to their point!) they let them go to day 5

Cycle 3 - 2 eggs both fertilised - both grade 1 on day 3 - both frozen

Cycle 4 - 7 eggs - mix of grades so let them go to day 5 - have a day 5 4aa frozen and a day 6 4bb frozen

Cycle 5 - to be confirmed

They said then the priority of transfers would be the following

Transfer 1 - depending on quality of the fresh ones from cycle 5 I would transfer one of those and they would also thaw one of the day 3s so that's it's very much "active" by day 5 and they would transfer the both together

• Transfer 2 - 4aa and one of the day 3s cultured to blastocyst (unless any higher grade from cycle 5)

• Transfer 3 - whatever is left

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted thanks for that
It is so confusing , especially when clinics do appear to have a different way of doing this slightly

I don’t suppose anyone has been in the position of having only a few dominant follicles with quite a few much smaller ones (6mm) not looking like they will catch up .
I was due for egg collection tomorrow but I haven’t reached the stage where even the bigger ones ( only a couple 😢) have made it to the desired size . They have said that it is unlikely that the small ones will catch up as they don’t seem to be growing . .... i can’t help think the stress of everything and the on/off will they cancel/not cancel has helped my body respond how it Should . I am hanging by a thread just to try and still get to egg collection which had to be delayed because of my poor response . I’m just wondering whether there is any likelihood that the small follicles will catch up over the next couple of days ( they will prob not Wait longer due to the current climate ) and whether they are likely to have any eggs in them . As it stands I’m looking like , at best , only having a couple of eggs retrieved and frozen after all this worry / stress .
I still feel fortunate that as it stands I MAY be allowed to get to egg collection although with every passing day it’s still very much up in the air whether I will be allowed to collect. They will be freezing any they get

@Xx40yearsyoungxx
My 3rd cycle I only had 2 dominant follicles and the rest didn't grow much - there was probably a good 8mm or more difference and the small ones stayed at 6mm the entire cycle. I was given the option of cancelling but chose not too as we specifically changed from short protocol to natural modified because I get quite a lot of eggs but rubbish quality so wanted to try something different. Both were collected and both fertilised (previously had fertilisation rates even with ICSI Of 30%) and both were top quality grade 1 on day 3
Which was the best quality I'd had.

The 3rd cycle there was one big dominant one and the rest not growing much - 1mm per day instead of 2mm so I added in Luveris at cycle day 6 and they did catch up but it was caught in time.

How many days have you been on stims? Have they talked about increasing your dose? What the size of your largest follicle? X