CRGH v Evewell

[lostindreams]

Anyone with experience of either? Evewell seems to have glowing reviews but are very new so no stats on the HFEA site. Has anyone successfully got pregnant with them through IVF?

Reviews for CRGH seem a lot more mixed but their stats for my age group (over 40) are higher than average.

I used CRGH. Their stats are incredible, although their administration is maddingly bad. That said, I got pregnant following first transfer, and will be going back there. The Drs and nurses were all very good, it was just the organisation and system that made it really stressful and I was continually having to chase things and clarify what treatment I should be having.
But you want a baby, and although they are v expensive and maddening, they offer a very good chance of that. I've never heard of the other clinic.

Two other people that we have been recommended are James Nicopoullos at the Lister and Stuart Lavery. Do any of you have any experience with either of these two consultants & IVF? Really appreciate your advice

@Makers123 the finance department is hilarious. Sandy in finance rang asking me to pay for an appt, I told her I prefer to pay online with my credit card & requested a payment link. She emails me their bank details...I had to call her back and explain that you cannot pay into someone's bank account using a credit card – she genuinely did not understand this! I do wonder how qualified their finance team is. I had no choice but to pay over the phone, handing over my credit card details to someone wfh that I've never met. Not ideal!

Did CRGH for us (M43, F40) without a referral nor insurance. They are pricey £20k+ (not including meds) but they got the job done first time/first round.

Quite professional outfit, but as others have said, their accounting is a bit weird and unorganised. Luckily their baby-making game is on-point.

@VWH187/ others looking at clinics at the moment: have you considered the London Women's Clinic? Despite their name, they have about 10 clinics around the country and their success rates on their website look really good. A friend of mine who went there had good results with them (currently about halfway through her pregnancy). She seemed pretty happy with their services as well. For their prices (one round of IVF is below £5k) might be worth checking out?

@pileapetals Thanks, but we already had our baby (10 months old to date!), and aren't considering more.
CRGH was a recommendation from a gyno friend of ours. But the prime factor was that their success rates were generally pretty high and they were pretty keen to keep them that high. In theory, this was a good and bad thing. On the plus side, we got the results first time around. But on the negative, I feel like they took a lot more extra precautions (and maybe meds) to ensure we got the results.
But end of the day the success was there, so speaks volumes.

@VWH187 - oops, my bad! I should've read your post more clearly! I feel you on your point about the whole thing being a bit of a mixed bag though. I ended up at ABC (the Harley St. one) and also their sister clinic Create St. Paul's for all procedures, and pretty much had the same thing: BFP and now in first trimester, but the admin side of things were pretty chaotic (lack of precaution leading to some strange incidents, and at one point Create mixed up patients and gave me info about another patient's embryo info).

Glad that part's over for you now. And congratulations on your newborn!!

Whilst CRGH’s success rates are indeed good, they are partly so because they steer you towards donor eggs very early on, which have a much higher rate of success.

We saw them after a disastrous round when they suggested the only way forward was donor, they advised the same to a friend. Said friend is now pregnant from IVF and after a tweak of medication, we have had a much better outcome.

I am currently on my second IUI cycle at CRGH. Like someone said before - no baby no diagnosis. I actually got pregnant accidentally right within a month of meeting DH back in the 00s and we had a termination. Regretting that now. Anyway CRGH is fine, they have a bit of a communication issue between the doctors, nurses and admin staff but if you do your research and keep pestering them they're fine.

Hi there - quick question on CRGH. Does anyone know if they turn patients away if their stats (AMH/FSH) are below or above certain thresholds like ARGC do? I’m just curious about their success rates.

My wife went through CRGH and it seems that they would accept you as a patient, try a few rounds of "egga harvesting" and if it fails then offer you donor eggs (at a premium, no less). Then generally have high success rates and we got our child in one round. CRGH are pretty risk adverse so I understand what you mean by potentially being turned away. But if everything else is okay by their standards (your health, age, prior medical history, etc) then they will generally take you as a patient. After all, you are going to pay a premium price wink

CRGH don’t turn you away as such but are very quick to suggest you move onto donor eggs if your first round doesn’t work, which is partly why their success rates are good. Donor eggs move you up to about a 50% chance of live birth.

Thanks both! The stats I have seen relate to own eggs and they are very good for the over 40s, so I am bit suspicious that they are filtering based on AMH/FSH etc. Or are they just very good in that age bracket...

By definition if they move people onto donor eggs earlier than most clinics, that will also help their own egg numbers

To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if they were filtering out clients. End of the day, they are still a business and they want to minimise on failures to keep their high success reputation.
From what I can tell, a lot of their clients are 40+ (we were as well) so wouldn't be surprised if they indeed did also filter based on AMH/FSH as one of the many factors that they consider when taking on new customers.
Remember, they are a pretty plush outfit. They don't need to take every customer that comes along. Now that's not to say that they are arrogant or snooty, but rather that their consultation is as much an evaluation of you, as it is your evaluation of them.

CRGH- Late to the discussion but I was googling something else and noticed the thread about CRGH and had to respond. Having started ivf aged 38 due to a male infertility problem, I managed to get 12 blasts over 3 rounds with 4 PGS normals. The whole process was pretty painful including various data breaches, poor treatment advice and consistently long waits. I then spent near enough a year and a lot of money transferring all of those tested embryos. All four failed. You would say 1 or 2 is bad luck but 4? We were completely failed by CRGH- my case was clearly not text book and despite our constants requests for tests and advice, they kept just saying to put the next embryo in. Looking back now, we should have moved to another clinic with o embryos but more importantly, the clinic should have advised us to do this as they could not help us. Following our fourth failure, wedid move to ARGC and I got pregnant (on a different protocol) on my first try - unfortunately that embryo wasn’t tested so I had a MC and now in the middle of additional egg collections. Now aged 40- it is much more difficult. I just wish CRGH had advised us that they couldn’t help and we hadn’t been so stupid to trust the Doctors there. I appreciate there are good news stories from CRGH but if you are not a text book case, I suggest going to another clinic.

We had a child through CRGH. Me - 42, Wife - 39/40
Little guy cost us roughly £25k including all meds, and we only needed one round of IVF.
IUI was also suggested and offered, but the doctor recommended IVF for a "sure thing", and quite frankly, we didn't want to mess around with "maybes". Time was of the essence!
Like others have said, their nurses differ in terms of bed-side manner, and it was sporadic and bad that you weren't offered a specific nurse for the duration of your treatment. That would made it better. Also their finance dept was abysmal, and definitely DON'T opt for the direct debit route.
End of the day, the treatment was successful and we got the result we wanted. Got to select the "premium" embyro out of the lot and satisfied.

One note for mothers considering IVF that isn't often talked about. A lot of the factors to success of such treatment depend on you and your body. If your "harvest" is weak, then options will be limited. The drugs are there to stimulate, but can't work miracles.