How much did you pay for your IVF?

[Youngatheart00]

Doing some benchmarking as I’ve just realised my clinic seems to be the most expensive in London and I wouldn’t say we got anything like a ‘premium’ experience last cycle (or any success).

We paid £4700 inclusive of blastocyst culture and time lapse imaging.

The fact clinics charge extra for blast culture irritates me hugely as isn’t this just standard practice now? Why charge hundreds extra for it? And the time lapse photos delivered precisely zero use and have never been referred to.

On top of that drugs cost another £1600 inclusive of an extra Gonal F pen which I had to buy at an extraordinary mark up from the clinic at short notice.

Inclusive of initial consultation and bloods etc we paid £7500 in total.

Interested in others experiences (especially in London)

We are at the Lister in London and one cycle is around £7k exclusive of drugs so we are opting to go through access and buy in to a package.

I also know that is ALOT! My jaw dropped when I got the final figure.

It is such a lot! Are you having many add ons / ICSI etc?

I’ve seen other London clinics quote c £3000 but I’m always nervous that’s not the full price and the last thing I want is to be charged every time I need a blood test or scan. It just gets more stressful. I don’t have a bottomless pit of cash!!

I think the £3,000 you have seen would be the absolute base price for the actual IVF so no drugs included (drugs cost will vary depending on individual circumstances), plus bloods, blastocyst culture, embryos scope (usually an optional extra?), embryo freezing etc on top. 7.5k does seem about accurate once you factor those things in

Who are you with @Youngatheart00? I agree the additional fees are mind blowing. With Lister it was around 7k as pp commented, once everything added. And then additional fees keep coming for semen storage, embryo storage etc. Never really ends!

London as well.

Including ICSI, £8.6k for the first round and I think just over £9k for the second including consult, bloods and medication. Only extra was embryoscope.

Stupid question but what exactly is a blast culture? We’ve paid for it both times.

ABC in Wimbledon (they have a Harley Street branch too) EC & ET at their Clinic in St Paul’s rather than Wimbledon purely because EC fell on a Sunday:

Initial consultation: £190
IVF package: £2,500 (including all drugs)
ICSI: £1,100 (didn’t know we would definitely need this until sperm was tested on EC day and DH’s sample count was only 2million)
TOTAL: 3,790
Plus Embryo Freeze: £995 (2 years)

They are very transparent with their pricing (you can download a full price guide from their website) but you do have to meet their criteria for treatment (all carried out at their sister clinic Create)

Oh, and I meant to add the Surrey clinics we looked at were £10k plus 😳

I’m not in London but we went with OXRM who then help you find a clinic to do the egg collection and transfer but all scans and blood tests are done at the satellite clinic nearer to our home. We went with Bristol BCRM as there were slightly cheaper but had the same success rate. We were lucky that OXRM were offering 1k worth of drugs free if you signed up before end of May. We’d had some initial bloods and semen analysis already done via NHS and one I paid for myself (AMH - via Nuffield). Also luckily OXRM accepted the tests we’d already done. Total for us was about 5k woth ICSI. Maybe if you are able to travel out of London it could be cheaper?

Thanks all. Out of London not really a possibility given scans etc and travel costs and time. We looked at Herts & Essex Fertility but that didn’t look much cheaper than the London clinics.

we were at Guys, initial consultation was £200 and another £200 for a follow up, package was personalised care, basic ivf was £4300 (icsi is £5200 i think), gonal f was i think 1200 - 1500, including progesterone i think..

@Youngatheart00 Unfortunately I think all-in that is pretty standard for London. When I was looking at clinics I made spreadsheets for all the costs from multiple clinics, and if I found one that was a bit cheaper for the main IVF then one of the other bits was more expensive to make up for it!

The only ones that were much cheaper were ABC (but they have eligibility criteria of who they accept) and Create (and this was only because the drug costs were cheaper because they only do mild/natural/natural modified IVF).

I'm at Create - 3 cycles of natural modified with ICSI, all drugs and time lapse (embryoscope), freezing and storage and one transfer was £13.5k

Halifax royal Calderdale

ICSI £4600 and that was everything no extras... was successful too.. she’s 12 month old in 2 week... ❤️

In all £27k For 5 attempts - 5th hit jackpot after ttc for 10yrs

That was 2 fresh in UK £12k And was 2014

Then another £15k abroad - but that was 1 fresh - 2 fets from 3rd fresh cycle - plus flights - And a cervical donation and era

Abroad is def cheaper and imo technology far better

This is a run down of some of my costs

after 2 failed in uk, and £12k - we used ivi in madrid

we spent £15k abroad, this includes everything, flights 6 times going over for chat,op,cycle 3,attempt 4 fet, era,attempt 5 fet

airport parking, taxis to clinic, all blood tests and cf and sperm freezing, hotels, scans for fets, 2 era, fresh cycle, freezing for 2yrs, 2 fets, cervival dilation (800 in madrid,£3.5k in uk)

looking at my notes, as we flew in and out rather stay there for a week as both se, the first cycle there but 3rd in all,if worked would have cost

3.5k ivf icsi
367 flights for ec return for 2 adults
100 taxi from airport to ivi
80 hotel night in madrid
60 scan home to check lining before flying for ec
30 gatwick parking
657 flights for et (never do xmas/ny lol) for 2 adults
100 taxi airport/ivi return
34 hotel night in madrid
30 gatwick parking

total £4858

tho as said above we flew over for ec dec 28th and back again for etc jan2 so spent 1024 on flights and double on taxi/parking/hotel

when we went for fet month later was 203 return for both of us and did in a day sono hotel costs

so flight prices really do vary

moral of story,dont start down reg in oct as ec/et will be end of dec/jan and bloody costly on flights

so take off silly money for flights and i say you could do do ivf icsi abroad for £4300/4400 including everything

you have to think about All costs if abroad or U.K.

Check any figures you have been given include drugs

But then drugs can chnage and think mine was £150 a day so if extra 3 days that’s Almost another £500

It depends what you need done and any extras.

I've had a consultation with IVI last year, about £200, plus blood tests there about another £200.
Basic ICSI is €5k which is about £4.5k sterling.
I had to have blood tests at IVI London, £150. Ultrasounds at IVI London £200 though I can get them closer to home, they wanted more than one monitoring scan (or go to Spain sooner and have it there but thst means a longer stay), the cheapest within a 50 miles radius is £135 at Ultrasound Direct, a bit more expensive in fertility clinics near me.

I do agree it's better technology @Blondeshavemorefun but it's really not cheaper any longer, as you went a few years ago the exchange rate may also have been quite favourable.
Specific add ons are cheaper than in the UK, e.g. They were going to do MACS sperm selection for £250 which was not available at IVI London.

They also advised flying in day before egg collection and transfer (if doing both separately) in case of any delays and we th less available flights at present probably a wise idea. Hotels in Madrid currently very cheap.
A good friend has had 3 children with IVI Madrid.
I'm with a different clinic in Madrid, IVI were charging £1400 for additional egg collections compared to £800 at current clinic.
I was too old for IVI's guarantee programme though which was what decided it, no qualms about them as a clinic.

I dread to think how much we have spent, not just the IVF and the drugs and blood tests (over £1k down the tube after cycle cancelled due to lockdown) but prior to that acupuncture for a long time, supplements, sperm comet tests, flights, accommodation, comfort food... But hoping it will be worth it eventually.
Spread the cost over several zero interest credit cards, there was over 2 years interest free. I thought I'd get loads of Nectar points but just about enough for a decent bottle of wine!

@JeNeBaguetteRien I hope it will be worth it for you and you get success soon

It really is awful paying for a loan for Ivf that fails :( but was the only way we could do as age was against me

Yes flights at mo are hit and miss

One of the reasons we chose Madrid was 1) people I knew had success there after failures in uk 2) Short flight and ivf near airport

Also they did icsi as a basic regardless so all eggs fertilised where uk didn’t as nothing wrong with df sperm And not all fertilised

Even now Uk clinics don’t all do icsi and you would think they would To help all eggs turn into embryos

Thanks @Blondeshavemorefun hopefully it will work out for me, I know it's hard enough paying off the treatment when it works never mind when it doesn't!
We have about £20k balance left on our IVF credit cards at present.
We had straight IVF in the UK but wil have ICSI in Spain, as far as I understand the MACS add-on is like an extra layer of sperm selection.

Hi Evie43 just a quick question please how was your experience with OXRM?
I’m also considering the Bristol clinic (their reviews and success rates seem to be good)
However, I’m not too sure about the Nuffield satellite clinic, I can’t seem to find many reviews on them and I noticed they aren’t brilliant with answering their phone.
I’m fighting between Oxford fertility and oxrm.
The OXRM price is however very reasonable.

@azaan786

Hi, sorry my poor wording. I only got my AMH done at the Nuffield of my own accord before we even started looking at clinics.

I really like OXRM, so far my experiences with them have all been positive. So the satellite clinic is part of OXRM. They only partner with certain other clinics that they feel are the best, they tell us who their partnered with and we pick which one. So the price could vary a bit depending on which other clinic you choose. We chose BCRM for proximity and price (god I sound like a walking ad). But BCRM were wonderful.

I like them but I’ve heard good things about other clinics too and only have experience with the one.

Xx

Thanks that’s brill. I think I’m going to go for them in that case. BCRM definitely as that’s closer to me and the price is reasonable.
I was a bit unsure about he satellite clinic in oxford but as you have said that you’ve had no issues with them that puts my fears aside.
Thanks a lot hun. Xxx

@azaan786

They are good and explain everything really well. I don’t feel I’ve got anything less using a satellite clinic.

Wishing you lots of luck xx

Thanks for your kind words Evey43.
I contacted OXRM today and got the ball moving.
Wishing everyone lots of luck especially you Evey43. Xx

Thanks all for the responses.

I think, if we do go again (not yet fully decided) we will stay with the same clinic as the above has helped me understand there really isn’t much in it, London pricing wise. We would also have to repeat tests and consultants appts, I suspect, with a new clinic, but existing clinic has already said we wouldn’t have to.

Ladies quick question. Is it best to have 2 embryos transferred or just the 1?
The way I see it is if I have 2 then at least I have double the chance.