Good IVF clinic for 40+ women

[Aady]

Hi,

Can anybody suggest good fertility clinic for 40+ women to undergo IVF/ICSI in London?

Thanks

Create has better success rates over 40

It's best to have a look on HFEA's website and look at the statistics there.

ARGC is currently leading the table, including for the over 40s

Just bear in mind the cost - ARGC might have better success rates but they are circa £20-25k for a single round and require a boot camp style commitment that not everyone is able to do

Thank you very much for all responses. Could I get any idea how much it might cost in create fertility if any one had given a try? Still trying to figure out which clinic to choose.

I did 3 cycles of natural modified IVF (which is most likely what they'll recommend given your age) and that cost £13.5k including ICSI all drugs, freezing and a transfer. If you didn't need ICSI then the cost would have been £3k cheaper

(Before that I did 2 mild IVF cycles, 3 transfers, PGS testing and that cost over £20k so wish I'd done the 3 cycle package first to be honest)

I'm now pregnant with twins from my natural modified cycles (after none of the mild IVF cycles were successful)

Bear in mind though that my Create clinic - Birmingham still go after more than one follicle in natural modified cycles (I got between 2 and 7) but I've heard before that the St Paul's clinic tend to just focus on one

Thank you very much for the detailed information....Congratulations on your pregnancy. Great to hear. Would you mind telling how long it took for 3 cycle package? I guess eggs would be collected in 3 cycles and then good selected embryos would be transferred in 3rd cycle? How many embryos you had an option to transfer? Is it 2 or 3?

In theory natural modified can be done back to back with no break in between like other IVF protocols. So I did an egg collection in January and then another exactly 4 weeks later in February. Was due to do another in March but hormone levels weren't right and then we went into lockdown so ended up doing it in June.

Cycle 1 - I had 2 eggs and both became top quality blastocysts and were frozen

Cycle 2 - 7 eggs - 2 top quality blastocysts

Cycle 3 - 2 eggs - no blastocysts but didn't feel right the whole cycle and really felt like my body had had enough by that point as I had done 5 egg collections in less than 18 months

I transferred the 2 from Cycle 1 and both stuck. I still have the two from Cycle 2 frozen

My twins aren't actually my best quality ones. This was my 4th transfer and I just felt really pessimistic about the whole thing and so told the embryologist that psychologically I wanted to save the "best till last" so we transferred my 2 second bests 🤣. My embryologist reviewed all the time lapse footage of the blastocysts developing and then paired them up on the basis of the two he felt best complemented each other. (Id already agreed with Create that we would do double transfers)

In the U.K. you are only legally allowed to transfer a maximum of 2 embryos at a time

@ivfbeenbusy Thanks again for the detailed information. It really helps.

I would go on the HFEA site and go into each clinic and you can check their stats for your age etc look at embryos transferred as the key stat and live births. Some of the clinics look great but it might be because they are transferring multiple embryos per cycle or have good pregnancy rates ( but live births not so much ) I listed out crgh, lister and argc as my preferences for being 40. I explored natural modified but couldn’t see any evidence on the quality over quantity argument . My clinic suggested increased number of embryos just gives better chances . Having said that the previous poster has been successful. None of it is particularly clear cut and no definite path and think a lot of it is luck if the right egg shows up ! X

@Sunshinelove8 Thanks for the information. Which clinic did you finalise to start the treatment?

Argc , mainly because I like the close monitoring ( I had my last pregnancy monitored by them , it was natural and failed but they left no stone unturned to try to make it successful, assume it was a chromosome issue due to age)
I found it difficult to actually find stats for my age group on HFEA for argc , so had to rely on the argc website and my friend who cycled with them recommendation ( two babies ) they wouldn’t let me cycle last month as my progesterone was too high and I don’t think other clinics would even test that at baseline ?? They asked was I taking dhea , which I was , so stopped it . They are very particular. Your fsh has to be under 10 I believe x

@ivfbeenbusy we’ve chatted on here before and you gave me lots of info about create, thank you! I am signing up for a three cycle this week and they have recommended mild IVF bemfola 150 from day 2 and IVF. I have asked for another call with the consultant as she hadn’t fully read my notes before the appointment and My medical history isn’t straightforward due to autoimmune issues and previous thyroid cancer. I’ve asked for the embryoscope. Is there anything that you think was useful for you when you did it that you had to ask for? Another clinic recommended I take double the bemfola and also take letrozole.. that was full stims but I’m going with the 3 cycle approach... I didn’t ask about ICSI but I presume they think IVF because my partners sperm sample is normal... would you recommend the package for bloods/scans etc? Any info would be really helpful. X thanks again

She did also recommend that I take steroids for transfer, if we get that far x

@Skdims3 many thanks but the dr I saw is the head of miscarriage service at Manchester’s largest research hospital, so I think I’m ok dr wise!

@ivfbeenbusy the law in the U.K. permits a transfer of 3 embryos for women over 40.