Hello all,
Hope everyone is well and everyone who was going through a cycle whilst I was active on here in June/July has had some positive results. Thanks again everyone for your advise.
I have been MIA as my cycle stopped at egg freezing. However what happened next with ABC IVF was extremely traumatic for me and I have not wanted to talk about it. I know alot of people come to this thread to seek advice on whether to use this clinic and I would be remiss to not share my horrible experience and warn any and everyone to stay away from them.
After successfully freezing my eggs for future use with ABC, I was a bit disappointed in the amount of eggs and considering doing a 2nd cycle so I was consulting with other clinics to see if they had a different approach that could possible give me better results. In doing so I had requested my medical file. When I received the email with an overview of my tests & scan, I was casually scrolling through while at work only to be surprised and devastated to read that one of the extremely contagious and lifelong chronic viral disease tests I had done over a month ago read as POSITIVE.
I had done the viral diseases blood test on my first scan day at ABC. I did not expect any results to come back positive. So I did not enquire about the results (the turn around for these blood test is 4 hours). However on my 3rd and last scan day the nurse during my consult realised they had not received the test results back from the lab and of course this was needed in order to fill out the ER release forms which I also had to sign. The nurse in my presence called the lab confirmed verbally all results were negative, I overhead the lab confirm they would send the results over email the same day. the nurse wrote this on the form which I then signed, confirming consent for surgery. At this point I am happy going ahead and ER took place 3 days later.
After reading the results in the email I am absolutely confused, scared and concerned. I call the clinic and they are also surprised it turns out that NO ONE at ABC actually checked the physical email results as they came in. No one at this point was able to confirm what had happened to my frozen eggs as any positive viral testing means eggs are frozen in a tank with other positive gametes. After a while the dr called me back saying that yes I had tested positive and no one had any explanation or apology as to why no one had noticed and told me about this. At this point I was also worried that for weeks I had been exposing other people to this very contagious lifelong disease that by law is notifiable in order to prevent outbreaks, that's how contagious it is. The dr told me verbatim: that I should move on talk to my GP and learn to 'live with it'. Only after a few hours I was told that the my eggs had been frozen in the 'positive disease' tank so they had been frozen 'correctly. No one could answer for me how it was possible that the embryologist seemed to be the ONLY person out of dozens of people dealing with my case to have read the lab results. NO ONE also seemed to have picked up the inconsistency of those results on the paperwork nor on the day of ER where you are asked several times to confirm & sign about any current diseases.
As I was extremely traumatized at this point and depressed to find out I had this disease and unsure how I could have gotten it I decided to pay a private GP to run the test again ASAP to confirm as this all happened on a friday afternoon. The GP was extremely helpul and horrified at my experience that I could have received a positive test result for a contagious viral disease and not been told for weeks especially taking into account the only reason I found out is because I requested to see my files.
Fortunately for me the GP was nice enought to process the results on a Sunday and fortunately for me the test results came back NEGATIVE. The original blood test was a FALSE POSITIVE.
I then proceeded for 2 days to get someone from ABC/Create to engage with me on this and confirm what has now happened with my frozen eggs.
Long story short. No one took it seriously, no one cared. I only received a call from someone at the end the day still no apology still no idea about what happened. They did however confirm that due to those FALSE positive lab results the embryologist follow guidelines and froze my eggs in the positive for viral diseases tank and they had been in since my ER, which was about a month at that point.
I was told an investigation would take place but that is now 3 weeks ago and since that call I never heard from them again.
Just to give everyone an idea on how serious this is; even though contagion is said to be small, there is a reason why eggs are frozen separately in these cases. I spoke to other clinics to see if I can get eggs transferred as I no longer trust the clinic but have been informed that because of possible contamination they will have to remain in that 'positive for viral diseases tank' and it also means I am no longer able to donate these eggs if I wanted to do so in future.
ABC: - could have let their patient possible infect and spread a disease for weeks possibly months or years because they don't read lab results. They also took away my informed consent when I consented to ER based on wrong information that was never checked. I have lost some options that I had for my eggs (ie donation etc) because of the misdiagnosis. They are unable to 100% confirm that no cross contamination took place as you can not test for this unless you use the eggs. To give some context.. had I received the diagnoses on the day of my last consult I would have had enough time to retest and confirm the false positive PRIOR to the ER. Which would have ensure my eggs be frozen properly and would still be able to use for donation. Of course I will never get eggs back at this quality and their response has basically been nothing.
Thus far I have not receive any more communication, explanation or apology from them and it extremely difficult to get anyone to take this seriously and respond to me.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS CLINIC. They absolutely do not care nor do they have any procedure in place or try to deal with you if something goes wrong. Stay away from them. Hope this helps anyone in decision making who is on the fence.