1 thing that would have improved your IVF experience

[SW24]

Firstly ladies, well done for being so helpful and resourceful. I'm adamant that the whole IVF experience could be made much better for other women and men out there, but everyone's experience is so different and personal. What's the 1 thing, however big or small, that would have improved your experience the most?

The waiting times! 🙈
I know the waiting after transfer can't be helped (I'm currently waiting for that now) but the waiting and lack of support during is horrible :(

Most of the staff I’ve had contact with have been lovely but there have been a few who have made the experience horrendous.

Some staff don’t seem to have any empathy and have made an already upsetting situation so much worse.

I don’t know what to do about this, if I tell my clinic I don’t want to deal with certain people or complain, it will be difficult as my treatment is ongoing.

So I guess a reminder to all staff that this is an awful experience for people to go through and to treat everyone with the same empathy they would want to be treated with, if they were in the situation.

In our case, it would have been a review of the situation soon after we realized the cycle failed. Currently it's a 4 month wait to talk to the consultant about what happened and if/how we can change things next time to improve our chances, and it means that we don't get any closure on this attempt in the meantime.

As @willithappen said, I found the feeling of being 'left alone' whilst in the tww super hard as well... and I really appreciated the support on here in that time!

I'm NHS also, and don't want to bash my clinic as at the end of the day they have done everything they could for me and it's all worked so far. The doctor I had for transfer day was amazing and really left me with a more positive feeling of the clinic.

However, before egg collection I was told I'd be a freeze all as fluid had leaked into my lining and regardless of how many eggs collected. A couple weeks later I had an appointment for a 'follow up' appointment, even though I had been given dates and medication for my frozen transfer already.
At this appointment it was a doctor I'd never seen before and she went on to tell me that I had experienced OHSS (I hadn't - I actually felt really good after egg collection) and also then said I'd need to be put on a waiting list for the frozen transfer. This was gutting for me because I told her that I had already been given a protocol and dates and asked to call clinic with periods etc
She went to check and had to fit me into the diary for the month they had told me. It was all such unnecessary stress and I think the record keeping wasn't the greatest

Then, day of transfer when reading out my date of birth doctor was like 'that's not what we have here' they had a different birthday on my slip... name and address fine. This then caused extra stress for me thinking omg what if they have mixed up embryos!!
So yeah, I would love some better record keeping in my experience

I’d say waiting time too, even as private I had to wait several weeks for a review after my failed FET, which meant i couldn’t start my second transfer as soon as I’d like to. I know some people wait longer. In terms of mental health and added stress, being left without answers and next steps was very tough to deal with.