Hi Guys,
I decided to do IVF treatments and thought I’d share my experience in case anyone else was considering doing IVF with London Women’s Clinic in the UK or Gynem Clinic in Prague.
I am from the UK and first tried the London Women’s Clinic. They charged me around £300 for a scan and a consultation but didn’t really progress me to the next stage. At the consultation, the only thing the doctor told me was that I was too fat (BMI 34) and needed to lose weight. After that I left it for a year and went back to them to start properly and they told me I had to pay for another consultation (because of how long I took to get back to them).
The 2nd consultation was exactly the same as the first one, so a complete waste of money and time along with unhelpful information.
They then messed up my nurses appointment by giving me a date and time to attend and when I turned up they told me it was a virtual appointment - they hadn’t specified this in the email at all or even sent a Zoom link. They wanted to put me on the stimulation medicine that required using a syringe to measure out the liquid myself - which I didn’t feel comfortable to do but they had zero sympathy about my feelings.
After that I gave up with this clinic and decided to try Gynem Clinic in Prague.
I was drawn in by the affordable price that was advertised, 2400 Euros for 1 cycle and completely forgot to factor in the cost of travel, accommodation and Medicine.
I did my initial blood test and scans in the UK which took almost 2 months. This was because Gynem wanted to check lots of hormones and some of them had to be done during day 2-5 of your cycle. Just for information, the NHS can do all the hormones and STD test but not the AMH test. This needed to be done privately. I also had to do the Ultrasound scan privately.
The ultrasound found cysts which the Gynem clinic said might need medication to reduce and they could only really judge this if I do another scan on the 2nd day of my cycle.
I couldn’t really afford another £150 for a scan in the UK so I made the decision to travel to Prague.
I use an App to track my periods, but just my luck, my period came 1 week late, so I found myself sitting in Prague waiting for my period to start.
I had one doctor tell me the cysts might be a problem but on my 2nd check with another doctor they told me it was fine to start the treatment with the cysts. They also mentioned I had numerous fibroids which would reduce the success rate.
I really liked the clinic, it was clean and the staff were friendly. My host Janina was amazing and her English was very good. The medication was easier to use as well - they gave me pre-filled syringes. They also sent a taxi to pick me up from the airport and take me to the hotel and another taxi the next day to take me to the clinic.
I was put on a course of 0.48ml Pergoveris IU for 8 days, then 0.4ml for 3 days,
0.5ml Orgalutran for 5 days and then 2 injections of 0.5ml Ovitrelle for 1 day. The total cost for the medication came up to around 1800 Euros
The timings on their website was mildly accurate. I had a 7th day scan and a 9th day scan to check how the medication was working. Based on the scans, I had to do my egg retrieval on day 15 and not day 12 of my cycle. They said this was to allow the follicles to grow bigger but I wondered if this was just to charge me for more medication (I was pretty upset at this point because of how long I had already been in Prague and the costs so far).
They then offered me an optimised lab option for an additional 1000 Euros and to freeze surplus embryos for 600 Euros. I chose the option to freeze the surplus Embryos but not the optimised lab option as the costs were starting to spiral. (They collected 11 embryos in the end and I froze 4)
Sadly I wasn’t able to get to the egg transfer stage because after the egg retrieval I ended up with a severe case of OHSS (Ovarian Hyper stimulation Syndrome). So Severe I ended up in hospital requiring fluids and monitoring.
So in the end a 7-10 day trip (as mentioned on the Gynem website) turned out to be almost 5 weeks.
The accommodation in Prague is quite expensive. The clinic offered to book me into one of their partner hotels (Pension Lucie or Hotel Excellent) which cost 55-65 Euros per night but I opted for one that was 30 Euros per night.
If you are interested in the accommodation I used, it was a place called Bambus Zahrada, 5 min bus ride to the clinic and was very clean with a nice host. The room also had a mini fridge which was useful for the medication.
Food was also expensive and strangely unappetising. I couldn’t seem to find a nicely cooked meal anywhere.
My total cost summary was (in Euros):
2400 for treatment
1800 for medication
300 for sperm optimisation
600 for embryo freezing
1200-1300 for accommodation
500-800 for food + travel (Bus / Uber)
300 for flights as I had to keep changing the leave date due to complications
Total 7500 Euros / £6500 + £382 pre-checks in the UK
Another piece of advice - I’d recommend just getting a one way ticket from Ryanair and the return ticket after getting your final treatment dates from the clinic. I think this would have been cheaper than a flexible ticket.
It would also be better just to book a 1 day trip to Prague (maybe £40 return flight) to do all the blood tests, scans and sperm check. I paid £82 for the AMH, £150 for the scan and £150 for sperm check in the UK and actually this is all already included in the 2400 Euro treatment cost. The clinic did not offer to reduce the price if the pre-checks were already done.
I think overall it ended up being more expensive than the UK and more stressful. Especially when I ended up in a hospital in Prague due to the OHSS. I blame myself for trying to save money and being relatively stupid with a very poor plan. I didn’t even have travel / medical insurance so this really didn’t help keep the costs down.
I think if I had planned this better I would have saved over £2000 by: 1) Not doing the pre-checks in the UK 2) Booking the flight on day 1 of cycle so I didn’t spend 7 days in Prague waiting for my period 3) Getting Medical Insurance
Since I didn’t get to the egg transfer the clinic offered to do the transfer of the frozen embryos for free. A 2nd attempt would be 700 Euros for the frozen embryo transfer and 200 Euros for medication.
I am quite traumatised by the whole situation so I don’t think I will be doing an egg transfer any time soon.