What’s taking so long!?!?

[BeachPeach]

Gaaah, this is basically just a shout into the void to get all this shit off my chest, BUT HOW DOES THIS PROCESS TAKE SO LONG!?!?

We’ve been ttc for what feels like DECADES. Had our first appointment with fertility clinic 14 months ago (waited to seek referral til after the worst of lockdowns in the hope the backlogs wouldn’t be too bad 🤷). Just had another phone consultation to be told they’ll speak to us again in February.

Other than an investigative hysteroscopy, we’ve had no treatment yet, no idea when we’ll start ICSI (our issues are mostly MFI), no idea what drugs I’ll be on, no idea whether we’ll still be waiting to start treatment in a year’s time and the clinic still haven’t even tracked down my partner’s sperm to confirm a) it exists, b) it’s viable.

This shit is killing me and we haven’t even STARTED the process. To be told to just toddle off and wait til February is actually making me insane. Considering fucking the whole thing off and accepting we’ll be child free forever as the agony of waiting and waiting for nothing to happen is turning me into someone I don’t recognise.

Anyone else dealt with shitty ridiculous delays and have any tips on how to retain some sanity?

How many rounds do you get on the NHS? If it's only 1 I'd be inclined just to go private if that's possible - the waiting lists are significantly less

This is exactly why we've gone private. I couldn't bear it any longer!!

Ditto - we were only going to be able to have 1 collection and 1 transfer on the NHS so we gave up waiting and went private, accepting if it worked we'd have lost our NHS cycle. We had tests in the august, cycle started in November and amazingly worked first time.

If you can afford it the private route would certainly speed things up but if you are eligible for more NHS collections/transfers in your area it might be worth waiting it out. Although that said some CCGs will still allow you to have your NHS cycles if you've gone private. Worth checking what the situation is where you are. You could also just not tell the NHS services that you've gone private (controversial on MN and can trigger outrage from some)!

Hi OP, sorry you're having a tough time. I feel your pain!
We were waiting for what seemed like forever for the hospital to keep cancelling our appointments without even telling us!!
Do you know if there are any private clinics in your area that accept NHS patients? We went down that route in the end and it was the best decision we made. I pushed my GP to refer us to the private clinic about 6 weeks ago now, and had the funding accepted and then had all the preliminary tests done (just need to book HIV bloods this week), and have been given a start date of January.
So definitely worth looking at local private clinics if you can.
Wishing you lots of luck in your journey