London clinics - recent experiences

[LittleHeartOfMine]

Hiya, I’m checking out London clinics and so far have shortlisted ARGC, Evewell and Lister. I know there are various posts about these clinics but those for ARGC and Lister date back years, so I’m hoping to find out about current/recent experiences, especially with Evewell as not so much info about them.

Haven’t tried IVF before but think it’s our only option. We’ll probably go down the ICSI route with PGS as we’ve had losses due to chromosomal abnormalities. So I guess I’m interested in a clinic who might help with recurrent miscarriage.

Thanks for reading and sharing if you get the chance

@LittleHeartOfMine I’m with one of these clinics. Interested to read more about other experiences though.

I am at the Evewell - just done round 2 ICSI - with history of recurrent miscarriages. We are pgs testing both rounds. Issue seems to be poor egg quality. Happy with them, when we only got one blast that was abnormal (aneuploid) they made a lot of tweaks to get an improvement. Including human growth hormone. We haven’t seen more blasts this time (1 on day 5; 3 still trying on day 6 but looking iffy) but the embryologist says they are looking overall better this time so it is progress of a kind…

What do you want to know?

I’m 22w pregnant with an Evewell baby. We had a long road with them as my egg quality was (is) spectacularly bad, but they persevered and were really quite clever in how they approached things.

@Phrenologistsfinger I loathe the sentiment that “it only takes one” but we sent the only, fairly average blast we had from my final round off for biopsy and it came back euploid.

Each clinic is a bit different. ARGC focus on immune issues. Evewell focus on improving egg quality. Lister comes across as a bit of a sausage factory but I do know people who have had success with them.

@porridgeislife what did the Evewell do to improve you egg quality?

I am also with them, week 1 of growth hormones and should start proper stimulation with my period in a couple of weeks.

@Porridgeislife congrats on your success and wishing you a happy and healthy rest of pregnancy. How long were you with Evewell? What was the care like and would you mind sharing how they approached things? I don’t know much about Lister. A friend mentioned them but ended up going with ARGC. Didn’t work out for her, sadly, but she insisted they usually get incredible results so that’s making the decision tricky

@Phrenologistsfinger sorry to read of your losses. It’s a bloody hard road. Were you able to get pregnant naturally before trying IVF? Feels like a last resort for us so I’m nervous. But I think we’re doing it for all the right reasons as we probably have quality to consider on both sides. But it’s more heavily weighted on my side…likely eggs and environment.

Seems Evewell will consider immunes now based on another thread. Think you commented on that @TheHopefulEgg? It was from last few weeks. I’ve read more about Evewell than any other clinic recently but their published results don’t seem to touch ARGC. Where are you in process?

Early on in process OP. Just a few days away from initial nurse consultation where I’ll get my protocol. I travel to start stims in around 3 weeks.

Main reason I chose The Evewell was for patient care, their embryologists and because they were happy to do immune testing. I also read great things about Mr Davis but I’ll be under the care of another consultant. The whole team knows each case though and have daily meetings covering every patient I believe.

ARGC are way above average in terms of results but it’s a totally different experience from what I’ve read.

Good luck with your decision!

I thought the clinical care at Evewell was always very, very good. Their admin is a bit pants on occasion but I think most clinics are like this unfortunately.

To try and fix my eggs they changed protocol 3 times til we found the right one, and put me on human growth hormone, DHEA and a lot of supplements. I saw another similar clinic after my early rounds didn’t go so well & they confirmed they’d done the right thing and my best option was therefore donor eggs. That never came up with Evewell.

I’ve gotten to know other patients and there seems to be a lot of traumatised former ARGC patients who went through their intense approach and ended up with nothing to transfer or worse. My own acupuncturist told me to avoid them at all costs

Thanks @TheHopefulEgg

@Porridgeislife @Phrenologistsfinger, if you don’t mind me asking, what were your AFC and AMH levels like? Appreciate neither of these determines egg quality but wondering if it was a factor when it came to numbers? Thanks again.

My AMH was a bit low but nothing to worry about in the context of IVF. We would collect normal numbers of eggs & I responded to stims in a fairly textbook fashion. I just had poor egg quality (immature or didn’t survive ICSI).

@LittleHeartOfMine my AMH is 20.7 (pretty good for my age at almost 40), my AFC is in 20s usually. I got 8 eggs in round 1 and 12 in round 2. My right ovary is lazy and yielded nothing in round 1 and 5 in round 2.

Same as @porridgeislife - poor egg quality - only 6/12 eggs were mature/healthy and of those only 4 fertilised and 2 died under ICSI.

I can get pregnant naturally fairly easily (10 times so far), they just never last beyond 6 weeks.

@porridgeislife congrats on your pregnancy! It’s great to hear that someone with poor egg quality made it in the end.
What protocol do you think worked for you? Did you pgta your blasts? In round (1) I had meriofert 225 (1 aneuploid 4bc) and (2) gonal f 150 and pergoveris 150 + dexamethasone and hgh (1 4bb and 3 still growing but unlikely). The second time was an improvement in terms of embryo quality but hasn’t led to a significant difference in number or fragmentation. Waiting on pgta testing…

I echo what people say above about Evewell - they listen and tailor things, explain things well, have an all team meeting to consider cases daily and I feel in safe hands clinically. Admin can be great or patchy but mainly because they are busy and don’t always reply quickly. I think we are happy to stick with them for round 3 as there are slight signs of progress.

I agree with the others that clinically I feel I’m in good hands (even at this early stage). Administration wise it’s not filled me with confidence at times, mainly the wait time for responses, but since I said I was ready to go ahead and committed they’ve been good! Actually quite looking forward to nurse consultation. Excited and nervous to move ahead and trying to keep those spirits high. Good luck everyone 💛

That’s encouraging @TheHopefulEgg I hope your consultation goes well. And good luck @Fiefofum @Francesmalin

Thank you for sharing your numbers @Phrenologistsfinger @Porridgeislife. I have a slightly above average AMH and high AFC due to PCOS so I’ll be interested to see drop off rate. Assuming we go down the route I think is right for us. Trying to go into it with an open mind.

I’ll take my time making a decision but line up a consultation with Evewell given the positive comments. It’s made things feel less daunting.

This is a really interesting thread. We have just got our funding for one round confirmed, and I'm still early on in this process so lots of the above is another language, but could someone advise if I should get an AFC? Presume this is a follicle count scan? I have AMH 10.7 and everything else is totally normal on my side. We have MFI. Maybe I have poor egg quality too making it even more difficult but I guess I wouldn't know until testing. I have taken Ubiquinol 200mg for a while now, alongside the usual other ones and DHA pre-conception from Vita West. No natural pregnancies so far. X

@FlyOnTheWall89 yes, AFC measures your ovarian reserve. It’s basically counting the number of follicles developing on both of your ovaries. I believe I may have egg quality issues but only because of my history with recurrent miscarriage. My understanding is that I won’t actually know if there’s a problem with egg quality until after egg collection/fertilisation as that’s when they can see how things are developing, but maybe there are other ways of knowing. @Phrenologistsfinger and @Porridgeislife may be able to comment further. This is my first round of IVF so some of the language is new to me too!

@LittleHeartOfMine I did rounds 3-6 of IVF with Lister and found them excellent. I was a poor responder with poor egg quality along with severe male factor and they had lots of ideas for how to improve it - the thing that seemed to work for me in improving response was adding in letrozole alongside Stims. I found the nurses and admin excellent and my consultant was very proactive in extra tests I wanted before and putting an embryo back as I produced so few. I have nothing negative to say about them. I always felt very safe and well cared for there - I never got out before 4pm when I did an egg collection as my BP always dropped afterwards and they would never let me leave until they were happy with me. I am pregnant now but even before I got pregnant I was very impressed with them. I’d always be wary of people recommending the clinic that got them pregnant as they are biased for obvious reasons!

Re ARGC I’ve heard if it’s not looking like you are responding well they will transfer you to another clinic for egg collection and you’re not included in their stats so their success rate is therefore over inflated. That said, I’ve spoken to some women who have success with them after failure everywhere else - for us they were more a last resort place than somewhere to go for a first try.

I think it all depends from your experience and the feeling you get with the consultant. When I did my first round I was so pro Create and the failed and disappointed me massively so now i wouldn't go with them. I haven't looked at too many clinic after those rounds but I was recommended the Evewell from a person that had similar issue to me. I had a second opinion there and felt the doctor knew what to do and reassured me etc.

IVF is an expensive test and learn experience