Create Fertility - Experiences (Part 2)

[Sunflower360]

Hi 👋

A thread for anyone who wants to discuss their Create Fertility experiences.

I'm 38, currently in a 3 cycle Natural Modfied ICSI package and nearing transfer stage.

Tagging as follows from previous chat, please tag any others I may have forgot. New joiners to the thread welcome to share your stories/journey!

@gemso2020
@Doxy21
@VSRCM
@GirlAgirlBboyC
@HopefulElle
@Maddie23
@Jennaqua

@Ks2023 I know it can be a lot to take in, the nurse consultation will hopefully answer a lot of your questions. I would suggest noting down some questions in advance to ask. I have heard meds can be expensive with Create but in all honesty I didn't want to deal with the hassle of sourcing from elsewhere, but if you have the option to do so that would be good.

In short though the 900 pen is likely for 1 x per cycle and that pen will be be used each day at a set dose per cycle e.g. my dose was 150 each day and it went on for 6 days, I then triggered and collected 5 eggs, 4 were mature and got a day 3 and 5 embryo frozen from that round. We did ICSI and my AMH was around the same as yours in the summer (could be lower now for all I know). Follicle wise I start around 3/4 and sometimes it goes up with stimulation but I find they grow at different rates so I usually hope for 2 decent ones each cycle (last cycle we got 2 eggs and out of that 1 x day 5 frozen).

I'm the same age as you too and had a chemical in August. I don't know much about FSH, is that a concern?

@Sunflower360 FSH should be lover than 10 ideally if it’s very high I might have empty follicles and I can’t have much gonal f as it’s basically FSH as well. Oh well wait and see I guess. Fist round will show 🙏🏻
you not far away from your transfer ❤️ so exiting and scary I guess. I wish you sticky one 🥰 Are you gonna do single or double transfer? We would like to do a double one if we can and have enough eggs. Do you think fresh or FET transfer is the best?

@Ks2023 ah, I see. Hopefully, they can adjust your Gonal-F, then, they do monitor closely with bloods and scans, so hopefully, things will be picked up as you go along if they needed tweaking.

Yeah, I'm hoping to transfer. I asked about double transfer, and the short answer was no. Mainly because it could be 2 wasted embryos if I was to misccarry for any reason other than the embryo (lining, immune system, etc). To be honest, I don't think they like doing double transfers because its a high-risk pregnancy anyway and would only do it if only one was likely to stick, if at all. I think I may push for a double at 2nd transfer though (if we had enough) if this 1st doesn't work but will see what happens as I also have anti thyroid antibodies which is an immunology issue hence the steroids so I want to be careful.

We'll either do a fresh one if we get one from this cycle, or just thaw one of the frozen ones.

@Sunflower360 we asked for 2 and doctor told us not a problem. I told them it’s gonna be our last pregnancy as we already old and mentally I don’t wanna go through this as well and we very ready for twins if we lucky and know all the risks ect 🙏🏻
when is your transfer day? I’ll keep you in my prayers ❤️

Hey everyone.

Not joining the thread properly yet as I'm not at the same place as you yet, but thank you for sharing your experiences. It seems like such a tough and complicated process and you are all so resilient. I'm reading the posts about various protocols and hormone levels completely confused.

I'm toying with doing an egg sharing round with create in spring, as going through nhs its looking like we will get started a year from now which is too far away. But I'm anxious about taking the gamble losing a free nhs round, so getting insight into create is very helpful. Thank you ladies

@Ks2023 that's good to know, if we decide double transfer would be something we want to pursue we may consider it for the next transfer and push for it, in that case. But I definitely don't want to do it for the first transfer as I'm seeing this transfer as a bit of a trial as with most stages of the IVF process, so could be a learning curve and would rather not do that with 2 embryos at once. If all goes well with stimulation and it wasn't to get cancelled then could be transferring second week of December, if its a negative test will just focus on Christmas and get back on it in the new year. We've already decided that we'd likely want to do another egg collection if this transfer was not to work but we'll see what happens, time is of the essence with me being 38 now and I would rather do egg collections and bankehat we can before too many transfers if that makes sense, as we can revisit transfers after an egg collection.

Hi @wateringcanface no problem at all, it's quite a minefield, so if you have any questions just ask!

@Ks2023 natural modified is 150 gonal f on alternate days. So if the pen is 900 that will last you 6 uses/12 days - you may need more or less. My first go I got zero eggs on natural modified which I was pissed off about as I had done 2 rounds of normal/mild elsewhere and always got eggs. Second round I got 3 eggs, resulting in one embryo.

@wateringcanface im sad that I can’t do nhs now - we went private as we thought it would be quicker, save burdening the nhs and we were told 50% chance, 2 years later it’s 10% chance and we’ve spent over £40k 😢 but different trusts might let you do nhs after private I think. I guess maybe I would have been in same position or worse (but richer!) if I had waited for nhs

I've had a bit of a meltdown this morning 😰 we've got a complicated history and I felt like our consultation on Thursday was very generic and some things they'd done in my previous fresh cycle (test my progesterone before transfer for example) was dismissed and to put me on a low dose of progesterone even though I've bled in a fresh cycle due to low progesterone. I then got an email to quote for costs (after chasing) with the wrong medication and only for 1 cycle when we're doing a 3 cycle package.

Anyway, it all spiralled and I emailed my coordinator to see if it's too late to change doctors but I don't know if I'm being too hasty and it all feels overwhelming. So will see what she says on Monday.

I've always found communication ok but for some reason they've been quite poor this time and when I'm already feeling anxious, it's not helpful.

I've got nothing in writing about what we talked about (other than a few notes I jotted down). I don't know if I'm overreacting and anxiety is making it worse or if the things I'm worried about are valid (they feel like they are).

Oh and I forgot, the consultant said they wouldn't freeze a day 3 for us, even though I thought that was standard for Create? When I questioned ut she just said you'll probably get embryos and I said what if we want to freeze one on day 3 she said oh you can discuss it at the time 😕

@Doxy21 can I ask you your AMH please if you know and your AFC

zero egg on first transfer I don’t think I’m mentally ready for this 😢 I guess first cycle it’s always tricky.

@Ks2023 it was my 3rd collection here but I had 2 elsewhere before - AMH 4 and AFC 5

@Sunflower360 thank you x

@Doxy21 sorry to hear that. Its so difficult as you make the decision that makes sense at the time. We get three rounds on the nhs, so are toying with one private (egg share- which im keen to do as i like the idea of helping others, and its cheaper) then doing 2 nhs next year. I think we are considering worse case scenario that none of the rounds work, and we have to pay for private regardless, so should hold onto at least some free goes.

Gosh really interesting to hear how much discrepancy everyone is having with payments, thought it was just me! Every time I go to the clinic I'm asked to pay for medication that I've already paid for, it's actually really stressed me out this last week and I almost made a formal complaint. It's not even clear who is in charge of payments.

Anyway, good luck @Ks2023 - as others have said I think it varies massively, I'm doing mild, currently on 300 Gonal F, day 11 today, and starting 2 x cetrotide tonight.

@VenusStarr for my past cycles communication was good, but recently I have not heard from my patient co-ordinantor at all. So I have no meds 🤷🏽‍♀️ luckily got some from the clinic. Also I don’t know how much ‘credit’ I have left or when I’m getting refunded for not having ICSI on my first cycle

@VenusStarr are you looking to change clinic? Or change consultant?

Hi all - I feel justified and yet angry reading all the negative comments about Create. Not sure if it’s helpful but after my very honest and brutal review on trustpilot I felt a little bit more heard by them. Still rubbish service and mistakes everywhere, just a tiny bit improvement. In hindsight, we should have done more research (I was desperate and they are the closest to us).. we are looking at treatment abroad next, and also looking to transport my embryos somewhere else.

@Doxy21 just change doctors. But this is our second as we asked to swap when we wanted to restart (been under then since our nhs cycle in 2021). So we had a new Dr and she initially seemed quite good but then went awol so we booked with another one but then she came back and out pt coordinator changed us back. Saw her on Thursday and there's a few niggles for me.

Dh suggested swapping completely but there's only Care by is and I don't like that they aren't open 7 days.

Sorry you've had issues too x

@VenusStarr i don’t even know who my doctor is - I thought they all discuss together? Or does one make the plan? I never see the same person

We've been pretty lucky with seeing the same doctor @Doxy21 especially when I had really bad lining issues last year and kept having cancelled FETs the doctor said he wanted to see me. He just used to annoy me as he'd keep mentioning surrogacy 🙄 so we thought, last chance lets get a second opinion but kind of regretting it now.

@VenusStarr that sounds awful, definitely challenge back if you don't agree, you've got to do what you feel most comfortable. If you don't mind me asking what Drs have you seen and which did you have good/not so good experiences with as I think sometimes they go between clinics too?

@VenusStarr have to agree I wasn't too sure about Care, but that was my experience. Unfortunately the options and choices are not great, London has ARGCUK but I understand they are very full on with appointments twice a day for bloods etc....I couldn't practically do that unless I quit work so got to just see how things go.

@Sunflower360 we looked at argc but one collection and transfer cost more than 3 at create and I already had the background knowledge that intense stims wouldn’t work for me (I tried it once at my previous clinic and had to abandon - after spending close the £4k on meds by day 9 my follicles were still 5mm and actually seemed to be getting smaller 🤦🏽‍♀️)

@VenusStarr its awful they keep trying to push to surrogacy. In our first call we were clear - both of us using our own eggs and sperm and me carrying or nothing. Otherwise I think they would suggest donor eggs for me.

@Doxy21 I am beginning to wonder if any clinic has the magic formula. Unfortunately this industry has become very commercial and reality is sometimes the cycles work and other times they don't and the Drs cannot necessarily ascertain what factor made the difference when it does work as each case is so unique. I went to 3 IVF clinics for quotes when going private and was advised 3 different protocols: short max stim (they were very anti natural modified and sure as hell that has been the best protocol for me to date embryo wise), long protocol (not sure why as I have low AMH) and natural modified (that was Create). The only thing they all agreed on was the ICSI option - the rest was all just individual Dr's opinion.

So long and short of it is, in my opinion, we unfortunately have to make the best decision for us...and hope for the best and expect the worst. Crappy situation by I really don't think the Drs have all the answers as IVF is still under so much research.