@StorkVisit my first cycle was nhs, we had 2 scans .They advised 1 or 2 monitoring scans and as my amh at the time fell into the high bracket , we had the 2 as they had concerns about ohss. In the end , I didn't respond as expected. We got 2 blasts from 3 fertilised. Ours weren't good quality so they wouldn't have frozen so we did a double transfer. That resulted in our son. Absolutely couldn't not fault our nhs clinic.
My current cycle was private. I had scans ans bloods every other day. My current experience of my private clinic has been a nightmare. They have fell well below my expectations. One clerical error after another. They use email as a form of communication, not a patient portal which even our nhs had and this caused so much confusion. We had no idea of our treatment plan until they informed us 2 days before stims. At which point we couldnt back out as we had already bought the medication and paid for our plan , We couldnt view our treatment plan that they updated scan to scan, numerous spelling errors, telling us wed be back on X date ect , not sending email which resulted in us getting up a 5am only to turn out that were 2 hours early for our scan. I have questioned so many decisions along the way. I never got to see the dr other than intital so you can't even ask the reasoning behind certain decisions. In my nhs round , they stimmed me very low and we got 7 eggs from 12 follicles. In my private round,they stimmed me even LOWER so despite having 30 follicles only 6 responded . My only follicles were within optional range and I was told I would trigger last Monday, when they suddenly emailed me to stim for another few days and almost doubled my dose. This only accelerated my only few follicles that responded and 3 were already 23mm. I was so stressed about over matured eggs and nobody gave an explanation as to why they delayed me as i had no other responding follicles. I I had my retrieval on Friday, and they had my trigger down for a different time than what they told me. Yeah, the whole thing has been a disaster. We spent 10k and the experience hasn't been any better. They didn't even offer refreshments, we were told bring our own snacks after retrieval. We only got 3 eggs this time and 2 fertilised. They won't give us any updates though until 'transfer' day so we've only idea how they are getting on
We can't do a fresh even if we get a blast as my progesterone is apparently very high. No explanation as to why from the dr. I've only found out from asking other lovely women online who explained this can be caused by the stims.
We're planning on another round early next year but we definitely won't be going back to this clinic. We received a warmer reception with the nhs staff. The staff in my private clinic were quite strange.
On the first day i had to poke around in one of the nurses eyes looking for an eyelash and at another tell one of them told me they feel so "bizzare" while in the middle of drawing my blood. Nhs were so down to earth and normal and we always felt comfortable. There wasnt much chat from our private clinic. It was a more professional environment. Well.. lol
It's such a stressful time and you worry so much and you definitely don't want to pick a clinic that further adds to your anxiety.
My advice regarding private , is do your research. We couldnt view the HFEA on our clinic at the time we booked as it just wasn't showing . Only now after completion has hfea updated and we can see our clinic has poor success rates ( I wonder why) the dr told us if we did an fet it would lower success , yet everything I've read seems to suggest fets statistically have a ever so slight advantage compared to fresh.
If something doesn't feel right then don't proceed. I wish we taken the time to explore other clinics. Always go with your gut.
Sorry for the long post.
I'm 39 also and I'd definitely opt for the double again at my age. If i was younger, probably not as your chances are alot higher. I think if we hadn't of last time , we might not have our son.
Obviously you need to consider the risks, are you OK with multiples? As you you could get lucky and both implant.
I couldn't have cared less. We'd been trying since 2004 and i was so desperate for a baby, I'd happily have carried multiples.
There also is the risk that if you miscarried one embryo, it could result in losing both, this is what my current dr told me.
Do you get good quality blasts?
Ours were terrible so it made sense just to fire them both in and hope for the best 😆 they wouldn't have froze them away.