GCRM or GRI?

[chingachush]

Hi! My partner & I are on the waitlist for sperm donation via ERI but the waitlist is huge so are going to go private. Those are the two clinic options that we have that’s semi near us.
Can anyone recommend either of those? Also if you’ve had to do donor sperm, how much roughly were the cost of these?

Have you followed Cole and Abbie's journey on tiktok? Their treatment was at a Glasgow clinic. I'm not sure which one but sure they would show the signage when they went in for appts.

Yes they done GCRM but I haven’t seen a video of their opinion on it if that makes sense!

You could maybe send them a message? I've had chats with a couple of the women doing fertility podcasts via Instagram.

Hey,

We are IVF so may have a different timescale but our experience may help.

We were queued for IVF (NHS) with Dundee. We didn't quite understand the toll that the wait would take. When we were about 8 months out we enquired (privately) with GRI thinking we may be able to get an earlier start, we got ourselves on their waitlist but the wait (including the wait for the first consultation) meant Ninewells was the one that won that race (last year).

Unfortunately after Ninewells we needed another cycle, and time is a huge factor for us. We enquired with GCRM and ERI (ERI IVF is also 5-6 months from waiting list addition) so we went with GCRM. From enquiry to treatment start with GCRM could be measured in weeks instead of months (the initial consultation / health check appointment waits were the longest part). Through no fault of thier own the dual NHS/ private-funded model just cannot match that.

If waiting time is your issue, find out exactly what that means. It's great hearing "4-6 months waiting list" but if that clock only starts when you have had consultation appointments, and all tests it starts to grow. Also things like "Christmas Shutdown" which every clinic has can add a month (this has got me... twice 😂).

All have their pros and cons. For example some of our pros:
Dundee have an incredible nursing team that just make you feel supported emotionally as well as physically.
GRI we absolutely loved the consultant, knew his stuff and explained things really really well
GCRM can tailor treatment options and pace in a way I'm not sure that a hybrid NHS unit can.

Hope that helps and good luck

@HM2024thank you! I’ll send a message on Instagram and hopefully they reply 😊

@BeeStrongwe have been on top of waitlist for IVF waitlist since last year but because we are now having to go through the sperm donor waitlist that can be 12-18 months and I have been told that it won’t be this year. We feel like we can’t wait any longer so are now aiming to go private. We also spoke to Dundee as was planning on moving and they would be in the catchment but it would be 2 years for sperm donor if we were to do that so our intention is still to move so would like to go private so that can up our moving scale instead of hindering it. GRI gave an indication that it would be 4-6 months if we go on their waitlist privately. GRCM said that if we had a consultation in April they would be looking for us to start in June/July! I know IVF is going to be super expensive if we go private and would rather do IVF nhs funded because of the expense but we sort of feel our hands are tied if we’re going to have to wait at least a minimum a year+ for the nhs route. It’s just hard figuring out what private route to go down. GRI seems like they are more expensive and when asked if they do packages through access they said no whereas we know GCRM does!

@chingachush My personal experience is that GCRM have been true to their word on waiting times, and we are in a much better position now than we have been (they put me on a totally different protocol to what I had previously which worked incredibly well for my age, and has given us a set of PGT tested frozen embryos ready to transfer). For the first time in our journey we are super optimistic. I have zero regrets from swapping to them.

If we had 'a do', knowing what we know now, we probably would have gone to GCRM earlier. For us the NHS waiting made the rollercoaster of hope and disappointment so much more emotionally difficult.

Money wise we was told to be aware that because GCRM are the only complete private provider in Scotland, their their prices may be a little bit higher, but honestly I think they are all pretty similar, and actually I suspect it's the additional addons (like PGT testing) that gives them that reputation.

Happy to answer any questions 😁

@BeeStrongthank you for the info! Did you have IVF on the nhs previously? I have years before with a previous partner so unsure if I need to send them my protocol from that one as well. I’ve not had it with my current partner though. How long did you wait from consultation till you could start? I just see June/July time frame and feel like I’m sold!

have you taken a package or anything with access fertility or are you paying out of pocket for the whole thing? I’m wanting to potentially do access if they accept it since you can pay x amount and get a set amount of rounds. Silly question and this is something I’ll need to get clarity on from them but do they do what the NHS consider a round? Do you do an IVF round but say have 4 embryos do you use them until next round or do you have to pay separately per embryo transfer? 🤦🏻‍♀️ so much to get our head around and we’re wanting to be full steam ahead because of how long we’ve had to wait for!

Hey @chingachush,

Previously we only had the Dundee NHS, and honestly GCRM didn't seem all that interested in the details. I think age and individual specifics may be important - so for us, the NHS experience hadn't been a zero blastocyst scenario, and had resulted in pregnancy (with miscarriage). I didn't need to send them any paperwork. They have a form you fill in (with questions like total number of pregnancies / have you done IVF before...). My assumption is, from that they learned that I respond to drugs, we fertilise and can implant. Above 'short protocol' I don't remember telling them any details about specifics. I suspect if my NHS experience had not resulted in implantation that would have been different. But because of my age, previous cycle result and AMH, I'm was probably textbook for their base cycle.

My memory isn't great, but I'm pretty sure there were three appointments before start - first baseline scan/bloods, then virtual consultant, then in person planning.

The first two they book in together as they need the results of the scan/bloods for the consultation. I think the timeline was about three weeks for scan appointment then about 2 weeks later for consultation, and from that you get the quote. Note: I asked about, and went to the Edinburgh office for my initial scan, because it had appointments weeks earlier than Glasgow.
After that we paid and they booked in planning appointment. The planning appointment is where they talked about medication payment / delivery and walked us through our timeline etc, we could start on our next period.

I got all the information for Access, but aside from an interest free loan type arrangement, a lot of the other benefits (refunds etc) were not applicable due to my age, so for this cycle we chose to use our savings. Due to my response to NHS, we had some evidence that our issue may be my tubes, which then made us think that we may not need lots of rounds. It was a personal finances / circumstances decision. We were lucky, but fully aware it is still an option if we need to go again. My sister in law did some calculations on whether multi-package access was saving lots of £, and after that she also decided not, but I never found out those details.

I'm not confident they do work the same as NHS with regards to unlimited transfers per cycle... But I honestly cannot remember. My first is imminent and that one is definitely included. I'll see if I can dig out the paperwork later and let you know 😁.

@BeeStrongthank you so much for the detailed response!
The reason I’m sending in paperwork is so that we don’t need to do bloods/sperm analysis again since we’ve had that in the past year - I am having to pay for a scan because I’ve not had that done in the past year but all my bloods and what not have been done so it’s saving us a small amount of money doing it that way. I’ve booked my scan appointment in Edinburgh in 2 weeks thankfully! And then have a consultation in April so fingers crossed that will go fine! My partner has no sperm and I have a low AMH for my age so we aren't wanting to wait another year+ for NHS at this point.

Great to know that they have planning appointment! Do they tell you then what their thinking protocol wise or do you get that at consultation once they’ve had your results? Do you feel like they are willing to work with a protocol that you’d like or is more or less up to them? The last time I had IVF we done a longer protocol but I’m unable to have those records since it was with a previous partner and off the top of my head I can’t remember how long it was but can remember it was longer than usual.

It’s definitely down to finances for us as well - it’s more weighing up pro’s and con’s we’ve been told that first cycle rarely works (great! Thanks for adding to the stress for us 🙄😂) since they are trying to figure out protocol for you so that’s why we’re going back and forth thinking about packages via access because at least they have the refund programme for it - we know that if it does work first round if we’re lucky then obviously we’d be losing out money but because we’ll need to buy sperm you get recommended to buy 3 straws and that’s why we’re thinking of paying for 3 rounds via access. It’s all an absolute minefield on what to do especially since we’ll be bank rolling this with credit cards and maybe a small loan.

So glad to hear that you’re starting soon and sending you the best of luck for it all! ❤️

Hi I have had a round at each nine wells , GCRM and GRI .. Glasgow royal for us was definitely the best .. I would avoid GCRM !! We didn’t have donor sperm /eggs but I can share my experience and as to why we would never recommend GCRM …

we had our 1st round at GCRM and was a terrible experience.. they just wanted our money and we’re not very helpful at all .. they didn’t explain that we were actually entitled to a free round on the NHS which we found out after 1 round and 5 failed transfered with them .. it was the recurrent miscarriage clinic that old us .. phone manner was terrible with them, google the reviews for them, there was a whistle blower that worked for them that has stuff to say also! We got 5 embryos and all 5 failed or ended in miscarriages, after this I asked is there any further tests that can be done to understand the reason for the failures ( Emma and Alice , uterus n biopsy, can I try blood thinners , PGTa etc ) the response on the phone was ‘oh am not sure’ I don’t think you need that .. they would be happy to just keep banging in embryos blindly to get more money from you and not try understanding the fertility issue .. they were a egg collection and transfer clinic not a fertility clinic in my eyes.

The next round for us was with Ninewells (our free round once we found out we were eligible which GCRM never even said we were entitled to after me asking them) they were really good, done my stims slightly different and have more protocols as NHS ie progesterone after transfer is a must (GCRM never said I needed any with any of my transfers?! ) can’t fault Ninewells at all. we got 3 embryos out of that round with a failed fresh transfer, and froze the other two .. but my age by then was 41 and I wanted to bank more embryos before I got too old and as we only had one free round and wernt entitled to PGTS testing with Ninewells we decided to get our 3rd round with GRI, we also didn’t want to keep putting embryos in untested as had 6 miscarriages by then and couldn’t take it emotionally by then so the round at Glasgow royal we got 4 embryos with them, we got the other two Frosties transported from Dundee to Glasgow royal and sent the 6 altogether away to be tested .. got two euploid from them 6 and the 1st FET with one of our euploids was with GRI and I am now 24 weeks pregnant with that embryo (the embryo was one of the Ninewells ones) .. GRI consultant let me try the blood thinners as a precaution, and she also recommended the uterine biopsy that I was asking for which actually came back as I had a slight bacterial infection in my uterus which a 5 days of antibiotics cleared, we had progesterone after transfer (GCRM never let me have it advised any of these things ) so glad we didn’t go back to GCRM and went with the Royal !

my advice would be if you can wait, use Ninewells or GRI the wait might actually still be quicker than going to GCRM and have failed transfer after transfer.. it was a year and half for us to get through out 5 transfers with GCRM .. so might not always be a quicker route !

good luck with your journey !

We never had the package deal, so can’t advice on that but the egg collection and 1 st fresh transfer are in one price and then each FET after for subsequent blastocysts are paid separately also

Have you been recommended for any tests at all , your partner can get checked for varicocele, and blocked tubes in testicles etc, can he see a urologist at all ? again no one told us this and we found out through researching ourself and my partner went to GP and had to push for this, turned out ok for him but his sperm quality was very low and with again researching ourself and by the 3rd round we found about supplements he could take that greatly increased his sperm and DNA fragmentation that he had, I don’t know your personal reason which you don’t need to state but just wanted you to know these are also options you can maybes look at as to reason he has no or low sperm incase like us .. no one has told you! 💛

@AmberRose26hi! Sorry I just seen this! Yes he has been tested for all of that at ERI and he could do an op but he only had a 3% chance of it actually working and we didn’t think it was worse the risk with the complications that could arise. He has been on a lot of vitamins but he got diagnosed with an illness last year that they think is the cause of the 0 sperm now whereas previously he had around 4 million and it went to 0 within a year.