EVERYTHING has changed!

Well, as the title says, everything has changed! In my last post I mentioned that we were looking at going to the London Women’s Clinic in Cardiff for a consultation about pursuing IUI under their care. Unlike Germany, you can’t have sperm delivered to your door in the UK, so you have to be under the care of a fertility clinic. After looking at their website for a few weeks, they offered a promotion to celebrate their new offices opening in the centre of Cardiff – an initial consultation (including a scan with a nurse) was only £150! (It’s usually £375!).

So the date was set, Wednesday 14th November we went to the LWC in Cardiff where we were made to feel very welcome by all the staff. The nurses gave me an internal scan and noticed that I had a ‘mildly polycystic ovary’, I was a little worried, but the assured me that it was nothing to worry about. Phew! We then met with Dr Louisy who talked us through all our options. We asked what the success rates of IUI are, and were not encouraged by the results, 15% on an unstimulated cycle, which basically means they insert the sperm into my uterus without any drugs to encourage my body to get pregnant. A stimulated cycle (using drugs) has a 21% success rate which is still significantly less than we would have hoped. We then asked about IVF, which we had never even considered before and was told the success rate is 45%, much better! It is a lot more expensive, but I would rather spend twice as much to have twice the success rate in one go.

So that’s it, IVF is the way forward!

The next step was to have a series of blood tests, including an AMH test, which tells the doctor approximately how many eggs you’ve got left. I could have the tests done at the LWC, but would cost over £300, so I thought I would test my luck at my GP, luckily they were happy to do all the bloods for free apart from the AMH, which isn’t a standard blood test and would cost too much, so off I went back to the LWC for them to do it for me at a cost of £95.

The next step was a ‘trial embryo transfer’ which I had to have done because I’d had a cone biopsy 2 years earlier and they wanted to ensure they could feed the catheter through my cervix, so off we went for the 3rd time to the LWC on Thursday 13th December to have the procedure done. It wasn’t painful, just strange! The good news is that they didn’t have a problem with the catheter so we’re good to go. Tomorrow we are booked in for a counselling session, which is necessary for anyone receiving donor sperm or eggs.

We have been told we can order our sperm at any time because they will store it at the clinic until treatment. I’m being put on ‘prolonged treatment’ because my next cycle is due on Christmas Day which makes things awkward as the clinic is closed that day. So I have to call them any day during the first week of my cycle and then I start taking all the drugs on day 21. (I think).

So that’s what’s happened, we are all ready to go! Yippee!