Hi everyone,

Having only just found out that we are being referred for IVF / ICSI I have had my nose in the laptop all day researching and think I might now have freaked myself out a little!!

We are very fortunate to be eligable to have our first three attempts on the NHS, however does this mean that we can go anywhere in the country or only in our region? Slightly worried as all of the NHS clinics on the HFEA show that anything within 60 miles of us are under the national succes rate so if its possible to go further afield and away from your region we will be!

Secondly, will it be decided just before egg retreival whether we are going for IVF or ICSI or is this something we will know in advance? I've scared myself a little with the ICSI as its still a fairly 'new' proccedure and risks and problems show as 'unknown'...... :\?

Any advice is much appreciated, we've basically been told to 'go away and decide where we want to go' -thats all good and well but we don't know what treatment we're having or where we can go!!!

xx

Hi Chickidee,

It's amazing what you can find out on google!

I'd ask your GP which fertility clinics your PCT will refer you to as they're not necessarily the ones closest to you.

Also if your husband has lower numbers/motility dodgy sperm!!! (in the nicest possible way) They'll probably plan for ICSI. However the couple next to us at egg collection did IVF with half her eggs and ICSI with the other half (as he had great sperm on the day!)

We had ICSI end of september and my hubby had no sperm on the day (both samples zilch) so we had to use the frozen stuff! Out of 10 mature eggs 8 fertilised and 4 made it to good grade 2. I had 2 embryos' transferred and now expecting one baby next June

Finally if you've got a regular cycle, relatively fit and not too old (I'm 37 tomorrow) your success rate would be much higher than the national average.

Good luck!

xxxx

Hiya chickidee, I can totally understand your concern...the world of IVF is very overwhelming. Great great news that you can get 3 funded cycles though...I couldn't get any as I'm too young (27). Bizarre that they've just left you to it without giving you any info.....perhaps you will need to wait until you officially get the funding approved??

Re: clinics, I understand that it IS possible to take your funding to any clinic in the country, but that you may have a fight on your hands to do this as your PCT will already have arrangements with specific clinics. but if you're really not happy about the optins (when you find them out) then you can push for a different clinic but may need to be prepared to wait for funding issues to be resolved. I think you should phone / email the cons who has referred you and/or see your GP to ask which clinics you can choose between.

Re: ICSI, I too got a BFP 2 weeks ago after having ICSI. We got 100% fertilisation rate, whcih I doubt we would have got with IVF due to my hubbies' poor sperm sample. My understanding is that with ICSI claims cannot be made that there are NOT complications as a result, but this is only because it has not been proven either way. It is a worry, but try to hold in mind that many perfectly healthy children have been conceived with this technique.

Loads of luck xx

Hi,

I have not been on the site for a while. I just want to let you know I am 38 and my husband is 37, we had to have ICSI because even though my husband managed to improve his sperm count the quality was not good enough (they only told us the same day when he gave the sample). I struggled to accept ICSI to start with and I was extremely paranoid about the whole thing, my husband banned me from researching on the internet because this made me far worse. Anyway to cut a huge story short, our first attempt was successful and I am due on New Years Eve, the pregnancy has been fantastic with no complications and once I had my 20wk scan I settled down and enjoyed being pregnant. Had weird dreams for a little while (giving birth to an alien an such like) but apparently you get these in pregnancy regardless of ICSI. I would go through ICSI again with much more confidence next time. I also have two colleagues and a friend who had ICSI and they had healthy uncomplicated pregancies and are proud mums of two beaufitul baby girls and a gorgeous baby boy. I had treatment at the private manchester fertility clinic referred their from the NHS.
Good luck with everything and if you have any questions just ask.
Melissa x

Hi Melissa,

That's fantastic for your first course of fertility treatment

Hope you have an uneventful birth!

Did you have treatment at Care fertility?

Love Alison xxx

Thanks for the replies guys, really does make a difference 'speaking' with people who understand. It's also very reassuring reading how many people get their BFP's from ICSI and have a beautiful bundle (or two!) at the end of it.

Sorry to echo Mrs Pootle, but was it the Care Fertiltiy in Manchester you used Melissa? I've recently looked into this and the stats were really good, plus it's a fairly straight run to Manchester for us - we're about 60 miles away - so feasible, I just need to check if I will be eligible through NHS here with my GP. Are you from the Manchester area or were you able to be referred from your area? Congratulations on your pregnancy, not long to go now!

Chickidee x

Hi Chickidee,

My wife and I have been through 1 process of IVF. In Dec 2008 she had down regulated, then start the stimulation, on 28th December was the egg collection. The harvest 11 eggs of varying maturity. They fertilised five with IVF and 4 with ICSI. The sperm sample is tested on the day and depending on the motility they will advice the best course of treatment.

9 eggs fertilised and 6 went on to become blastocysts (day 5 embryos) they say success is greatest with blastocyst embryos. We had two transferred and 4 frozen. 10 days later, the test was positive and we were elated. You'd think okay that's the end of the IVF but no.

The private clinic we use then asked my wife to go for 48hourly blood tests to ensure her BCHG levels were doubling, which they did for the first 10days or so, and then severely slowed down. at 6 weeks they scanned and said that the sac was small and would have to wait for another week or so. They said it was most likely to be a blighted ovum.

A week of stress and lots of tears and acceptance that it was not going to be this time. The second scan showed that sac again was small and there were no foetal poles or hearbeat which should have been visible at 7 weeks. My wife wasn't miscarrying on her own so 10 days later we went to a local hospital who again performed all the scans to ensure that the pregnancy was 100% not viable and then gave my wife some medication to allow her to miscarry. A very traumatic experience.

4 months later once she had had 3 clean cycles, we decided to go for a frozen embryo transfer. Again we had two embryos transferred (they had to thaw three of our 4 frozen embryos to get two which survived the thawing process). Then again 10 days later a positive test. The BHCG levels were doubling very well this time. Soon they reached 11000 or so and then we were told by the clinic not to pay too much attention to these levels as once they pass 10000 the rate of doubling slows down.

The early scan at 6 weeks showed two sacs and two heartbeats. We were overwhelmed as they say the frozen cycles are definitely less successful than a fresh cycle.

10 weeks in to the pregnancy, my wife had a bleed and we thought, it's over, but it was okay and the docs changed her medication and it was fine, the twins were growing fine. Then at 22 weeks and a few days she had some discharge and we went to the hospital. They suspected an infection and put her on some antibiotics. A week later fresh blood and then we lost both boys at 24 weeks. This is now in Nov 2009.

We are both very lost now and again thinking about when we will start the IVF process again.

I hope all works out well for you. But remember that you must be strong and there will be a lot of medication with IVF and if there is disappointment it seems worse than when someone conceives naturally as you are so much more involved and informed about every stage of the pregnancy.

I wish you so much success with your treatment and I pray that all of us wanting children on this site are blessed with healthy beautiful babies this year. Good luck.

Hi Ladies, I hope you are all well.

We had our first appointment at ISIS in Colchester today. We saw Dr. Paloma who went through everything with us. We are having ICSI due to hubby's sperm. I had an internal scan with Ken and he seemed really pleased with everything and we then sat down with Nurse Julie to got through all the paperwork and she led us through the what to do, when, etc. Its all a bit overwhelming when they actually start going through it isn't it .. but we came out with a good feeling about the clinic. I don't know if any of you were there today, but if you were I hope your appointments all went well too.

So now we are just waiting for my next period, in about 15 days or so and then it all starts.

My one concern was Dr. Paloma's insistence that they would only put back 1 embryo, but when we spoke with Nurse Julie I told her that if you take into account the amount of time to do the down regging, stimulation, etc. I'll either be days from my 37th birthday or just after it and she seemed more relaxed about our wish for 2 and said we'll be allowed to discuss this again with the consultant and they'll consider it for us. For me, its less about the twin aspect (although frankly I think that'd be great) but more about the chance of at least one of two succeeding.

Good luck everyone.