One Hurdle After Another. (IVF)

Member Name: mythdata

Product:	IVF
Date:	03/06/09 (498 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enables infertile couples the chance to become parents.

Disadvantages: Long process that can fail at any point. Very expensive.

INTRODUCTION

As many of you may know by now, me and my husband have been trying to conceive for the past seven / eight years and we have undergone many tests and procedures to get to this point.

After several failed treatments on medications such as metformin, clomid and many Operations such as laparoscopy's and ovarian drilling, we were finally placed on the IVF waiting list.

So far we have had one failed attempt, but as it stands at the moment we do qualify for another two attempts before having to go private, which could work out very expensive indeed.

I have done endless research on the IVF procedure, It can be very daunting and difficult to take in so with my experience I have decided to write this review in the hope that it will help many women in the same situation, as doctors can ramble and you come away very confused and the internet is a great place to research but you always come across sites that are contradicting and therefore confuse you even further.

So here I am going to write a review that is full of facts and personal opinion, which I hope will help as I never found anyone one the net with the same experiences, it seemed to be full of people who were successful on the treatments and this depressed me further, although at the same point I was happy for them but wished it was me.

WHAT IS IVF

IVF in vitro fertilisation is a procedure aimed for couples who have been trying to conceive for many years naturally without success. The procedure is relatively new and the first ever success with this type of treatment was reported in 1978 in the UK.

Since then IVF has become very popular with couples all over the globe, as it is a treatment that helps infertile couples conceive their own child.

Basically the treatment allows an embryo to form with the help of fertility drugs, both the eggs and sperm are introduced together and fertilised in a lab and then replaced back into the woman's womb, in the hope that the embryo will imbed in to the uterine wall and result in pregnancy.

IVF has become the solution for couple's who can't conceive naturally, there are many reasons for this for example,

Blocked or damaged fallopian tubes which will stop sperm fertilising a fresh egg.

Age is another factor as Eggs can become less fertile the older you are.
Having fallopian tubes removed can also decrease chances of pregnancy as you will only have one tube which will cut the changes of conceiving naturally down by 50%.

Males with a low sperm count also restrict the chances of conceiving naturally.

By having IVF treatment you can cut out all of these issues, as the eggs and sperms are fertilised within a Lab and therefore the difficult bit has been done for you, all you will need to rely on is the embryo imbedding into your womb and hopefully resulting in you baby dream coming true.

NHS IVF TREATMENT

You can get IVF treatment on the NHS as some hospitals offer it to certain couples who qualify, to qualify you will need to be sponsored by you local Primary Care Trust (PCT), who have a funding budget to help infertile couples.

To qualify for the treatment you should fit certain guidelines, the more you fit into these guidelines the better chance you have of being offered the treatment.

Currently the guidelines stand at couple's who:

Are aged between 23 and 39 years old, this does seem very harsh as age is basically being made into an issue, but as recent figures show women who are over 40 years old don't have eggs that are mature enough to complete the treatment, therefore the NHS will not cover the cost of anyone over the age of 40.

If you are 40 or above it is worth thinking about going private, yes this will cost but studies have showed that the older couples have been successful with IVF treatment.

One or both couples must be diagnosed with fertility problems or you have been infertile for over three years. This is where my problems started I have always known I have had a problem but it took my consultant nearly 5 years to diagnose me with PCOS polycystic ovary syndrome, and then the waiting list for IVF took another two and half years, so I strongly recommend if you have a problem you must be very persistent as the NHS will cast you aside before tackling the problems.

These are the standard guidelines, but in certain areas of the country the PCT have added additional guidelines to the list that you must fit into to qualify. You will only find this is the highly populated areas such as London and surrounding areas.

In highly populated areas you now get declined for NHS treatment if one of the couple already has a child from a previous relationship, which is really bad if you ask me because the partner who has the problem will be feeling even more inadequate, I can see that the NHS are cutting back to get waiting lists down but surely these couples should be placed on the waiting list.

Now the bit that will depress you further, as IVF has become very demanded by many couples the waiting lists vary. In less populated areas you can wait 1-2 years and in the highly populated areas you can wait 2-4 years.

Me and my husband live in a low populated area so we were fortunate and only waited 18 months, the main battle is getting onto the waiting list so if you have a problem and have been trying for a child for over a year, I strongly advise you go to your GP to get the ball rolling as it can take up to 4 years before you will be considered for IVF.

Before we went on the list we had to tick all of the boxes and have many tests, drug and operations as the NHS like to pursue every avenue before placing you on the IVF list as it is very costly to them.

If you don't usually have to pay for prescriptions up you can offer to pay all prescription charges and for medications which will bump you up the list a bit as you are paying, with this you will have to pay for all prescriptions and medications you require throughout your treatment, this is still very expensive but worth it if it works out.

Me and my husband have always paid prescription charges and once our specialist asked if we paid charges, he tapped it in to the computer and we went from a 3 year wait to a 8 month wait, so I have not doubt what so ever if you pay you do get seen a lot quicker.

If you are not exempt and you qualify for free prescriptions you will not have to pay a penny.

When it come to you getting NHS treatment, if you are place on the list you will be entitled to three attempts at IVF, you will also be offered the chance to freeze any good embryos that are retrieved at the start of the treatment, as only one to three embryos are replaced into your womb.

GOING PRIVATE

Another option in going private, this is recommended if you have failed the three HNS attempts. It is also an option for the older couples or those who just can't wait for NHS treatment.

One important factor to remember is the most fertility hospitals, even those located on NHS premises offer fee paying IVF treatment, this is basically doing it on the NHS but you pay for the medications and nominal amounts for the actual treatment, the clinic do not profit from this it only covers there costs.

These is also a waiting list for this but as you are paying it is less than a years wait, so if you have to pay prescriptions and medications on the NHS, I strongly advise you look into this option and add your self to the list and wait to see which comes up first.

IVF is very expensive and one full treatment can cost anything from £4000-£8000 pounds, this will include all consultations prior and after treatment, Drugs, medicines and the treatment. You can expect to pay at the higher end of the price bracket if you need sperm of egg donors or if you would like to freeze good embryos for another attempt if need be.

Most IVF clinics are roughly £5000 pounds a treatment, so this is a typical price you should aim at looking at, however some clinics do offer it much cheaper but there is a reason for this they are only quoting for the procedure and not the medications or consultations so if you look into going private, be sure to get a quote for everything consultations, medications. Follow up advice and the procedure.

If you find a clinic that is a lot cheaper and this does not include the medications, it maybe worth your while checking the prices on the medications yourself, as this can work out a lot cheaper.

Another way of getting cheaper treatment is egg sharing, some private clinics offer this service where you donate your good eggs that are left over after they have been retrieved, this was something I would never have considered until I found out about it, you do not donate your fertilised egg which is technically an embryo, all you are donating is one of the many eggs that have been retrieved from your ovaries at the start of the treatment.

In return you get a reduced price IVF treatment and you are giving another couple a chance, this is a good idea but after long deliberation we have decided that this would never be an option for us but it is available.

THE PROCEDURE

This is the procedure explained in details as I feel that couples need to be fully aware of what to expect, as it is not something to be taken lightly and it can be very stressful for everyone concerned.

STEP ONE: At the start of the treatment GNRH anolog is a drug given to the woman to block the production of both LH and FSH hormones, this will basically put you into early menopause resulting in hot flushes, nausea, and headaches. I personally had really bad mood swings one minute I was up and the next down, I can laugh about it now but at the time it was very unpleasant.

To achieve this I had to take the drugs to suppress my hormones for 21 days, I have to say these were the worst days of my life as I was actually putting myself through this, fair enough going through it naturally but I felt like a monster with two heads and my moods were foul.

Once all of your own natural follicular development is suppressed by the GNRH medications, you will then be given HCG injections. The injections stimulated my egg production and had to be administered daily for 10 days.

These injections will stimulate the follicles and produce and mature many eggs, these injections need to be carefully timed because if it is given to soon it could result in the eggs forming into cysts and ovulation being blocked.

At this point you will be scanned to check the development of your eggs, here they will determine if this part of the procedure has been successful. If you have many mature eggs you will be pre paired for egg retrieval and if it is unsuccessful you will have to start the whole process again.

STEP TWO: After the HCG injections have been administered you will need to prepare your self for the egg retrieval which usually occurs 36 hours after the injections.

The night before my egg retrieval I was given another injection to give the eggs one last push as the consultant said, this injection basically prepared the follicles to release the matured eggs ready for collection the next day.

To retrieve your eggs you will be given a light anesthesia which will make the whole process comfortable, the eggs are then removed by ultra sound guided retrieval. The follicles, eggs and fluid are all collected into a tube and sent off to the embryology lab for fertilisation.

The procedure itself was relatively pain free and most parts of it I was comfortable, after the egg retrieval I did suffer from bad cramping and bleeding for and few days but this was just like a normal period pain so I did not worry, I was allowed to leave the hospital within two hours.

STEP 3: This is the stage where you can do nothing but wait, after the hubby gave his sperm sample, which I may add he made such a fuss over doing. At this point I could have slapped him as I was going through all of the treatment and all me had to do was spit in a cup. The two headed monster reared its head once again at this point.

My eggs were sent to the embryologist who collects the eggs from the fluid collected and they were assessed for maturity and incubated, at this point we did not know what was going on but the consultant called after a few hours and informed us that 6 mature eggs had been collected.

In the mean time the seaman sample was assessed and washed, this procedure separates the good sperm from the bad, so only the healthy sperms are selected for fertilisation.

The eggs and sperms are then introduced for fertilisation, they are placed in nutrients that allow them to live outside the body and incubated for 24 hours, after that period they are looked at through a microscope to see if fertilisation has occurred.

If no fertilisation has occurred you will need to repeat the whole process and if the eggs have been fertilised they will be incubated for 2-7 days until they grow and divide into embryos.

After a few days the eggs are looked at again and the best of the bunch are selected for embryo transfer.

STEP FOUR:

After the 2-7 days in the incubator the embryos can be transferred with a catheter and placed back into the womb, this part of the procedure is painless but slightly uncomfortable, the only was I can describe is it is that it is as similar sensation to a smear test.

With women under the age of forty only one of two eggs can be transferred back into the womb depending on the embryo quality, this is to stop multiple pregnancies.

If you are forty or over you can have up to three embryos transferred back into your womb, because the specialists say the embryo quality will not be as good as a younger person.

Some IVF clinics will offer to freeze any good embryos that are not transferred back into your body, this is make other attempts much cheaper but you must remember that embryos that have been frozen will decrease in quality slightly.

After the eggs had been transferred I was made to rest for a few hours, before going home and carrying on as normal. I must stress that at this point it is very hard to carry on as normal, as you can do anything for two weeks.

These two weeks were the longest of my life, just waiting to take a pregnancy test was very hard and in my opinion the most stressful part of the whole process.

SUCCESS RATES

There are many factors to take into account when looking at IVF success rates, these being the Patients age, Sperm or egg quality, Failure to collect eggs either ate step one or step two and lastly the failure of implantation of the embryos.

Many believe this will be the answer to there prayers but it is a very expensive, very stressful process that is only achieve by climbing may hurdles. At any point in the treatment it can fail, so I will not sit here and say go for it because it is not garenteed to work, overall there is only a 22% national average success rate with IVF treatments.

RISKS

As with any type of treatment there is an element of risk, the risks associated with IVF being an increased chance of multiple pregnancy, this happens when you have many embryos transferred back into the womb. This is why they will only replace 1-3 embryos at a time, making triplets and twins a possibility.

Another risk to take into account is ectopic pregnancy, this can occur when you ovaries have been over stimulated through the drugs and medications that have been administered throughout the treatment, this is a very rare occurrence but it is something to be aware of.

OTHER INFORMATION

If you do not qualify for treatment on the NHS you can go to a private clinic that offers the IVF Process to NHS patients, some clinics will treat you at the same cost it would cost for the NHS therefore they will perform the procedure without any profit.

As the waiting list for NHS treatment varies drastically, with the wait times being anything from one year to three years depending on your areas current funding. If there is funding available and you meet the criteria needed to get place on the treatment list, you can expect to wait one to three years, so if going private is an option for you I strongly recommend you also look in to going private.

MY OPINION

I have to strongly say to everyone considering IVF that this is not a decision to be taken lightly, it is very stressful for you and your partner even the solidest of couples can feel the strain when it comes to this.

Another thing to remember it that your partner is just as involved as you are, you maybe going through the treatment but they have to witness it and put up with the bad moods, tears and every other emotion you go through too, so remember they are under strain to at the end of the day they want exactly the same as you.

The whole process took us over two months to complete, without success. At the time I was devastated but I have now learned to get one with it and try again as it did not help me dwelling on the past, I remain optimistic and I am confident it will happen eventually for us.

If you have been refused NHS help remember to try NHS based clinics as these do tend to be a lot cheaper than private clinics, so you may save some money in the long run as I see it if I save it either means I have more money for other attempts or more money to spend on a child.

As I have stated I do live is a less populated area, so we did have to travel to London St Mary's IVF clinic for consultations, and all of the steps involved in the process as we live roughly a four hour drive away this was impossible to do it a day, especially when you were told to reset of be comfortable.

During certain stages of the treatment me and my husband had a short break in London, we found we had to be close by at the end of step one, and early step two which was a week long period and then we had another week at step four and five.

So remember that it is time consuming and an added expense especially it you have to travel and more often than not you will need to, so you will need to work around work and plan holidays to accommodate for this time.

I hope this has been helpful to someone out there, as it is something I think I have learned a lot about over the last few years.

Summary: It is worth the effort if you get what you want.