IVF anyone been through it?

live'n'learn

Although my wife and I have a beautiful 5 year old daughter we have been trying without success for another baby for over 4 years so we have just started the early stages of the IVF process.

It will probably be our only time going through it as the first one is free.

Has anyone had any success with this before??

TeamLowe

I haven't been through it personally but lots of ladies have on the 'trials and tribulations of try to conceive...' thread, if you posted some questions on there i'm sure they'd respond x

sassyblue

I have OP, what do you want to know? xx

Mine unfortunately didn't work, but it did seem to kick start something, my periods went back to how they were before l was on the pill and l was pregnant naturally within the year. :j

Scorpio33

My wife and I had our first child via IVF after trying for 3 years. IVF worked first time for us - feel free to ask any questions you like.

lilymay1

OP - do you mind me asking where in the country you are? I know the majority of PCT's don't fund IVF if you already have children. I might want to move closer to you!

sassyblue

lilymay1 wrote: »

OP - do you mind me asking where in the country you are? I know the majority of PCT's don't fund IVF if you already have children. I might want to move closer to you!

Mine was funded but if yours isn't l've heard of people asking their GP if he can fund the drugs so you don't pay for that part. It's obviously a small part of the treatment cost though.

Nicki

sassyblue wrote: »

Mine was funded but if yours isn't l've heard of people asking their GP if he can fund the drugs so you don't pay for that part. It's obviously a small part of the treatment cost though.

The drugs are a massive part of the treatment cost! When I did my IVF cycle 12 years ago, the total cost was £3,000 of which about £1,500 was just the drugs. Obviously the cost of both elements has increased considerably since then.

I've never heard of a GP funding the drugs if a couple don't meet NHS criteria though. I have heard of it happening where a couple meet the criteria for NHS treatment but decide to go private for reasons of speed.

lilymay1

sassyblue wrote: »

Mine was funded but if yours isn't l've heard of people asking their GP if he can fund the drugs so you don't pay for that part. It's obviously a small part of the treatment cost though.

My PCT don't fund IVF for anyone, regardless of whether they fit the criteria or already have children.

Thankfully, i'm not at that stage yet though. If we need it I would go down the egg sharing route.

sassyblue

Nicki wrote: »

The drugs are a massive part of the treatment cost! When I did my IVF cycle 12 years ago, the total cost was £3,000 of which about £1,500 was just the drugs. Obviously the cost of both elements has increased considerably since then.

I've never heard of a GP funding the drugs if a couple don't meet NHS criteria though. I have heard of it happening where a couple meet the criteria for NHS treatment but decide to go private for reasons of speed.

Mine came out at £6k worth of treatment and £1k drugs 7 years ago, every cycle is different though isn't it? Moreover l didn't want people on here bleating the NHS shouldn't be paying for it as they no doubt will.

I have heard of couples being denied NHS treatment but having the NHS pay for the drugs, l'm not sure how the doctor wangled that? I can understand the need for speed you mentioned the NHS messed us about for 5 years and time is of the essence.

susieb

Hi
I had a dd naturally then an extopic and had ivf for my DS.
This was 12 years ago, and as you can guess worked first time. We paid for ivf but my gp did fund the drugs. I was told the success rate would be higher for us as we had a naural child and we were lucky it worked first time.
As for the whole process, I found it a breeze, but might not have felt that if it had failed.

InsideInsurance

sassyblue wrote: »

I have heard of couples being denied NHS treatment but having the NHS pay for the drugs, l'm not sure how the doctor wangled that?

Most the drugs used in IVF are not used exclusively for IVF. The PCT blocks the prescription of the drugs for the purposes of IVF but not necessarily a blanket ban on the drug.

The Doc can either prescribe the drugs and "forget" to tell the PCT beforehand in which case they may be told off afterwards or alternatively some GPs will be evasive or not 100% honest to the PCT (eg saying it is just for fertility rather than explicitly IVF)

An associate's GP prescribed their hCG for IVF under the males name because hCG for male fertility treatment was allowable by the PCT but prescription to the female for IVF wasnt. The fact that she took it (and his sperm counts were allegedly fine anyway - I didnt ask as I didnt need to know) is totally out of the GPs hands