ivf abroad ?

[faye38]

well we are looking into having ivf in Los Angeles as any body else thought about doing this as the rates at the clinic im looking at are higher than here in the uk what do you think xx

 

[Leilani]

I've heard great things and real success storeis about a clinic in San Diego, but for us, just now, it's too expensive,

Good luck

 

[Rainbowsprite]

Hi, hope you don't mind me posting here.

I had IUI and successful ICSI in 2008 in Prague. There are a few clinics there that are reproductive specialist.

A friend of mine has just left the US and is planning on using a clinic in Czech Republic for her IVF.

 

[Renee71]

Hi Faye,

I don't have experience of having IVF in the USA, but I did have 2 courses of IVF in Cape Town, South Africa. One thing to bear in mind is you would need to stay out there for around 1 month for the treatment. This wasn't a problem for me as I'm originally from South Africa and my husband and I stayed with my aunt for a month during my 1st cycle of treatment. This was in Dec09 when 2 embryos were implanted and a further 2 embryos were frozen. The 1st cycle was unsuccessful. The fertility clinic told us we couldn't try another cycle of treatment for at least another 2-3 months.

I did the second cycle in Nov10 with the 2 frozen embryos and this time things were successful. Statistically, there was only a 26% chance of me getting pregnant due to my age and circumstances - age 38, BMI around 30 and I'm on medication for an under-active thyroid gland.

I imagine the IVF charges in the USA are pretty high and you'll also need to budget for motel charges for 1 month, unless you know somebody to stay with. The Cape Town clinic charged around R33000 (around £3000) for the first cycle and for the egg freezing. The second treatment was cheaper - under R20000 as I was on less drugs and they just needed to thaw out and implant the embryos.

I did a lot of reading on what to do and what not to do before going for the second course of treatment. Here are some of the tips that that I did:

• Cut out virtually all refined sugar (no chocolates, desserts, biscuits etc) for 1 month before implantation
• Cut out caffeine (not a big problem for me as I like Red Bush tea)
• Ate more raw fruit and vegetables
• Reduced the amount of ready-meals and processed food

The no refined sugar rule was the most difficult one for me, as I love chocolate but I haven't had any since October!