# Need help choosing a new DE clinic.



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

Hello all. After coming to the end of the shared risk program at Shady Grove (US) last year with no luck we are now looking for a new clinic, anywhere in the world, to try again. I find the success rates etc. so confusing and as we have been at the same place for so long, all the information we collected when we first started at Shady grove (in 2010) is out of date.

Any help in pointing us in the right direction re statistics for the various clinics, information about clinics in Europe etc. would be great. Thank you in advance. We are in the UK but don't mind travelling to anywhere.


----------



## Audley (Jun 15, 2012)

IVI in Spain has a very good reputation but you don't get any info on the donors. I did my IVF with my own eggs there and I thought they were very good. It did not work out for me because of the quality of my eggs. Otherwise you can try other clinics in the US because in Europe you do not get any info from the clinics. What was wrong with Shady Grove? The Lister recommends them. Many thanks.


----------



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

Thank you so much for your reply, I shall look into IVI Spain. I will post about Shady Grove in full later but suffice to say we had several cycles resulting in MC or BFN.


----------



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

I have been reading about IVI Spain. London is our nearest city for monitoring, does anyone know which UK hospitals/clinics/doctors monitor for the various clinics in the IVI Spain group? (I am presuming some monitoring - scans, tests - will happen in the UK and not all be taken in Spain.) 

Thank you so much.


----------



## Audley (Jun 15, 2012)

Sent you a message. I think Lister and IVI Madrid work together. Nevertheless you can use any gynaecologist in London to do the tests before. IVI can also give you recommendations.
Good luck!


----------



## LittleFriend (May 28, 2010)

Have you considered uk clinics? Part of the reason that clinic results are so different us that they do not all report success rates in the same way. In the uk the hfea regulates this so all clinics produce data in the same way, looking at confirmed pregnancy (presence if heartbeat) and live birth rate. I know when we were first looking some clinics abroad were reporting figures on a range if things from chemical pregnancy to live birth rate. So one clinic would post "we have a 65% success rate" which looked great, but they wouldn't say if this was live birth rate or not. In the uk it is much easier to compare clinics. 

Also, if you have had three donor cycles (I'm assuming you have if you did the shared risk programme) and I assume you've had OE ivf before moving on to donor eggs, have you considered having some immunity testing done to see why you've had a poor response to treatment? There is a whole board dedicated to it on here. 

Good luck with your treatment and sorry its been such a struggle to this point.


----------



## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

Have you considered Serum in Greece?
I've cycled in Spain before and getting a uk monitored cycle is easy they are some clinics that do packages for thisvie 92 harley street other girls used the birth company in Harley street as it was cheaper you can get ur scans and bloods and drugs prescribed- you don't need to be linked with a specific clinic. 
Good luck


----------



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

Thank you LittleFriend, I will look into immunity testing. We did have some with my own eggs way before we started DEIVF. We were put off by the waiting times for DE in the UK, though this may have changed since we last looked.

♥JJ1♥ - Funnily enough DH was looking at Serum last night   . Thank you for the information re UK clinics. 

Do the European clinics have rules regarding frequency of smear tests/mammograms? That is something at least I could be getting on with if they need recent tests - both of mine were over 12 months ago.


----------



## LittleFriend (May 28, 2010)

Never2Late- the regulations re egg donation have changed in the past year, so whilst waiting lists used to be long (I waited 10 months) many clinics have no waiting list at all. None of the Care clinics have any waiting list. I would recommend looking at the reason for your repeated bfn's. have you had a hysteroscopy either? It's probably best to look at why you keep having bfn's rather than jumping straight into another cycle.


----------



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

LittleFriend said:


> Never2Late- the regulations re egg donation have changed in the past year, so whilst waiting lists used to be long (I waited 10 months) many clinics have no waiting list at all. None of the Care clinics have any waiting list. I would recommend looking at the reason for your repeated bfn's. have you had a hysteroscopy either? It's probably best to look at why you keep having bfn's rather than jumping straight into another cycle.


Thanks, yep, this is what we are thinking now, see if there is an underlying cause (although our first two donors were very poor responders, so it is only the latest one that has produced two miscarriages that has made us think this way really.

I have had a HSG, is that the same thing as a hysteroscopy? (Or rather, does it do the same job?)


----------



## wehavethreecats (Feb 12, 2012)

hi never2late,
HSG is to see if your tubes are clear (done in 10mins with you wide awake), where as a hysteroscopy is to examine the lining of the womb (and done under general anesthetic, where they take a sample of the womb to examine under a microscope and make sure everything is okay). Sometimes hysteroscopies can be surgical as well, in as much as they may remove fibroids or other skin snags etc if they see any while they are looking about... that's my understanding anyway (I have had both since starting ttc).  

Hope you find somewhere good for your next cycle. I had treatment in the UK (wanted children to be able to find the donor in future). If you're not wanting that, then Penny/Serum gets the most positive reviews. They also take immunes very seriously which may give you more hope 

Just out of interest... did the shared-risk programme with Shady Grove actually end up with them returning the fees you had paid? DH and i looked at them briefly, but I was dubious about the money-back-guarantee type approach, and figured there would be small print where they exempt themselves from actually refunding if the cycles all ended up in BFN. 

x


----------



## DaisyMaisy (Jan 9, 2011)

Hi wehaverhreecats.

We also went to shadey grove on the shared risk programme. We paid for six cycles, but only got treated for one as it was discovered that I can't carry. We got the money back really easily. No problems at all.

Xxx


----------



## never2late (Dec 20, 2012)

wehavethreecats, have sent you a PM.


----------



## Brookie (Jul 6, 2011)

Nevertoolate, I did quite a bit of research into clinics in Europe and UK last year and choose Serum - it has unfailingly good reviews, no waiting list and I really liked Penny (the consultant) from our first phone consultation. She made sure to check everything was ok internally before starting a donor cycle and it turned out I also had issues which affected implantation - if it wasn't for Serum I'd possibly still be none the wiser.  Communication has been second to none and someone always replies the same day to any questions or issues.

Our donor is ready to start tomorrow so i guess we'll find out in a month what the outcome will be   

Have a look at the Serum thread on here and also at Agate's Serum notes which gives detailed info. It really helped us make our decision.

Good luck!
B x


----------



## Hopefulat35 (Jan 28, 2012)

Hi never2late

Just wanted to chip in and say I'm 20 weeks pregnant with identical twins thanks to penny at serum. We had three de attempts, 1 fresh, 1 frozen then success on the next fresh. I got a chemical on the frozen and think it would have stuck around if we'd tried progesterone injections on that cycle but penny will always look to individually adapt treatment and learn from a cycle if it does fail

Penny is very straight talking, almost to the point of being blunt but I found that helpful. The level of communication you receive is exemplary. Penny works 7 days a week and long hours and it is VERY rare that I've not received a reply to an email query the same day. She is very warm and friendly and it feels like she is very personally determined to get you as an individual pregnant. 

She also takes great care in matching donors. I met someone from ff in the clinic on my initial visit who by chance was there again when my donor came in for EC and she said she thought I had walked in! Now if anyone ever says the children look like me I can smile and say thank you! 

We chose serum because of how people talked about it on here and I wouldn't change a thing!

I'm happy to answer any questions 

Good luck!!!
Hopeful


----------



## NADIAJO (Jan 22, 2013)

We're using IVI Barcelona with Shirly Oaks Hospital in Croydon


----------



## Flowerpowerbaby (May 16, 2012)

Just want to throw in a word for the Spanish clinic I went to because they made my life really easy.
Nobody's herd about IREMA it was a friend that named the clinic and that she'd been there.
I got hang of the possibility to have a donor and that they gave out caracteristics on the donor, this was very important to me as I already wasn't that sure about all of this using donor etc....

Sometimes I said to my husband that they treat me like a child but at the end it was really nice having somebody holding my hand....I could even call and talk when there was something I didn't understand, this was a releave as everything in this fertility business is getting to anonymous....we're just numbers.

Fight for good treatment!!

And lots of good luck to everybody.....
it's luck we need in the end.


----------



## jess 0x0 (Jun 8, 2011)

Reprofit in Czech Republic are brilliant, and a lot cheaper than the Spanish clinics.
They also have a shared risk programme, sorry for the short post.

Lots of luck in your journey
Jess
xxx


----------



## deirdre11 (Sep 22, 2010)

Hi,

Have you read through here?

http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=256679.0

South Africa offers more flexibility in choosing donors, there's a South Africa thread for support as well

http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=272323.0

Anonymous but world class, and you get a relaxing holiday at the same time.

Good luck,

xx D


----------

