# Couriers for frozen embryos ??? Please help



## Jessica1986 (Sep 23, 2013)

Hi all, nice to meet you, I'm Jess. I've posted a few times on here but not recently so I'm pretty much a newbie  

I need major help. In a nutshell I have 6 beautiful and precious blastocysts in Spain which it's looking very likely I will need to have moved over to England. Has anyone done this before Can anyone recommend a good company or let me know of any I should steer clear of?? Also, does anyone have any idea how much I can expect to pay for this service? 

In addition to this, what are the risks involved with transporting embryos? I know these couriers will do this all the time but I'm still terrified of disturbing my precious little embibabies  haha   Is there anything extra I should be thinking of to cover ourselves like insurance? 

One last thing, does anyone know if there is any evidence of reduced success rates, etc with embryos which have been moved? Or anecdotally can anyone tell me of any success/not success stories involving embryos that have been couriered? 

Thanks for reading, please help if you can as I have no clue what I'm doing with this  

Jess


----------



## MrsGorilla (Dec 12, 2013)

Hiya Jess 

We've done a similar thing - had to move DH's frozen swimmers over to our clinic in Zlin when our clinic here in the UK closed down. It was a bit of hard work, but definitely worth it to avoid DH having to have another PESA. I totally understand the feeling of wanting to rescue your embies.

I think the rules for shipping in/out of Czech are a bit stricter than other EU countries because Czech will only let you use shippers licensed in their country, so hopefully a Spanish move will be easier. 

Anyway, this is what we learned (shameless copy and past from an old post!)

_Hi all,

Not sure if anyone here is still interested in sperm-shipping, but thought I would post the info we found out in case it helps anyone. We just got our "yes" to move DH's sperm from our current clinic last Thursday, so the whole decision-making process did take some time.

You shouldn't have to find out all this information yourself - your new clinic should be able to provide your current clinic with the information quite easily. We found though that our current clinic did not really know what they were asking for from our new clinic, and even when we went directly to the HFEA for advice they were not clear either!

Anyway, moving on, this is what we learned:

Your current clinic will have to be satisfied that the clinic you want to move the sperm to meets the HFEA regulations - this means that they meet the European Union Tissue and Cells Directive. Take a look here at their requirements: 
http://www.hfea.gov.uk/8824.html 
also the General Directions - 0006 is the one to look at: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/188.html

Our current clinic had to have a 3rd party shipping agreement in place with the courier. We were recommended to use Kynisi Couriers, but unfortunately for us they don't ship to the Czech Republic - the institution (see below) in charge of all things to do with Human Cells in Czech Republic will only allow licensed couriers to bring cells into the country, and they only grant this license to Czech companies. After getting in touch with a number of clinics, we found that most work with either Reprotrans or CT Shipper. We are using Reprotrans because they are the shipper our new clinic already works with, and we paid around £700 for shipping. Links to their websites here:
http://www.reprotrans.com/en/ (Sister company of Reprofit)
http://ctshipper.eu/en/ (Sister company of Gennet)

Ultimately the decision on whether your current clinic will release the sperm will rest with the responsible person at your clinic. Put your new clinic and current clinic in touch with each other, and ask to be copied in to all email communication - if your current clinic is anything like ours, you may need to push them along a bit! Our new clinic needed to have mine and DH's signature notarised on a document to prove we do want the sperm moved to them, so that's something else to bear in mind - our solicitor charged £80
_

I hope some of that is useful for a Spain to UK transfer  DH was especially concerned about storage and transport and any effect this may have on the swimmers. We were assured that the special canisters the sperm (or embies!) are carried in never leave the courier's side, and they travel in the cabin of the plane, never in the hold. The courier also carries a special certificate exempting them from having to pass through xray machines. The sperm/embies are also safely stored in these canisters for up to 18 days. We didn't have to pay any extra insurance (believe the shipping company sort this out) but we did have to sign an agreement exempting them from any fault in case of accident on the way. Must say we were really pleased with our shipper - our clinic closed earlier than expected (without notice), but Reprotrans handled this without problem, moving the sperm from our clinic in Dorset to a clinic in London for storage over the weekend before moving to Zlin on the Monday as arranged - they didn't charge extra for this and actually refunded us some money because of the stress it would have caused us! Can't comment on success rates I'm afraid, hopefully someone else here will have done what you want to do and can answer that one 

Hope this helps a bit - good luck! 

Claire


----------



## Jessica1986 (Sep 23, 2013)

Thanks so much for that info that's really helpful. I've spoken to a courier who have quoted me around £1000 for transport via aeroplane and about £3000 (!?!?) by road. He did say that either was a sound way to transport them but that lorry was more secure because better able to regulate temperature and more personal couriering. I'd be interested if people think these are fair quotes and whether it's really worth the additional cost to transport by road? Obviously I want the best and safest transport and in the grand scheme of things it's still cheaper and less stressful to do this than lose this priceless cargo in some way but the price difference does seem very steep ...


----------



## MrsGorilla (Dec 12, 2013)

Wow, huge price difference!   I'd be tempted to think that suit travel is quicker and so your precious cargo would be back in "proper" storage sooner, so that would be better... It will be interesting to compare quotes and advice from a few different companies, see if any match up. 
Does your clinic in Spain already work with a courier?


----------



## MrsGorilla (Dec 12, 2013)

Air travel I meant, sorry, predictive swype text fail!


----------

