Hi all

I had my follow up appointment recently after our failed ICSI in July. It was my choice to leave it a while as wanted to get my head together before i went. Anyway it was basically a waste of time as i thought. I was in there about 10 mins and he told me nothing i didnt already know.

My first 2 cycles have been private but my next one is NHS which means i will be with a completely different consultant in Liverpool. Anyway i asked my current consultant what would happen next time and would they do things differently (my private clinic uses Liverpool anyway as i do transport IVF which means i have to go to Liverpool for ET but my consultant is not based there) He said no in a word! Everything would stay the same, i cant have a higher dose of drugs as i had a high dose anyway, they dont do any other protocols, i asked about assisted hatching but he said there was nothing wrong with the zona or the embryologist would have mentioned it and the only thing i could do to help with implantation is take a low dose asprin if i wanted.

Is it just me or are they crap. This will be my 3rd cycle and they are not changing anything. What they are doing is obviously not working but they are not making any effort to do anything that will. Obviously i will speak to the consultant in Liverpool as he may think differently but i doubt it as the two clinics work very closely anyway.

With it being my one and only NHS cycle i guess i can only go with what they say but i really wanted to try assisted hatching this time (even if we paid the difference) to give us a chance.

Im just having a moan but surely you would think they would do something differently!

Hi Rach

I can understand your frustration - this was my 3rd fresh transfer cycle and my last NHS go ( got funding for a second one for some reason) so went in with fighting talk at my consultation wanting to know what we could do different this time.

We were going to try for blasts as you probably have read as this seems to give higher implantation rates, mainly because of the natural selection process but due to a lack of good quality eggs went for AH this morning instead.

Our embie's zona look fine too but they let us top up on the NHS cycle and give it a go because they don't believe it can hurt our chances and may possibly give the embies some help to implant. I couldn't handle just doing the same old cycle either as it just gets harder to bear if you don't have something new to give you hope that it can work.

My arguement was that I was tired of it all and it was probably going to be my last fresh attempt so really wanted to throw the kitchen sink at it. They seemed open to letting me try AH so maybe your new consultant might feel differently if you explain that you don't feel happy going through this again without something changing? You might be surprised.

Good luck hun. Just because its a 'free' go doesn't mean you shouldn't have some input in your own treatment.

Belle xx

Hi Rach,

I am sorry you felt frustrated after your follow up consultation - I think I would have felt the same.

I think Belle summed it all up really well, and I hope that the new consultant listens to you and your concerns and can be creative in making some changes to improve your chances.

Hopefully whatever happens cycle number 3 will be lucky number 3 for you Rach!

Cara x

Hi Rach

I agree with Belle.  Go in there and tell them, look this hasn't worked I think we should do this.  I'm willing to pay the difference if it doesn't work that is on me but this is what I want.  Tell them you don't want to feel like this might be a wasted chance.  The worst they can say is no and they might just say yes.

Good luck to you my love.

Sarah x