The appointment

I've just made it home after spending a good 90minutes with the fertility specialist at the hospital this morning. I feel...good.

We arrived 10 minutes before our appointment and this time for the go through the "assisted conception Unit' entrance rather than the usual gynaecology entrance. You can tell that they have fee paying patients at the clinic, as well as us funded patients. Instead of the NHS blue walls, floors and chairs with 3 year old magazines, broken water coolers and usually a very questionable smell, we had comfy, upholstered chairs, a waiting room with up to date copies of 'Vogue' and 'Elle', a free drinks machines and flowers, wallpaper etc...and one HUGE glass cabinet at one end of the waiting room, filled with pictures of babies and thank you cards people had sent in. (I did have to laugh at the number of twins...)

There was one other woman in the waiting room with us (who looked like she would rather be anywhere else in the world) and kept nipping to the toilet, she was then taken into a procedure room. Although I'm not sure what she was having done she looks very nervous. After around 30 mins the familiar face of our FS popped her head around the door and said "Stephanie, Martin, hello!" and although she sees hundreds of patients a week, and probably says the exact same thing to every couple, it makes you feel like you actually mean something to that doctor, rather than out old FS we never met.

So she explained we would be doing Stimulated IUI (SIUI), and every clinic uses different combinations of drugs, and at ours (Jessops Fertility, Sheffield) they use the exact same drugs as IVF, just in lower doses. She explains they did it this way as it if patients did have to have IVF in the future, they already had an idea how they would respond to the meds, and they had more success this way (makes sense).

The national average success rate for IUI is currentlt 14.5%, but thats for every couples in every different scenario, given our ages and healthy weights, life style etc...she thinks it will be around 20% for us, with success being more likely with concurrent IUIs (which I wasn't aware of) so we have more chance of being successful with our third than we do our first, which actually makes me feel better. Although I still doing believe we'll get a pregnancy out of this, my mind feels at ease.

I will begin [downregging] on CD2 with Suprecur (buserelin) if the scan shows my lining and everything seems to be doing great, I will take one Suprecur injection then go to have a blood test to see how I respond, from that they will know how much FSH I need to inject from CD3-10. CD10 I have another scan and bloods to check my ovaries and how they are responding, when I have one follie over 17mm I will be given my HCG trigger, and insemination will be 38hours after wards. If it looks like I am going to overstimulate, the cycle will be abandoned. They do, in some cases, perform egg reduction, where they use IVF techniques to remove excess eggs, only leaving the best ones in there, and then inseminate as usual.

We spent 45minutes going through paperwork, we had to sign to say we were fit parents, had no criminal records, no history of violence etc...then complete HFEA paperwork to say they could use our date for research, and that we agreed that our treatment could be used as examples on research papers, and they asked permission to be able to contact us, and any child born out or treatment, up until the childs 16th birthday. Obviously you can say no, but we ticked yes.

 We then got to the bloody annoying part. I have to be taught how to inject myself using the medications, and collect the medications, these 'consultations' only run on 3 days out of the month. The next 'nurse consultation' is on May 30th. My next AF is due May 29th. If AF does appear, and it is deemed CD1 on May 29th, I will not be able to start IUI this month. If AF is only spotting on 29th, and CD1 is 30th, we can do IUI this month. If AF is late, we can do IUI this month. If she shows up early or smack bang on time, it will be another 6 weeks before we can start. I think we should be OK to go this month in all honesty, but we'll see. Please keep your fingers crossed.

Now for the amazing news

Half way through the consultation, the FS starting flicking through paper work and looked puzzled, I then panicked and wondered what was going on. She then grabbed some documents, said "I just need to speak to our business manager, I'll be back" and left the room. 5 minutes later she returned with a smile on her face. Where we both live in a bit of a PCT nightmare, the village our GP is based in lies on three county boarders. We have a Sheffield address, Nottinghamshire telephone number and are classed as Rotherham Borough Council, so it often gets confusing, however our GP is classed as being in 'Rotherham' and not 'Sheffield'.  Anyway, apparently when we were first referred to the ACU at the hospital in Sheffield (are you following...) as there is no fertility centres anywhere else, we were wrongly assigned as Sheffield PCT. When the FS saw our address, she picked up on this and went to check if it was Sheffield PCT who were going to fund our fertility treatments, or was it Rotherham PCT as she suspected. This is then what we heard;

"Well, I have checked with our business manager who will be funding your treatment, and it is actully Rotherham PCT and not Sheffield PCT. Now this is very very good news for you, as their guidelines changed in April, and you are now entitled to two fully funded IVF cycles, where as Sheffield would only fund one. I'm so pleased for you!"

Two fully funded IVF cycles!!! Although for once we have benefitted from the post code lottery, it still disgusts me how unfair the process is. Luckily we are registered as the GP in my home village. Had we have registered with the GP in Martins home village, 3 miles down the road, we would be Sheffield PCT and lose a cycle of IVF. It's so so fucking ridiculous.

I'm not hopeful for IUI, the FS wasn't hopeful about IUI, she explained that its a process that patients go through and its a step we need to take to get to the 'hard treatment' and to see it as such. You would think that would be hard to hear, but it wasn't as such. I think the fact that she followed it up with the fact we are now able to have 2 IVFs has given me a whole new lease of hope. We were extremely grateful to be able to access one round of IVF, however it is often explained to me that IVF is where 'unexplained' becomes explained, and problems with eggs and sperm are recognised, but if you only have one shot, how do you fix it? Now with two, we have the chance to try and identify any problems, fix them, then try again.

Everything will change over the next 12 months, I just don't know which way yet.