The new clinic

So, I was going to tell you about the information pack from XXXX clinic.

It talks about statistics - the average live birth rate for my age group (unfortunately, I now fall into the 40-42 age group, though I am at the lower end of it) is about 12% - XXXX clinic has a 24.7% live birth rate. Their rate for the 38-39 age group is 42.5%.

They say they pride themselves on assisting couples who have complex problems or have been unsuccessful elsewhere. Currently about 75% of their patients have had unsuccessful treatment at other clinics. They also claim not to select patients on the basis of age or clinical history.

I suppose that still leaves it open to them to reject patients on the basis of current FSH or AMH levels, and I have seen people comment on message boards that they haven't been allowed to start a treatment cycle because their FSH level was too high.

The cost of the actual ICSI procedure is cheaper than at our old clinic, but with more extras - during the treatment cycle there are daily blood tests which are billed separately, and there will almost certainly be more drugs. Looking at it now, I'm thinking the total cost will end up being much the same as our last two cycles, but I'm prepared for the strong possibility that it will go over that.

Before making an appointment, you have to fill in a very detailed form with full medical history of both partners. We didn't have to do this when we booked into the other clinic, and it does give me confidence that they'll be looking at our particular history and test results and tailoring the treatment to us.

So the next thing we need to do is get a copy of our file from the old clinic and fill in all the paperwork to send off to XXXX clinic for an appointment. The wait for an appointment is likely to be around eight weeks after that, and then they do a monitoring cycle before going for the actual treatment. The next time I'm going to be able to fit a treatment in with work is late May/June, which should fit in reasonably well if I start the ball rolling now.

I wouldn't say I'm excited about it, but I do feel more optimism than I did before IVF #2, when it felt as though we and the clinic were just going through the motions for the sake of being able to say we'd done all we could. This time, the treatment will be very different, a lot more tailored to my specific circumstances, but also a lot more onerous.

If he'll just give me the chance to get started, I can see this having a chance of working...