Travelling abroad for IVF is a big decision. But sometimes it’s the right decision.
As I have mentioned before one of the biggest mistakes we can make on the IVF journey is to choose a clinic that’s local to us.
Of course 60% of the time a local clinic will have the skills to help you. When patients as me which is the best clinic to go to in my local town I always say to them, which do you prefer, Cole or Pepsi. BMW or Audi. Most clinics are very similar in nature, similar type of doctors, medical teams, medical equipment. And I joke, sometimes, well alot actually. Alot of IVF businesses are like Courier Companies. They collect. They Fertile. And they Transfer. The true magic happens inside you and not in a petri dish.
So what reasons would cause you to take that massive leap and not go to a local clinic.
Well there are three main reasons :
Specialised skills e.g immunology therapy
Specialised doctors, e.g recurrent miscarriage
Cost.
There is a good chance that your local clinic is good at the general easy fertility issues. The easy fixes. And for that they are perfect.
But there can come a time when your local clinic will give you a diagnosis of unexplained infertility. If that happens that’s an opening red flag.
IMHO there is no such thing as unexplained infertility, just poor diagnosis. – yes I will day it again. Poor Diagnosis.
The second red flag for me is if you get told by the IVF clinic, we don’t believe in that. We don’t believe in AMH test, we don’t believe in immunology, we don’t believe in acupuncture, we don’t believe in stress. Belief systems are for religion and not medicine. If you clinic is doing the ‘I don’t believe’ – you might have to consider moving on.
And then of course there is cost. IVF is massively expensive. And believe’ it or believe it not, there can be massive differences in prices between clinics.
Don’t just look at it as the cost of one IVF, you need to cost it as three. Hopefully you won’t need that but it’s the average.
There are clinics in Ireland that can go to 7-8k a cycle. And for the exact same treatment in an international clinic is 3k. Now multiple by 3…
That’s 24k versus 9k. That’s a massive massive difference.
Travelling internationally is not for everyone. 60% of the time you local clinic will be perfect for you.
But if it’s not perfect. Don’t be afraid to look elsewhere.
Have a great day. Gordon