Cheap pair of shoes is bad economy. Shoes are the basis of your wardrobe — Giorgio Armani
Might seem like an odd way to start a post about IVF but this week this was the lesson I learned. We got to London, parked up and the IVF clinic is around half an hour’s walk from the car parking. Yes, the tube would be easier but I’m struggling with a bit of anxiety around lateness for appointments so not having to rely on public transport helps. Anyway, in the rush in the morning I didn’t realise that I had on my £5 pumps and the have next-to-non-existent soles. The soles of my feet were on fire before we had even walked 15 minutes, and yet we weren’t just going to the IVF clinic.
The day went something like this:
9.50: Depart for London -I’m driving husband has work to do.
11.50: Stop at motorway services -Husband’s laptop was dying but needed to send something over to a client so plugged in at Costa.
1.50: Arrive at parking and walk to clinic -Struggle to get parked cause spaces are for micro-cars.
2.20: Arrive at IVF clinic -Pay for karyotyping tests.
2.40: Arrive at Harley Street -Karotyping blood test. Husband freaked out a little over the needle.
2.55: Arrive at sperm test clinic -Sperm DNA fragmentation test. He found out you can have sex with partner with condom and use this as sample. Never heard this before.
3.30: Leave and head back to car parking
4.00: Hit the road for 4-hour journey to home -We should make a playlist for these memories we are making
8.30: Arrive home tired but pleased -The £5 shoes are going in the bin.
It was a long day but we both knew this when we decided to proceed with the clinic in London. After all, we’ve been doing this for 3 years, have done 3 treatments, countless needles, gross bum pellets, lots of tears, up/down moments and those 3 dreaded phone calls to be told “I’m sorry to tell you your blood beta came back negative.” So, the 4 hour travelling time was a consideration but not a mountain to climb.
The Tests
So, about the tests themselves, they aren’t the only tests we will have but the only tests we had to do on this particular day.
Husband had a sperm DNA fragmentation test. I checked on the testing lab’s website and it will be sent to the US for a SCSA test. So, husband had to leave a sample of at least 1 million and the website states if it is less than that you will be asked to return multiple times. Ideally, the sample will contain 12 million so says the paperwork at clinic. Fortunately, husband has good numbers of over 50 million. The other part is that we could have done it in the room he did it but outside the room there were lots of people walking up and down corridor. Going back to the test, it is an SCSA (Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay) test to see how many of the sperm have damaged DNA and the extent of that damage.
We both had a karyotyping test which involves taking a vial of blood. Again, this is sent to the US, Chicago I think. Cells are taken from the blood sample and encouraged to grow in a special container. The size and shape of the cells are evaluated, and they count the number of chromosomes. They are looking for imbalances in the chromosomes. This is useful if there has been repeated IVF failures or miscarriage as it can answer some questions.
It should take 2–3 weeks for the sperm results to come back and around 4 weeks for the karotyping results to come back. Fingers crossed all these tests come back okay and we can proceed to IVF -/+ICSI. If not, we can make a plan from there.
I did say on the other blog that I want to be open about costs but please don’t let it put you off IVF if you are new to it and considering it. I just couldn’t find any posts with costs in them and I wanted to know so remember there are clinics with less costs.
Costs
£350 per partner for karotype test
£453 for DNA fragmentation test
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Running cost so far: £1,453
