Waiting list vs life

[prettyb]

Hey everyone. My husband and I are currently on the Scotland NHS waiting list for ICSI (we both have issues in terms of fertility). We've been told that we should be at the top of the ICSI waiting list in the first quarter of 2019, basically meaning anytime from Jan-Mar.

I have an opportunity at work to go to one of our offices abroad to work for 4-6 weeks from 2nd Jan. I would love to do this, but can't really find any info anywhere on what to do/what happens in terms of waiting list if you cant make the appointments when you get to the top. I don't want to put my entire life on hold, because if I don't get to the top until March, I'll be kicking myself for missing out on a cool work placement.

I have already put off a lot of things in the last 3 months because of appointments that were subsequently cancelled. It's happened 4 times, and they were always cancelled the day before the appointment. I don't want to keep building up my hopes that things will start moving, then to be gutted that they don't and have missed out again.

Anyone got any info/experience they can share with me?

Thanks

[Cinderella5]

Where are you in Scotland? The hospital should be able to give advice on what would happen if you were to go away to work.....whether you just tell them how long to put it on hold for or if you would go back to the end of the list, I would give them a call. The thing I would say is that once you get on the journey of doing treatment its relentless and it is really hard going so if you have the opportunity to go abroad and work I would grab it with both hands to do this before the opportunity slips away. However that is easy for me to say, I struggled with the wait to start and I have no patience but looking back if i'd started a month or two later it wouldnt have made much difference! Ring the hospital and pose the question and they may even be able to realistically tell you if its likely to be Jan or later! Good luck!xx

[prettyb in reply to Cinderella5]

Hey, thanks for you reply. I've been reluctant to phone cause I feel like I'm always phoning them (since we've had all these cancelled appointments), and worried I'd be flagged as a hassle or something (it's the GRI we were referred to). I think I'll need to bite the bullet and do it though. I've also got a ski holiday booked at the end of March, and booked it before I found out whether we would even be allowed on the waiting list.

It's all very stressful. I'm a fairly meticulous planner, and 3m is a long time to leave as a gap and not know what's going on.

[Cinderella5 in reply to prettyb]

Im completely with you on that.....Im a massive planner too and unfortunately you'll find this process is hugely out of our control, not gonna lie, that's one of the hardest things! However once you start you find that planning anything is impossible so if you have those things you want to do then go for it!! The units do understand that its a stressful time for us waiting to start and I had to contact my hospital (Dundee) to find out what the likelyhood of start date would be too, at least it will give you an idea what to expect and Im sure they wont think you're a pest. Perhaps some of the girls also attending GRI can tell you how they work too.xx