NHS wait time question

[Here4ivfinfo]

I understand that no one can answer this question totally accurately but I wondered what people’s wait times between cycles has generally been on the nhs for first-second transfer? Our wait time from first hospital consult to embryo transfer was initially 8 months. Our next cycle doesn’t involve an egg collection, it’ll be a frozen transfer but I have been told it’s a 2-3 month wait before we speak to anyone about next steps. I was wondering if second cycles come around faster or whether I should expect an 8 month type of wait again? I wish I knew what to expect so I could mentally prepare. Thanks xx

[AshleyJB]

Hi. We had our first round of IVF in February this year and we initially waited about 3 months from referral but we were already under a Fertility clinic as we'd tried clomid and other treatments before IVF.

Unfortunately the first round didn't result in a pregnancy but the day we found out the news that our last embryo from the first round didn't take I was told to stop the luteal support hormones, have one cycle off and we started the stim injections for the second round of IVF a cycle/month later.

So in my experience with NHS IVF you don't have to wait each time to do a cycle, once you're at the top of the NHS wait list you can keep going until your NHS funding runs out.

We are incredibly lucky as we have 3 rounds funded by the NHS where we live.

Lots of luck to you. Xxx

[AshleyJB in reply to AshleyJB]

Also the wait between embryo transfers for us was the same, one cycle off inbetween transfers xx

[Here4ivfinfo in reply to AshleyJB]

This sounds quite ideal! My clinic have told me it’s a 2-3 month wait to even have a conversation about next steps and said that you get added to the wait list again. So I am thinking we do this one more time via the nhs and if the wait is very long then consider going private for the next transfer. Whilst I am not super duper old I did start trying to conceive 3 years ago and don’t want to leave years of time between egg collections.

[AshleyJB in reply to Here4ivfinfo]

Wow. I didn't realise everybody's wait time between transfers varied so much on the NHS. You would've thought everybody would be the same. xx

[Anxiousintrovert]

for me there was a 4 month wait between the first two transfers, hopefully you won’t have to wait too long x

[Here4ivfinfo in reply to Anxiousintrovert]

4 months I think I could just about handle. Although tomorrow would be better 😂

[40plusTTC]

The 2 nhs cycles we had were last year and 6 months apart. I personally wish my partner and I had gone straight to private for many reasons not just because of the delays and the nhs 'maximum' stims being half what I've been having private. I'm hoping you have a much better experience than we had, and wish you all the best x

[Here4ivfinfo in reply to 40plusTTC]

Thanks for this. We have discussed it and decided that we will see what happens this time and if it’s a very long wait we will move to private if we need a third transfer. Luckily I don’t need much stimulation at all but at the same time I am not getting any younger and I heard you cannot do another egg collection privately as it impacts your funding. I wouldn’t want to get through my embryos and then have to do another collection in 3 years time when I could technically do one soon.

[CornflowerMoon]

I only had 1 embryo from my first cycle. I had a review 7 weeks after that failed to implant, and my next treatment cycle started 4.5 months later. It would have been 3.5 months but that would have meant that my egg collection date would like have been Christmas Day so they had to delay it a month. I had 2 embryos from my second cycle. First one failed to implant middle of February and I had my next embryo transfer in middle of May. This would also have been a month earlier but that would have clashed with a trip to visit family. So 3 transfers within about 8 months of each other across 2 cycles. This was also NHS treatment.

[Novbby]

I was told to wait for two period cycles then started after the second on the tablets. However, I needed another egg collection so may be different.

[Hopewhite]

hi i hope you're well and keeping strong xx

in my experience with NHS, we were offered a review appointment at end of June, the actual appointment to speak to a consultant didn't happen until September 5th. I was told they missed me from the list and i should have been contacted for a review appointment earlier and booked for August. My advice is chase them if you don't hear from them. As for the next FET we are hoping we can do this in October, given we had a MMC they asked me to have 2 periods to allow my body to heal. They did mention I'd be put into the waiting list but they called me straight away to have the consents/process explained and even faster to request payment 😂(now on self funded round). I cannot tell you for sure , but it feels like once you have the review appointment and do consent call , things might move a bit quicker, fingers crossed!

Wishing you all the best of luck!!

[Here4ivfinfo in reply to Hopewhite]

Sorry to hear about your miscarriage and them forgetting to book your appointment in. I am definitely going to check that they have put me on the list! Thanks for the advice x

[mumma_in_the_making]

We had our egg collection on 2nd August and fresh transfer on 7th August, which sadly failed. We had a consultation with our consultant about it on 7th Sept and was told I needed to have one more natural period (just finished now) and then we can start FET prep from my next period due 9th Oct.

The problem is all NHS clinics seem to work differently so not sure how much help this will be. If you do have to wait a bit longer I'd just suggest using the time wisely to let your body recover from the egg collection and medication.

Good luck! x

[Here4ivfinfo in reply to mumma_in_the_making]

I have had a telephone appointment come through for October 17th. I’m hopeful this means the wait won’t be too long 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻