Surrogacy, UK

UK – Surrogacy and me: Hey doctor, please don’t frighten our ‘angel’

Source The Times

An email! From the fertility doctor!
Subject: “Potential Surrogate.”

Potential? Still? There are several P words that I would like in this scenario; “progress”, “positive”. “proceed”, “pregnant”. Potential is not one of them.
Message: “Pelvic sonogram showed left ovarian cyst. In 4-5 weeks she should repeat another sonogram and the cyst needs to be gone or significantly decreased before we can give her clearance to proceed as a surrogate. Thank you.”

Read more

Surrogacy, UK

UK – Giving birth to another child could have left her in a wheelchair – so woman’s friend had her baby

Source Metro

A mum has revealed how she let another woman give birth to her second child because another pregnancy could have left her in a wheelchair.

Kelly Bullock, 33, from Warrington, Cheshire, and her husband Paul, 34, welcomed Riley to their family six months ago.

Back in 2013, Kelly gave birth to Brody, now five, but she developed a condition called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) during pregnancy.

Despite operations to help her walk again, doctors said that another pregnancy would cause further damage to her pelvis.

Read more

Employee Benefits, Law, UK

UK – What it is like coping with IVF at work – and how employment law is failing women trying to conceive

Source Metro

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I’m sitting in a meeting with a colleague.

He’s telling me about the complex technology used by one of our new clients. Something about data stacks.

I’m nodding along but there are tears running down my cheeks, dropping silently on to my notebook.

‘I’m fine honestly,’ I say when he looks at me startled, thinking he has bored me to tears. ‘Please keep going.’

I’d got my period that morning. And that time, I’d fallen hook, line, and sinker for the dream. At a week late, I had thought I was finally pregnant. I’d even noticed some of the early symptoms everyone talks about.

Read more

IVF, UK

UK – When you’re desperate to conceive, you’ll pay anything, and IVF clinics are cashing in

Source The Times

Nearly 2½ years after my husband and I began trying for a baby, our luck came in. The faintest of blue lines appeared on those deeply unscientific-looking pee-test sticks at 5.30am one summer’s morn last year. We had finally managed to get pregnant. I write “finally” with the bleak awareness that this moment takes a great deal longer for some people and never happens at all for others. But for us it had felt like an eternity.

At first I refused to believe it — not because we had been trying for years but because I never thought IVF would work. And definitely not the first time. But it did.

Read more

Surrogate Mother, UK

UK – Surrogate mothers could be allowed to charge cash

Source The Times

Legal reformers are looking at whether to change the law so that surrogates can profit from having babies for others.

The Law Commission is consulting on the subject and is to publish proposals in the new year. Sir Nicholas Green, chairman of the independent body, said that the existing laws, which were drawn up more than 30 years ago, were not fit for purpose.

Surrogacy, he said, had increased ten fold in ten years. The main problem was that the law was “quite cumbersome” and often required people to go abroad.

Read more

Brexit, UK, Sperm Donor

UK – A Shortage of Sperm Donors: The Brexit Dilemma We Didn’t See Coming

Source Huffington Post UK

Every year, around 2,500 men and women in the UK have a baby with the help of a sperm donor. For many, using donated sperm is their one chance to fulfil the dream of having a family. But while the number of women using donated sperm is rising every year, the number of willing British donors remains low. 

This is why the UK relies heavily on foreign sperm – recent figures show 3,000 sperm samples from Denmark alone were imported to the UK in 2017. But like all imports, these could be affected by Brexit next March if these thousands of samples are held at the border, unaccounted for by trade agreements. 

Is this the hard Brexit dilemma we didn’t see coming? And if British men don’t step up and donate, will we see a drop in the number of babies born in the UK by sperm donor? 

Read more

IVF, UK

UK – Couple who spent £20,000 on IVF treatment before shelling out another £7,000 on ‘add-ons to boost their chances of a baby’ become first in the UK to sue over the ‘worthless and unproven’ extras

Source Daily Mail

Legal secretary Tracy Wint underwent two years of unsuccessful IVF treatment, spending more than £20,000 in her desperation to have a second child with her husband Mark.

During that time she claims Oxford Fertility convinced her and her husband to fork out an extra £7,000 for add-ons doctors said would boost their chances of having a baby. However, the pair now believe they were ‘worthless’.

Couples are often persuaded by private doctors to buy expensive top-up procedures such as ‘glue’ to stick embryos to the womb, or genetic tests to screen for abnormalities.

But a report last year by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said many such treatments have no scientific basis, are dangerous, and could even harm a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant.

Mrs Wint, 41, said: ‘We feel like we’ve paid out thousands for add-ons that are not proven to work and carry health risks. We were desperate. If they had said they could sprinkle fairy dust and it will make you pregnant we would have bought it.’

Read more

Surrogacy, UK

UK – Surrogacy and me: Progress! The gods must be smiling

Source The Times

We’ve spent an inappropriately annoying amount of time trying and failing to understand how insurance works in America. Annual deductibles? Anyone? It’s the amount you pay each plan year before the . . . Anyone? Anyone? Before the insurance company starts paying its share of the costs. Anyone? Nope, us neither.

We reach out to our agency to help to decipher the US code, but the responses are almost as confusing.

One thing they are keen for us to understand in detail, though, is WhatsApp.

“Oh, it’s this cool thing where you can talk to each other across the Pond, but using wifi so you don’t have to pay!”

Read more

IVF, UK

UK – Our Parliament needs to act and protect women undergoing IVF 

Source Telegraph

From the Women’s March to #MeToo, women all over the world are lifting their voices to demand that their bodies are respected.

So, the fact that there is still at least one fundamental area in which UK law does not properly protect women is a shocking revelation.

In the UK today 68,000 cycles of IVF are carried out every year. Since the first IVF baby was born 40 years ago, the field of reproductive medicine has exploded, and more than 300,000 babies have now been born in the UK thanks to fertility treatment.

It has transformed lives: for heterosexual couples, same-sex couples and single women who wish to have a family.

Read more

IVF, UK

Women in the UK are being refused IVF when they hit 34

Source Quartz

Women who need IVF in order to conceive a child are being denied it from as young as 34 in some areas of the UK because of their age, even though government guidelines stipulate that it be available free up until the age of 42.

In the UK, fertility treatments including IVF have been available since 2004 through the National Health Service (NHS), a tax-funded institution which ensures critical UK healthcare is free at the point of delivery. But the NHS is massively under-funded, meaning local authorities have had to decide which non life-saving treatments to cut.

Guidelines say that women under the age of 40 should be offered three complete cycles of IVF for free, with one cycle offered for women from 40 to 42. But some local authorities have stopped offering IVF completely and others have begun instituting an age cut-off for women. The practice, revealed by a BBC investigation, surprised many would-be mothers who didn’t realize there was any such rule until they went for treatment. Since the decisions vary geographically, they arbitrarily tie women’s fertility to where they live.

Read more

The Stork Home Conception Device, UK

UK – The £100 fertility kit that spared a couple the misery of IVF: Woman with blocked fallopian tubes conceives naturally after three years of trying

Source Daily Mail

A couple who’d given up hope of ever conceiving naturally have spoken of their joy after a £100 fertility kit gave them the ‘miracle’ baby they’d been longing for.

Sarah Capps, 33, and her husband Rob, 36, from Bishop’s Itchington, Warwickshire, had spent almost three years trying, with no success.

The couple were told their best hope of having a child was through IVF after tests eventually revealed Mrs Capps had a blocked fallopian tube. 

While they were eligible for treatment on the NHS, Mrs Capps was concerned about the invasiveness of the treatment and the side-effects of fertility drugs, which can include hot flushes, nausea and weight gain.

But in the end, there was no need for IVF.

Read more

IVF, UK

UK – Woman who suffered SIX miscarriages and had more than 600 IVF injections weeps with joy as she holds her baby for the first time, after her best friend stepped in to serve as a surrogate

Source Daily Mail

Erin Boelhower, 33, from Woodstock, Illinois, endured nine IVF transfers and more than 600 injections over the course of three years trying to get pregnant with husband Matthew, 33. 

Erin and Matthew were left devastated after suffering a string of miscarriages, but never lost hope that they would one day become parents.

Their dream finally became a reality when Erin’s best friend Rachel Checolinski, 34, gave them the gift of a lifetime and offered to be their surrogate.

In January, two of Erin’s embryos were transferred to Rachel’s uterus. That same month, a test revealed she was pregnant.

The pals spent the next nine months side by side and Erin was at the hospital with Rachel, herself a mother of three, when she went into labor with baby Scottie on September 19.

Read more

Egg Freezing, UK

UK – EXCLUSIVE: Are women being sold an expensive fertility lie? One round of egg freezing is NOT enough for even the most fertile to have a 60% chance of getting pregnant

Source Daily Mail

More and more women are putting their eggs on ice – for which a single extraction costs between $9,000 and $12,000, plus $500 per year for storage.
However, since the process is relatively new, there has been little concrete evidence to show what the chances are of making a return on that investment.

New data on 800 women, being presented at a conference this week, suggest that, even for the most fertile group under 34 years old, achieving the modest goal of a 60 percent success rate is not likely with one round alone.  

Read more

Gender Selection, UK

UK couples going to the north to select gender of their babies

Source Cyprus Mail

British couples wanting to evade UK law to select the gender of their child are opting to carry out the procedure in the north where ‘everything is legal’, the Daily Mail has reported.

An investigation by the newspaper on Sunday said that couples are legally arranging preliminary tests and scans in private UK clinics before being sent to centres abroad for the final procedure of gender selection.

One such fertility centre is the Crown IVF Centre in Famagusta, founded and run by Halil Ibrahim Tekin, a consultant gynaecologist and specialist in reproductive medicine and surgery.

Read more

Crowdfunding Appeal , Surrogacy, UK

‘We’re appealing for help to pay for a surrogacy and make our dream of becoming parents come true’

Source Manchester Evening News

A couple have launched an online crowdfunding appeal to pay for a surrogate to make their dream of becoming parents come true.

Jamie Potts and her partner Mike, who live in Eccles, Salford, long for a child of their own and have been trying to start a family for years.

But complications with Jamie’s health mean she is unable to carry a baby herself. Now, she has taken to the gofundme fundraising platform to appeal for donations from the public.

The 36-year-old has been through two rounds of IVF, and both her and Mike, 26, have endured heartache after heartache after each attempt failed.

Read more

Early Menopause, UK

UK – Woman who went through menopause aged 11 defies doctors by giving birth

Source Coventry Telegraph

A pole dancing instructor from Nuneaton who was told she would never become a mum after going through the menopause aged just 11 has defied doctors by having her own little miracle.

Tiny Oryn is now five weeks old – and the perfect baby according to mum Amanda Lewis.

Amanda, 31, was only 11 when her periods stopped and she was later diagnosed with premature ovarian failure – better known as early menopause.

But despite being told she would never have her own child, her and her partner Tom Hill, 28, managed to conceive on their first go at IVF using a donor egg.

Read more

IVF Treatment, UK

UK – Thousands of couples could be spared gruelling IVF with new 5p-sized device that spots infertility before any unnecessary treatment

Source Daily Mail

Doctors and engineers at the University of Southampton have created a sensor the size of a 5p piece that could diagnose the cause of unexplained infertility.

Infertility is a huge problem in Britain, with one in six couples struggling to conceive. 

Yet in a third of infertility cases doctors can find no cause.

So thousands of couples turn to expensive and difficult IVF in a bid to start a family. 

Of the 68,000 cycles of IVF conducted in the UK every year, 32 per cent, more than 22,000, have no diagnosis of the cause of the infertility. 

But the Southampton team believe their new device, which is to undergo its first major NHS-backed trial next year, could plug this gap and bring down the number of couples undergoing unnecessary IVF.

Read more

Genetic Testing, UK

UK – What You Might Learn

Source Genome Web

The UK’s Human Fertility and Embryology Authority has called on consumer genetic testing companies to better warn their customers that testing could reveal family secrets and point them to where they can get counseling, the Guardian reports.

Read more

IVF, UK

UK – IVF mothers and babies’ ‘urgent need’ for health-check database

Source The Telegraph

Babies born through IVF and their mothers may be suffering a raft of health problems but nobody is aware because they are not being monitored, a leading fertility doctor and MP have warned.

Professor Geeta Nargund, the founder and medical director of Create Fertility and MP Siobhain McDonagh, are calling for the Human Fertility and Embryology Act to be amended to merge NHS and fertility databases.

Read more

Fertility Benefits, IVF, UK

UK – Saatchi and Saatchi Wellness London launch IVF campaign

Source PMLive

Specialist health and wellness advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi Wellness London has partnered up with Fertility Network to launch a new IVF campaign.

The new campaign targets fair access to IVF treatments in the UK, where 3.5 million people are affected by fertility issues, but cannot get access to treatment under the National Health Service.

Titled #Scream4IVF, the campaign features screaming faces of patients who have been affected by infertility.

Additionally, the advertising agency is calling out to the public, influencers and celebrities to take part by donating their scream on social media, which will result in the world’s longest scream of IVF.
It will then be played at a rally outside Parliament on 10 October this year.

Read more