Hi Lullaby,

I went through Westmead Fertility Clinic and started with oi-iui then progressed onto ivf.

Basically, on Day 1 of AF you ring the clinic and they make an appt for you on about Day 4 of your cycle. You meet with one of the nurses and they'll talk you through the process of oi-iui, they'll show you how to inject yourself (or give you an option of coming in each day if you can't inject youself but majority of people do it themselves) and will give you a "timetable" sheet showing when you come back to the clinic for your 1st blood test. They'll monitor your hormones through blood tests until they think you'll have a follicle or two reaching maturation. Then you'll be booked in for an internal ultrasound and they'll check the no. of follicles. Any more than 2 and your cycle will be cancelled. If you've got 1-2 and they're a good size, the nurse will trigger you on the day of u/s (they'll do the injection)and tell you to come back 2 days later for insemination. The trigger forces your body to release the egg/s and this whole process will occur before your body naturally ovulates.

I completed 3 oi-iui cycles and started day 4, insemination was usually over and done with by about day 11-12. In saying that, everybody is different and if your cycles are normally short your body may respond differently too. It's a really busy clinic and the nurses will have had experience with people with lots of different cycles.

The nurses are great at the clinic. They work 7 days a week but Sunday is a lighter staff. When you ring into the clinic you won't speak directly to a nurse, the recpetionist takes your details and the nurses give you a call back in the afternoon, normally after 3-ish. If you call on the w/ends there is an answering machine but again the nurses will call back later. I sent an email once and it was just like logging a call to the nurses, they gave me a call back later that afternoon. I don't think they send written replies via email.

Cost wise, you can't beat WFC. The price you pay at the start includes everything no matter how many BT or U/S for a cycle. I'm not sure what happens with your money if they cancel your cycle because of too many follicles, ask at your appt with the nurse. I was lucky enough not to have a cancelled cycle. The nurses start the gonal-f dose low and will only increase it if you're body isn't responding, that way they have control over not producing too many follicles, avoiding having to cancel your cycle. By starting treatment early in the year (we did too, we started last Feb) it only takes a couple of attempts and you'll reach your Medicare Safety net which was about $1100. After you've reached the Safety net, medicare refunds 80% and each cycle won't cost you much at all.

We moved onto ivf in Sept last year and while we paid $1450 to WFC, medicare refunded and we ended up out of pocket about $300.

I understand not telling family and friends. Our family and close friends knew we were going through fertility treatment but I found the cycles where they knew nothing about where we were up to with it all much less stressful. There's hope and expectation with each cycle from yourselves and it's hard having their well-meaning 'pressure' of questions on how it's all going. Our family pretty much got the idea if we didn't bring the topic up, then it was off limits. It's a very personal issue.

Wishing you and your DH all the best of luck. Hope the info has helped.

Kaydee