Month: March 2018

Safe in their new home

Posted on by Egg Girl

I am pleased to say that on Thursday 22 March 2018 my 15 eggs finally made it from ‘old clinic’ to ‘new clinic’.  It took over two months to transport not more than 20 miles and has been literally hundreds of emails between all three parties but I am pleased that they are now safe at my new clinic united with the eggs I managed to collect there.  The image above doesn’t start to show the pain I went through to get them there!

The initial transportation company is still ignoring my emails.  After sending them my letter stern letter that I mentioned in the post ‘From A to B‘ I did receive a response saying that they would be happy to try and transport my eggs again now!  I replied that as I hadn’t any response from him despite my numerous emails and because he wasn’t able to meet all the safety standards I had had no choice but to find another transportation company and that he needed to provide me with a refund.  To this email and a further follow up email absolutely no reply!

My ‘old clinic’ even emailed him outlining all the different standards that he breached and that if he didn’t give me a refund in 14 days they would report him to HEFA (the governing body).  To this again NO REPLY.

It is now over 14 days so I have asked ‘new clinic’ to please report this incident to HEFA and I also intend to get a solicitor to send him a letter about the refund.  Again it isn’t about the money here as it is just £150, it is about the fact that these people think they can get away with treating people this way.  I will keep you posted on the outcome!

From A to B

Posted on by Egg Girl

Following on from the post titled ‘Moving my most prized possessions‘ I thought I’d give a bit of an update because the transportation from A to B was not easy even after discovering about the wrongly charged HEFA fees from my initial clinic!

The transportation company I choose were familiar with my old clinic and had warned me that they likely wouldn’t want to use a third party transport company as they had theirs own one and had been known to charge higher fees as the embryologist at “old clinic” was taking back handers /a kick back. I told the transport company to leave this with me and I would sort it.

Eventually all parties agreed to work together and after much backwards and forwards to sign certain third party agreements and a date that worked for all three, my eggs were to be moved on 1 March.

The afternoon of 1 March I received an email from “old clinic” stating that they would not release my eggs to the transportation company as he was rude and his machinery didn’t meet many of the required safetly standards required to transport frozen material!  They said they had cancelled the third party agreement and would not work with this company!

I emailed the transportation company to ask what happened and to tell them they either a) needed to work out their differences and transport my eggs in the next seven days or b) provide me with a refund.

I received a reply from the transportation company stating that “old clinic” were making a fool of themselves and that nothing was wrong!  I asked again for them to urgently work out their differences or to refund my money…… no response despite several follow up emails!

”old clinic” said they were happy to work with any other transport company but not this one! “New clinic” said that all parties were making a fool of themselves and being very unprofessional! However this left me in a predicament of having to figure out what to do!

My priority was the safe transportation of my eggs from A to B and so with that in mind I asked “old clinic” to transport my eggs ASAP if they could price match what I’d paid the previous transportation company, and that I would then work to try and get a refund from the old transportation company!

After again much backwards and forwards between old and new clinics almost not agreeing to work together I had to step in and ask them to please make this possible without causing me any further stress.

I think finally things have been agreed and my 15 frozen eggs are due to be transported from “old clinic” to “new clinic” in the next few day.

What a drama, you honestly couldn’t make some of this stuff up. This is clearly a business to all parties involved and there seems to be a serious lack of care or consideration for a paying client who has already had her fill of drama on this journey. It’s pretty much all that I have in me to stay composed and polite throughout this whole process!

I hope by early next week my 19 eggs will all be together in their new home at “new clinic” and I will have started the process to get my money refunded from the old transportation company. It’s only £150 that they now need to refund me, but it’s not the money, it’s the principle of the matter that is fueling me to make sure I get my refund, so I have written a stern letter which I shall send tomorrow to the old transportation company giving them 7 days to refund my money or I will seek legal action!  Let’s see what happens…. this journey really has taught me to expect the unexpected, for the unexpected has become the expected!

Go or no go for number 20?

Posted on by Egg Girl

Round 24

This round was almost a non starter and to be honest I was probably being a little ambitious to even try and make it work.

I was traveling for much of February and March for work but I was desperate to hit my magic 20, so I decided to give it one more go. I was due to get my period while I was on a 10 day business trip so I went to see my uae doctor a few days before I travelled (and a few days before my period started) and had a scan. Things looked good and so he prescribed me 225 of menopur for eight days while I was away.

I went on my trip and got my period as planned part way through my trip.  On day 1 of my period I started the stimulation as advised by the doctor 225 menopur. Traveling with needles and stimulation drugs is never easy as many of them have to refrigerated at all times, plus if I am on a long haul flight I need to take the needles and drugs onto the flight and administer them mid flight.  Airport security hasn’t been an issue in the past as I’ve had a letter from my doctor explaining why I need to carry my medication with me. This time however I was flying to and within the USA so I knew it was going to be harder. I felt like I needed a degree just to work out accurate injection timings across the time zones and I had to get creative as to where I would administer the drugs. Airport toilets become a common place to mix vials of water and powder and administer my injections!

I got back to the UAE on 4 March and went straight from the airport to see ‘Dr Gregg’ (my UAE doctor) for a scan.  The doctor could see one follicle on my left ovary and it was still very small (7mm). He said the best thing to do was to stop stimulation and hope for a successful natural cycle and suggested I come back and see him on Sunday 11 March. It turned out I was actually going to be in the uk then for a weeks holiday so I arranged an appointment to see my UK clinic on Friday 9 March to see if this round was going to be a go or no.

I wasn’t very hopeful that things were going to work, which whilst this may sound pessimistic I like to think it is more about being realistic and also avoids too much disappointment if things don’t work out for a round.  After a scan with my UK clinic it seemed that this round was indeed a ‘no go’.

The doctor said we could wait until my period started again and then try again. As I knew I was traveling for the next few weeks we decided to take Provera for the next few weeks (a drug to stop a period from coming) and to stop taking this three days before I wanted my next period to start.

I decided to do this….. one last go in April before I move away from the UAE. If this last try doesn’t work then I need to be happy with my 19 eggs and walk away from this egg freezing chapter because enough is enough. So one last try to get my number 20 and then it will be time to focus on other aspects of my life. Roll on April. Maybe I’ll get my 20th on my birthday…. April 20th! Now that would be a turn of fate!