Ians cycle for Hayley & Ian Bowes Ivf treatment

The last place we want to put our journey was online but it could also help us complete our journey and complete our family. We will be starting Ivf in Prague in March, date to be confirmed. Its looking like we are going to be £1000 short on our final bill of £5700. We dont like to ask but hope we have enough family and friends out there to help us if you can. Ian will be completing a 100 mile bike ride from Manchester, The Lowry to Lake Windermere, The lake district. Date is to be confirmed based on weather in January and Feb. Tackling the weather and the hills will make it much harder.

Back story...

In September 2020 we decided to start trying for our own little one to join our family of three. Hayley had previous trouble getting pregnant for 6 years so we were pretty aware it wasnt going to be easy but had our hopes up anyway. In the UK you have to have been trying to conceive for 2 years before you can start fertility investigations. After 100s of ovulation sticks, failed tests and a lot of upset, in 2022 we went to our GPs and started the process. Bloods and scans were fine, no problems at all. Ians samples were in the clear which we knew would be the case due to Ian having Oliver. Hayley was referred to wrightington fertility clinic to undergo a HSG test. He was very clear that we would not qualify for medical treatment on the nhs if a problem was found due to Ian already conceiving a child previously. That one hit us quiet hard and caused a lot of anger. One womans fertility issues should never be based on another woman being able to conceive.. we will just leave it at that. So the Dr at the clinic advised i would have to lose some stones to qualify for the HSG. A HSG test is a dye which is pushed into your fallopian tubes to check they are not blocked and or damaged. I managed to lose 1.5 stone but wasnt quiet enough. I then decided to rereffer myself back to my GP to start the process on checking for endometriosis while i continued to try and lose the weight for the HSG. The fertility clinic would not do the investigation for endometriosis. They reffered me to a Gyneacologist at Buckshaw Hospital who offered me a Laproscopy surgery to check for endometriosis and he also offered to do the HSG test whilst i was undersedation. So in February 2023 my date came through and I went for my first ever surgery. The hospital staff were brilliant and the service was amazing. I was in and out of surgery within a few hours whilst Ian was at home anxiously waiting. Once I had come round more, the Surgeon came round with my results. Both of my fallopian tubes were blocked in different places giving me a percentage as low as 1% for natural pregnancy. I was clear for endometriosis and PCOS. The physical recovery took around 3 to 4 weeks. I was unable to move around properly or lift anything for weeks, even getting out of bed was hard. I cant thank Ian enough for everything he did for me and to family that came to see us while i was recovering. Mentally it affected us both quiet badly at different times. It caused a lot of anger, confusion and of course upset for the both of us. I spent weeks looking into any option but ivf but came back to the same conclusion everytime. So once we were both ready mentally we started looking into IVF privately. I contacted multiple Uk based companies. And the financial averages were coming back at..

IVF round 1 - £7000

Medications - £1500

Scans and tests - £1000

Total - £9500

So we started looking abroad and found a highly recommended clinic called 'Reprofit' based in Brno, Czech Republic. There financial averages are...

IVF round 1 - £2700

Medications - £500

Scans and tests - £500

Flights and Apartment - £1000

Food and general spending - £1000

Total - £5700

Well we finally had our consultaion on Wednesday 14th November 2023. We have to repeat all of our blood tests and scans due to them being outdated but have to pay privatly due to the GPs not able to help private matters and the long wait times.

The process

So once all our tests are sent off we will receive whats called a 'protocol'. It basically tells us what we need to do and when, including medications. Hayley will be having daily injections followed by our first scan to check the lining is progressing enough. We will then fly out to Prague, travel down to Brno, where we will stay for around 12-14 Days. We will have another scan two days later to check Hayleys eggs are ready and then they will proceed with Egg Collection. They then do their sciency stuff! And hopefully our test tube baby continies to grow until day 5 in which it will be implanted back into Hayley. Any left over fertilised eggs will be frozen to help with a second attempt if sadly it does not work. This is not inculded in the price and will be extra on top. Unfortunatly this will be our only actual round of IVF due to costs and the mental toll it is going to take on us.

Thankyou to everyone who has been supportive so far, its been the hardest time of our lives but hopefully it will all be worth it....