My experience at CREATE was amazing. My initial consultation and scan was really good they got us in really quickly.
"This was my first experience with fertility treatment apart from a couple of tests with the NHS."
I have an auto immune disease called lichen sclerosus. Some people have it more severe some people have it less, I was unfortunate, and I got diagnosed when I was 2. It creates scarring and raw tissue in the vulval area I have it quite severe and I can’t have any penetration without general anesthetiser because of the pain. I’ve had surgeries on it, but nothing has helped so we went to the NHS for fertility treatment because I didn’t need a full ivf package. As far as I’m aware I could conceive.
"I just needed help getting the sperm to the egg."
Because of my lichen sclerosis we qualified for the NHS, but they said it was a 5-year waiting list, I didn’t want a baby in 5 years I wanted one in 9 months. So, we start looking elsewhere. It was actually my mum that found Leeds. She’d booked us for the online webinar and from that two days later I was in for my first consultation.
"My experience at CREATE was amazing."
My initial consultation and scan was really good they got us in really quickly. We spoke to a doctor and then a nurse and then I had my scan. I can’t have internal scans without sedation, so they sedated me. They allowed Tom to come in with me and then wait in the waiting room and the recovery area.
Afterwards they gave me a printout of what the scan found; it wasn’t the best news. The doctor who did the scan came and spoke to me and then a nurse came and gave me some support because I was quite upset, she was really nice!
They talked me through everything and gave me lots of different treatment options based on what they found in the scan. They then advised what they would do or recommend, which was really good for me. They said they’d be able to offer me a sedation whilst doing the insemination process which is what I needed.
I was a little bit worried it would be difficult to get hold of my patient coordinator if my LH peaked, but I don’t think they could’ve improved anything because I peaked on a Friday night or Saturday so I needed to go in on a Sunday, but they didn’t have anaesthetists available on a Sunday so I ended up going over to the Manchester clinic but they arranged all of it within the hour for me so I wasn’t just sat panicking, everything ran really smoothly and was really good.
The support from the nurses was good, because they’d found that my endometrium didn’t look too healthy and had some fluid, the nurse came in and explained what that meant to me and my partner.
I still had some questions after, and she came in and explained it all. She also let me know that if I needed anything I could give the clinic a ring and they’d be able to support me, and she let me know about the counselling available. I didn’t end up doing the counselling because we went ahead with the cycle but CREATE were really good with different options of support that I could access.
The staff at CREATE treated me really well. We were a-bit nervous because of my age being 20 at the time I was a-bit apprehensive thinking they might see me as a young mum, there’s this thing about young mums. They were really really good; I don’t think they treated us any differently to anybody else that would go in. They were really kind and gave me lots of different options and then informed us of what they would advise medically but made it clear saying that it is your decision, and we’ll support you in your decision. They gave us some time to think about our choice and then said they were happy to go ahead, and they supported us with that decision, they were really supportive and kind.
When I had my IUI, I was told not to test for 12 days just in case there was a peak of hormone. But I did I started testing at day 4 and then on day 6 I got my first positive. I didn’t tell Tom because I thought, this could just be the hormone and then I did my first digital test on day 12.
"I was sat upstairs with my dog just waiting for it, when it popped up positive, I was over the moon."
During my pregnancy each trimester came with its own different tasks. The first trimester I was quite sick, I had HG and was popped into hospital because I was losing quite a bit of weight. As soon as the sickness went away, I was absolutely fine. My second trimester seemed to fly by, it was quite a nice trimester. By my third trimester I was just very tired but apart from that the morning sickness was probably the worst part, as a whole it had been a good pregnancy.
I would definitely recommend CREATE Fertility to others for treatment, actually we’ve already recommended them, to have a look on the website and join one of the recorded sessions to get more information. We hope we’ll be back soon as-well.
The advice I’d give to other women or couples seeking fertility treatment would be go with your gut, we got told on the cycle that things weren’t looking extremely healthy, but you don’t know until you try. I do understand it is a lot of money but think of it as a what if, because if I hadn’t gone ahead with this treatment then she wouldn’t be here.
Stick to your gut and stay positive throughout. I had this motto through my entire fertility treatment, my mum and Tom were saying don’t get your hopes up and I kept saying positive mindset, positive attitude positive pregnancy test, and I just kept saying that! You’ve just got to stay positive, whether it’s negative or not then you can try again but just keep positive.
If you’re nervous or scared to start treatment you can always start the consultation process, they offered me a fertility coach before the treatment started so if you’re a-bit nervous always start it and then you have the option for support. Do some research before, I did a lot of research, you’ve got to make sure it’s right for you, but definitely, do a consultation because you won’t know unless you’ve asked the questions to a medical professional. If you know you want to do it just go for it, there was a lot of information available.
"We’re getting married in February. We’ll definitely be back!"
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