Going to Taichung, Taiwan for IVF

If you’ve decided to go for it, there are several ways of doing it. Some couples we met came to Taichung for a few days to ocular the hotels and to do a consultation with Dr. Lee. Then they came back a few months after for the actual IVF procedure. In our case, we skipped the ocular and just came straight here.

When’s a good time to go? I would say anytime of the year is probably good except for Jan/Feb because it can get pretty cold (heard it can reach 9 degrees) plus there’s a 1 wk Chinese New Year holiday around that time too (so Dr Lee is away then).

1) Getting Here

You can fly Cebu Pacific, PAL, China Airlines coming here. We opted to take PAL because we felt it would be more flexible to change the flight dates coming home if needed. But in retrospect, the price difference of PAL vs Cebu Pac was so big, I think we should have just gone Cebu Pac. What you can do is book your Mla-Taipei flight first online on Cebu Pac’s site. Then just book your flight home later on when you have a more definitive idea of when you plan to come home. In my case, I thought we would stay just for 3 wks. But in the end, we extended to 7 weeks. Several factors can come into play and affect when you plan to go home:

- When will your period arrive (mine was 5 days late)?
- Do you have extra treatments you need to undergo (I found out I have immunological problems, so I needed treatment for that which will extend my stay – more on that later)?
- Do you plan to go home a few days after embryo transfer or wait til the pregnancy test (we originally planned to go home right after the embryo transfer, but later on decided to just stay the extra 2 wks til the pregnancy test to not risk the pregnancy)?

The planes arrive in Taipei’s Intl Airport.

- It’s about 2 hours away from Taichung via car (NT 2000/car; NT 1 = Ps 1.50) - You can arrange for a car to take you to Taichung through your hotel.
- Also 2 hours away via bus (NT 200/person) – Have the airport direct you to where the buses to Taichung are. There’s an information desk in the airport at the right side when you come out of the arrival area. Then when you get to Taichung (buses stop at Taichung’s Railway Station), take a cab to your hotel. Flag down rate for cabs start at NT 85.
- It’s 1 hour away via High Speed Rail (about NT 600/person) – Check with airport info desk on how to get to the high speed rail station. The high speed railway is pretty new in Taiwan (only a few yrs old) and is very impressive. Even their stations are spectacular. They look even better than our airports. The high speed rail station in Taichung is about 25 mins away from Taichung’s city center via cab.


2) Getting a Taiwan Visa

It’s best to get a visa that’s at least 60 days. We made a mistake and only got 30 days. We ended up having to go to the Natl Immigration Agency here in Taichung to get ours extended.

If you have a US Visa, the next time you plan to come to Taiwan, you can just apply for a Taiwan Visa online for free. You’ll automatically get a free 30 days visa. If you need a visa longer than that though, then you have to get the visa from the Taiwan embassy.

3) What to Bring to Taiwan

- Clothes – We ended up bringing too many clothes, probably good for 2-3 wks, because we didn’t know how efficient the laundry system would be. Turns out the hotel laundry was pretty efficient. In Alice Hotel, a grocery bag filled with dirty clothes costs about NT100 to have cleaned. You leave it at the lobby in the morning, and you get them back in the afternoon. If I knew that, I would have just brought a week’s worth of clothes. In Zhong Ke Hotel, laundry service is free (good deal!). It gets pretty cool here during autumn and winter, so bring some jackets with you.
- Extension cords or surge protectors - Some hotel rooms don’t have enough outlets to support the eqpt you might bring (laptops, cellphone chargers etc), so this is useful to have.
- Books, magazines – These will keep you entertained when you have to rest for hours in the clinic or are bored resting in your hotel room during the 2 week rest period after the embryo transfer.
- Media player – We weren’t sure if their cable TV here had English channels, so we brought our media player that contained downloaded TV shows and movies. Just connect it to your hotel TV and you’re off to being a couch potato! I initially had some compatibility problems with the hotel TV. But after fiddling around with my media player's settings, problem was solved.

By the way, turns out they do have English cable TV channels here, so you’ll be OK even if you don’t bring a media player. There are about 5 movie channels (incl HBO, Cinemax), AXN and CNN.

- Wifi router – I use an Apple Express for wifi because it’s easy to plug and use right away. I usually bring it when we travel. I plug it into our hotel room’s internet and electrical outlet and our room is automatically wifi ready! Very useful if both you and your husband bring your own laptops. You can share the internet.
- Medicines/vitamins – If you have medicines or vitamins you regularly take, make sure you bring enough (for 6-7 weeks). We found it pretty hard to replenish some of our meds here because the pharmacies and medicines are in Chinese and they can’t understand what we need.
- Medical records – Bring documents from your OB or previous procedures so you can show these to Dr Lee.
- Marriage certificate – Bring a copy just in case you need to work on extending your visa here. The Natl Immigration Agency here will ask for a copy of this.