1) Getting to the clinic
On your first day/appt, the clinic will send a car to pick you up at your hotel. You'll have to walk or take a cab home though after. On the days after, you go on your own already.
2) Clinic payments
Your total IVF cost with the clinic will be about NT120,000-150,000. You don’t need to pay the total amt right away. You pay it in installments. The schedule of payments is more or less like this:
• Your 1st appt – About NT 10,000 (for your blood tests)
• Day 2 or 3 – NT 55,000 (for your fertility meds, shots etc)
• Day 8 til egg retrieval – You’ll be going to the clinic daily to have your follicles checked via ultrasound. The doctor may decide to extend your fertility shots from day to day, so you’ll need to pay about NT 4,000 per day for each additional shot.
• Egg retrieval day – NT 20,000
• Embryo transfer day - NT 40,000
Other possible costs:
• Embryo cryo storage – If you are fortunate enough to have extra good quality embryos that you can have frozen here at the clinic, storage is free for the first year, and NT 30,000/yr thereafter.
• IVIG treatment sessions - If you end up having an immunological problem like me, be prepared to pay upto NT 50,000 per treatment (IVIG) session. In my case, I’ll need to do 4 sessions. My 1st session was on Day 8. 2nd session is after I test positive for pregnancy. Not sure yet when exactly the 3rd and 4th sessions will be, but I heard they might be on my 6th and 10th weeks of pregnancy (counting from first day of your last period). If you test negative for pregnancy, then you don’t need to do IVIG sessions anymore beyond the 1st one
3) Egg retrieval - Shave the area of your private parts the day before egg retrieval. Otherwise they'll do it for you right before the procedure, and they're not as gentle. So you're better off doing it yourself. Egg retrieval is done under general anesthesia. When you wake up, they'll wait for you to go the bathroom to urinate at least 2 times before they discharge you. In the meantime, your hubby will be waiting for you at the VIP area. When you're ready to be discharged, they'll call him to come get you.
4) Embryo transfer - You first go to a room for a detailed ultrasound. Then you go to the private room where the transfer will be done. When Dr. Lee comes to do the transfer, he'll give you a printout/report which says how many eggs were fertlizied (incl pics of the embryos). He'll tell you how many embryos he'll transfer (unless you've had a previous discussion with him and advised him of how many you want transferred), and then do the transfer. After the transfer, you'll be asked to lie down in the clinic's room for 3 hours after embryo transfer. There's a TV in the room so you won't get bored. But I mostly slept and read magazines. Your hubby can stay with you in the room. You can leave after 3 hours and go back to your hotel. Some people prefer to stay til end of the day or even overnight. But this will depend on the availability of the room.
5) Injections
You can learn to do the injections yourself (which I did), have your hubby learn, or go to the clinic each time (which can be a hassle, esp when you have 3 injections per day). Most of the injections are subcutaneous and can be done on your tummy - these I learned to do myself. But a few are intramuscular (progesterone shots) and need to be done on your butt. It's hard to do yourself, so it's better to have the clinic teach your hubby or go to the clinic to have them do it.
Some injections come in tiny bottles which you need to break. First time we did it, the glass shattered - we broke it the wrong way pala. The way to do it is as follows. Look at the neck of the bottle. You'll see a small circle on the neck - this is the weakest point on the bottle neck. Make the circle face you. Then break the bottle top away from you. It should break easily.
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