Written in 2017 by Simon Pellow, Co Director of IVF Treatment Abroad

Whilst I am writing this, I still have not been able to come up with a title for this piece. Hopefully something will come up as I go along. The anticipation is killing me, so it had better be good! If you see a title, it did come after the composition.
“What is this piece about?” you may be asking yourselves. Just the most enlightening, heart rending, satisfying, soul searching, sad and joy filled experiences I have had the opportunity to partake in two days of the year outside of my normal life.
I speak about the Fertility Show in London where I get to meet the most incredible people who are either taking their first steps towards creating a family or indeed those that are coming towards the end of their journey. Time and time again, I am astounded by the resilience of these people. Stick them on a battlefield and they would be victorious; and indeed, for the majority, it is just that - a battlefield. Yet many, many prevail; they win their battle. I know that in the majority of cases, it is with our support.
Whilst my wife Ruth has decades of knowledge and experience that many in her field as a fertility nurse specialist would die for, she has not lost the desire or passion to connect with patients on a personal level, many of whom are now close friends or volunteers who are willing to give up their time to share their personal experiences with complete strangers who visit the stand. I am in awe of anyone who is able to divulge their fears and hopes, successes and failures to someone they have just met. Thank you peeps! You know who you are and how much more successful you make the exhibition for us as well as inspiring the people that you speak to.
From the point of view of a 50+ year old bloke (me), it is not always easy to get the information that will help Ruth either in a personal consultation or with a follow up call. The girls are obviously always more comfortable speaking to girls. So, you can imagine how privileged and saddened I was when two years ago a twenty something year old who was at the show with her mother told me that because of some weird genetic aberration she had been born without a womb. This is obviously something that she had lived with all her life and something of an extremely personal nature, yet for her to be able to impart this to me was astounding and I felt honoured that she felt comfortable enough to be able to divulge such an intimate part of her life to me. Thank you to that young lady. I hope that you are happy and well and I truly hope that your dreams, whatever they might be, come true.
That is just one true encounter among many, many others that have affected those of us who participate in promoting our services at the show. This year, I spoke to a couple who had just tested negative from a UK cycle a week or so before coming to Olympia. A raw emotional scar for them, yet they were still strong enough to want to see what options and advice they could garner to help them in the future. Obsessive; No. They are brave and committed to having a child that they can love and nurture.
If my reading audience will allow me to generalize for a moment: none of our lives are as straightforward or as simple as we would like them to be. To a certain extent, we are all a little mixed up and from time to time lose our direction in life. Sometimes we crave to re-live parts of our childhood or adolescence, whether this be holidays or from hearing snippets of a song that either makes us cringe or makes us feel happy or sad and just sometimes screams “where did life go”. Life is there, ready to be embraced and accepted for all its hardships, joy and flaws. Like most people, I have had to deal with life; not always as well as I would have liked, but we strive to be better and we fight for our dreams to become reality. None more so than the kind of people that attend the fertility show in search of the answers to their wishes.

- Simon Pellow Co Director, IVF Treatment Abroad

"​Now that the baby is finally resting, I am reflecting on what a miracle she is, and the incredible gratitude I have to finally have the opportunity to become a mother after all of these years. My husband and I chose to name our daughter “Grace”, as she is truly a blessing that would not have been possible without the skills, experience, support, and patience of fertility nurse specialist, Ruth Pellow at IVF Treatment Abroad.  
 
"After a lifelong battle with endometriosis, infertility, and marrying later in life, my husband and I had been unsuccessful in trying to conceive on our own. Several years prior I had attempted to freeze my eggs when it was first introduced in Canada. I ended up with only one egg, which we later attempted to use unsuccessfully. Completely heartbroken and without the option of using my own eggs any longer, I was at a loss. I knew that egg donation was an option, however, I was uncertain whether I wanted to have a child that wasn’t genetically related to me. It is also not an option in Canada, unless some one you know literally donates to you. The United States offers the option to purchase eggs, but it is astronomically expensive. Although a baby isn’t something you can put a price on, we didn’t think it was something we could practically afford.
 
"Ironically, my brother and his wife had experienced their own challenges conceiving. My brother found Ruth and IVF Treatment Abroad through online research and they were successful in accessing her support to conceive their daughter through the use of a donor egg at a clinic in Spain. They had a great experience with the support of Ruth, who helped them through the entire process from finding a clinic, matching a donor, and arranging travel, to creating and monitoring a treatment plan. The cost was significantly lower including travel to Spain where they were able to relax and enjoy themselves.
 
"Through the encouragement of my brother and sister-in-law, witnessing their experience, and the love they have for their amazing little girl, my husband and I connected with Ruth. She was professional, personable and compassionate to our situation, and provided positive insight in relation to my fears and concerns about using a donor egg. After considering our options, we decided to move forward with Ruth’s services. Although it took a couple of tries, and was challenging at times, she was encouraging and patient with me through some emotional “ups and downs”, while ensuring we had the facts and were informed of our choices and possible outcomes.
 
"It has been a long fertility journey. As I wrap up my thoughts, I echo the emphatic words of my sister-in-law after conceiving her daughter through egg donation, “She is 200 percent my baby!” The apprehension I initially had about conceiving via egg donation has virtually disappeared. As I look into my own daughter’s eyes, knowing that she grew and developed inside of me, and as I continue to have the opportunity to nurse and nurture her, I can’t wait until the day she looks back at me and says “mama”.
 
"I am so glad we didn’t give up and decided to work with Ruth. We are eternally grateful and highly recommend IVF Treatment Abroad to anyone who is willing to take a leap towards realizing their dreams of becoming mothers, fathers, parents, and families. 

​Gender selection, sex selection, family balancing...

So many names it is known by but with the one aim: to achieve a pregnancy of a specific sex. There can be many reasons why a patient wants to do this, sometimes for medical reasons and sometimes because they already have children of one sex and would like one of the other.
As a fertility planning and coordinating service, we feel duty bound to try and help anyone who comes to us asking for help and advice on their own particular situation which we will continue to do to the very best of our ability.
We have a couple who are just starting their journey with this treatment. They have two absolutely gorgeous girls and would like to have a boy. They contacted me about a month ago and since then we have put in place all the necessary pre-treatment tests and planned their treatment and, now, they have started their stimulation injections for the IVF.
I think that sometimes people think that the decision to select the sex of a child is selfish and an easy option to achieve what they want, but it is not an easy choice. There is a lot for them to go through to achieve this aim; how strong is that want for a child of a specific sex, and are they aware of exactly what they will have to undergo to achieve this? What can go wrong - and lots can, the biggest being that they find that they have no embryos of the preferred sex but with all the time, energy, emotion and cost outlaid by that point. This type of decision is never straightforward and as with any form of IVF treatment our old friend 'Stress' will be lurking nearby.
These are brave people who feel that this is what they want to make their family complete. They don’t have fertility problems and that is something that I am getting used to after all these years of helping patients with fertility issues. Their motivation is from a different direction but no less important to them and it is just as crucial that we as a service support them going through this process and through to whatever the outcome is. Not only is technology for IVF changing, but we and our ideas of it must change with it.
We are really, really good at what we do, so whatever ethnicity you might be, whichever nationality you are and whatever type of relationship you are in or not in, we can accommodate most situations. All you have to do is contact us to find out if we can help you.

 Oh MY Gosh! Over 30 years of helping couples and single parents to achieve their dream of starting a family. Personally, this is my entire working focus, but I have to include my husband and daughter Emily, not only for supporting me but also for their input in the day-to-day running of the business with their ideas, insights, and technical abilities. 

We are a cottage industry so Emily helps on techy stuff (and managing this blog) and my husband Simon, who not only helped create IVF Treatment Abroad, but is also my own personal chef, has just perfected his TGI's Jack Daniels sauce. None of that bottled rubbish!

Sorry. I digress. The business of going abroad for any form of fertility treatment has grown exponentially over the last twenty years or so and of course, in the beginning, it was all new and attentive and the level of service was very personal. This is as true now as it ever was for any life-saving or life-giving treatment.  

 In many instances, this will still be the case, but we know for a fact that in many more situations, this is not so. How do we know? Because the patient has told us. "I was a number". "I was on a conveyer belt". "I never saw the same person twice". "It took two days to get a reply to my email". Two days! That can be the difference between becoming pregnant or keeping a pregnancy. Not only that, I will also have many patients come to me with questions, saying "I'm sorry to bother you, but...", and I always say the same thing - no matter how small the query is, I am happy to answer anything that will help put your mind at ease. There is no question in this line of work where there are so many emotions involved that can be considered unimportant.

 Being a fertility nurse specialist I am in the position of being able to make clinical decisions, help plan your next steps, and continued care which can and will be time-sensitive. The services that we at IVF Treatment Abroad provide are individually tailored to each patient's needs and we do not agree with the "one size fits all" concept. Add in the fact that we are available 7 days a week, 365 days a year (yes I have taken calls on Christmas day)! 

So, here we are. Ready, waiting, and willing to help you, whether it be the start of your journey towards parenthood, or indeed a continued one. Thirty years and counting!

"​We are just laid back in our hotel room looking at all the stuff my wife has bought shopping that I have to carry back with me because she can’t lift anything and as much of a pain in the arse as it’s going to be I think I’ll be able to live with it and wouldn’t have it any other way!!Not just during an overseas treatment process but throughout any stage in prolonged fertility issues, nobody can prepare you for the journeys that are ahead when you embark on the process of assisted fertility.  There are so many options with each option having divided opinions.  There are papers for and against certain areas.  The so called experts have their valid points as do the so called cynics and non-believers.  The old sayings “Just relax and it’ll happen” and “You just need to go away for a holiday” all become louder in your head and add to the confusions and frustrations that inevitably lay ahead during the most stressful and emotional process in your life.

"We started our overseas fertility journey quite some time ago and had it planned in our heads how we envisaged it would go and the effort which we will be required to put in to enable this stage in our process to become a successful pregnancy test, twelve week scan and right through to the birth.  It is extremely difficult on many levels going through the process of fertility treatment even in your own country and in the surroundings of your own comfortable home where there is an abundance of family and friends, support structures and so on, so to embark on an assisted fertility process in another country 10,000 miles away from home seems like madness!!

"We listened to advice regarding which is the best clinic and “what is the best country to have such an invasive procedure” in and, probably stupidly, listened to Google a lot in the process for guidance on the clinics and countries to choose.  Google is after all “the all and powerful machine”!  It has almost all the answers to almost all your questions every day.  It is with this reasoning why most people will take note of googled sites and advice but when you sit back and analyse the responses you are receiving how many really apply to you and how many are you inadvertently, and all be it unintentionally, moulding to your desires and symptoms?  Before long the voodoo witch doctor that cures elephants is your only solution and he lives 3/4 up the Himalayan mountains and there are no available sherpers to guide you there until mid-August!  Sadly Google has not got the best answers to the most delicate and precious question, “Why can’t I fall pregnant?” and so trying to source that perfect solution, perfect clinic and perfect process is best sourced by the same means the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans used to become individually the most successful empires of their historical generations.

"Society has the best ideas.  Forums with real people and real problems are where we can find the answers to the questions and enable dreams to become reality.  Forums have been utilised for trade since 4000BC and have continued to this day in the same format just slightly more digitalised as they once did.  Where we once had taverns for literature we now have a website forum, where we wanted to discuss English literature there would be a table in that tavern where the aristocratic and most often eccentric individuals would ponder, disagree and revel in the delight of their dreams.  We too have these places right at the end of our finger tips.  Yes, they maybe in the world of cyber clouds and not in a drunken 18th century tavern but evolution has taught us that in the right minds we can do anything together no matter what the time or the place may be.

"When we communicate and share is when we become great together.  From the wheel to the pyramids, the age of the steam industry to today and the apple world we all live in, all the great things are achieved by great people coming together and sharing their ideas, experiences and heartaches at times.  It was this realisation that came to us one evening and it was this thought process that led us to Google fertility threads instead of fertility problems.  Yes, you will see that there are so many to choose from but surprisingly enough they all do cross paths soon as you may find out.

"Our method was simple.  My wife searched in silence and so did I.  We noted good pages, comments and bookmarked areas we wanted to come back too.  This was done whilst sat next to each other; we would cheat and look at each other’s pages just like you would on a test you were struggling on in high school!  We would laugh and almost cry at comments and plights of people.  Most importantly though we both came to the realisation that as a society we are not so different no matter where we are.  There were Greek patients online, African, British, Australian, French, German and many more all asking questions and all offering solutions and support.  All these individuals were anonymous to us and all in the same horrid situation as us but all were wanting to help true honest strangers or to gain answers from true honest strangers.

"During one of our thread browsing sessions my wife came across what we initially described as a facilitator.  She was being recommended as a long time registered fertility nurse who can make it happen.  My wife noted her name and she carried on not really thinking too much of it.  I, not so far behind and on a different forum found a name of a facilitator and she came with glowing reviews.  I too noted it down and carried on.  The more time we spent trolling through sites the more this same name kept coming up and it was during one of those quick cheating looks at each other’s screens we noticed a photo on a thread and realised we had both jumped onto the same site and were following the same bread crumbs!  Ruth Pellow just kept jumping onto our screens!
My wife quickly turned away and laughed whilst telling me to stop cheating but after swapping our info this quickly turned to us using one screen to see what all the hype was about!

www.ivftreatmentabroad.com
"The site quickly explains that the Ruth Pellow who we are both trolling here is an English fertility nurse with over 20 years’ experience.  She’s based in Greece with personal working experience in Spain, Greece and the UK.  She has a brief description of her role and has some informative advice on the regulations and changes to fertility and the requirements and legislation’s which interested us very much so.

"We hit the contact button and sent an email request asking for information stating our situation and if she is in a position to offer advice and guidance.  She responded with an option to have a Skype chat and discuss her role but to most importantly see a real person and be more of a formal but relaxing chat.  During this chat we remained wary of the process, the thought of dealing with an unknown source 10,000 miles away and the whole privacy of our information and medical details which was forefront in our mind.  With these doubts in our head we put together detailed criteria, a list of demands if you like.  This list was not unachievable but simply things that we wanted and had maybe not been afforded in our past treatments whether that be because of our lack of knowledge or the doctor talking around in their special kind of way!  Things like the eggs to be taken to blastocyst, the use of medications to be detailed and transparent as to their side effects etc.  Ruth said that the list was a great idea but it all depended on the situation and results of certain tests we required.  She did immediately stipulate that the information given is confidential and that throughout the entire process she is only paid by the clinics and that money ever crosses hands for any treatment throughout the entire process except the payment to the clinic.  These Skype sessions carried on once a week for a few weeks and were used to gather more information and complete requested tests that were required to be carried out as well as continuing emails.  Still, no monies had crossed hands between Ruth, us and the clinic.

"Once we had the results from the relevant tests we then went through our list of demands.  We envisaged that Ruth would take notes and then discuss with us options and come back to us with clinics, medications and more information.  We could not be more wrong.  Whilst on the Skype session she would review all of our results and she quickly established we are Human, Male and Female and are not completely desolate.  From here she instantly sent through three PDF attachments for clinics that met our criteria.  These were in Spain and Greece.  Now to receive three clinics in the whole world may seem very small but she informed us that these clinics tick ALL of our criteria and there are others out there that are good too but that do not meet all of our wishes.

"The clinics we were advised to look through were Iakentro Athens, Iakentro Thessaloniki and ProcreaTec in Spain.
Ruth again advised that her fee is no different between any of the clinics and the things we must choose is things such as comfort in the location, eating requirements, weather requirements and tourism requirements.  She assured us that the fertility requirements would be taken care of and that she would deal with that 100% with no difference in care and support from any of the three centres so book as if it was a holiday that she will kindly request small amounts of time from us for trips to a clinic!

"After careful considerations we choose Iakentro Athens.  We choose this simply for the country Greece, their location to Athens and weather in February / March.  We informed Ruth and she began the process with the clinic.  Still no monies had been transferred at this point.
I booked the flights from Australia right through to Athens and all the accommodation.  I then asked Ruth what else I needed to organise and she said nothing!  Maybe only a few day trips whilst you’re here!!  Finally we had to outlay some money!

"As the time came closer and closer my wife was requested to take certain drugs including Zoledex, a cancer treating drug.  This came out of left field and was something we had long discussions about.  After consultation with our doctor in Australia he was extremely surprised but did agree that there are case studies supporting the use of this medication and that he is a user of this with his patients.  We decided to start taking the Zoladex and Ruth issued us an in-depth treatment plan for the process and months ahead.  This was administered by our local fertility doctor who was in full support of our plight in the strive for a family.  We had to purchase the Zoladex from the chemist and he would inject this as part of a nominal consult fee. We should note that Zoladex is usually used for no more than one month to treat Endromentriosis but in my wife’s case was to treat Andenomyosis to aid with lining quality.

"Suddenly it was a month away from the trip and as promised Ruth shot over an email for the money transfer to the clinic.  I have Internet banking and can transfer internationally so the funds to the clinic were sent off within 5 minutes of receiving the email.
The amount of work we felt Ruth put into getting us to this stage staggered us as and all her services were being carried out with the trust and compassion that so many other specialists have failed to offer in the past.

"Finally after many months of planning we arrived in Greece.  We hit our hotel room to try and get some sleep as we had our first scan the day after arriving.  Our hotel was Divani Acropolis in the old part of Athens at the base of the Acropolis.  We choose this place for the location and based on the reviews.  The hotel was good, the rooms were good and the facilities were good too.  It is not to the 5 start standard Australian hotels are but after seeing some of the other hotels in the area it is one of the better ones on the list.

"Our first meeting was a scan to see if my wife’s lining was sufficient and to meet the nurses and doctor in charge of the clinic.  This was a daunting experience for us especially in a foreign country where language barriers can be hard to overcome.  We got into a taxi and the driver asked us where we wanted to go.  We gave him the address and he set off driving.  Whilst driving us along the route he proceeded to talk us through the sights of Athens, “the Olympic stadium” he said, “where the first Olympics were held in 1896”, “Built of pure marble and only one of its kind”.  We smiled and listened as we got driven and he explained more of the historical sites until we arrived at the clinic.  We paid and he offered to pick us up when we had finished which we agreed upon.  This happened in almost every taxi we got into.  They were so proud of their city and wanted to show off their pride to us in a genuine and excited manner that the rides to the clinic flew by.  Their enthusiasm was so empowering to us that we wandered round places that we would most likely have not even know of from the info we read or the tours we looked up.

"In the clinic we met Kosta the doctor and his assistant Marina.  Ruth was busy in a transfer so she was not able to come and see us there at that point but contacted us when we arrived back at our hotel to check in.  We had the first scan which was done by Kosta and the results were out of this world.  The Zoladex (cancer treatment advised to take 3 months earlier) had worked its magic and we had never had a result as good as that in the previous seven years prior to this treatment.

"After we finished the first scan we were given an updated treatment plan including medication requirements and we were given dates of egg transfer and told we would be kept up to date with all events along the way.  This was done impeccably by Ruth and the clinic.
Ruth and us finally met a few days later and got the chance to sit down face to face and discuss the process and our experiences in general.  It was then that we realised that the stranger on the other side of the world we choose to manage this journey was the most perfect fit for us and we sat wondering not only whilst she was there but whilst on our way home how we came into contact with her and how lucky we were to have done so.

"As told by the clinic our embryo transfer date came and the results we obtained from the Iakentro clinic outmatched any we had ever received in Australia.  It was all almost the day we’ve been waiting for and those stressful nights with little sleep crept in as they normally do along with the apprehensions and doubts.  Sleep is normally a rarity the closer the egg transfer gets for us and I’m sure a lot of others!

"Finally embryo transfer day and we arrived at the clinic as instructed to be greeted at the door by Marina who was excited to see us and made us feel very welcome and relaxed us somewhat considering we were about to embark on something so stressful!  We did not feel like the number which we have so often felt going through the process in Australia which we felt was not only refreshing but a divining factor in why we have felt so comfortable with the decisions we’ve made to go with Ruth and Iakentro.

"We met with Mairi who was the Embryologist looking after our growing embryos. Mairi explained how well our embryos went, what grade and even presented photos of our 2 high quality blastocyst embryos, one of which was already hatching!! She was lovely, warm person who was very excited about the 2 embryos that were to be transferred shortly.
We were very lucky to have Professor Prapas perform the transfer but he is not always available and can be in various clinics on any given day.

"The process of transferring the embryos was exceptional with us receiving photos and printouts of the embryos prior to transfer and ultrasound photos of the embryos placement and hopeful nestling spot for the next 9 months!

"And that was it, all over!  The process complete and our trip to Greece almost over.  This was for us but not Ruth and the clinic.  They continued to stay in contact with us over the next few days to ensure we were ok and that everything had gone ok for us and we were feeling good.
If we had to go through this again we would not even give it another thought.  Ruth is now not just a contact she is truly a person who will remain in our lives forever and will have not just a legacy with us and our children but with hundreds and hundreds of families worldwide we are sure.  The entire process we felt was unimaginably easy to go through and this was vastly due to Ruth’s’ doing as she took all the questions and came back with instant answers (when time zone permitted, she does sleep sometimes!!).  We owe Ruth so much for this process and it was an absolute pleasure to have her with us on this journey and urge anyone who has any doubts or reservations to simply make contact and have a chat, she will be worth every second of your time.
​
- K & T from Australia

So here is my first try at blogging! I first had to figure out what a blog should be, and how I should do it and how often. I concluded it can be anything relevant to the subject; in this case, it is infertility and fertility treatment. So, I decided on a mix of ‘day in the life of a fertility nurse specialist’ - of course maintaining patient confidentiality at all times - as well as types of treatments both those I am involved in and others not; issues that patients and the fertility community as a whole discuss and think through that come up in fertility treatment and finally; testimonials that my patients have kindly given me over the years. Some of these testimonials are pages long and so absorbing in their journey telling, while others are short and sweet. I am also open to any subjects that you out there think of and want me to discuss.  

Any information given will be from me personally, along with other information I research on certain topics. I won’t claim to know everything as in any occupation you should continue to learn and expand your knowledge as you go along, and I try to always be open to new ideas and thoughts. I have been doing this work for 30 years this year and cannot imagine myself doing anything else as the fulfilment and satisfaction I get from helping others cannot be properly measured. I wish everyone could achieve a positive outcome and I could help them create their family, but we all know it doesn’t work that way as much as we wish it did, so my hope is that I can help everyone have a positive experience as they go down this fertility road. 

An open invitation to join my blog!
As I plan to be updating this blog often, I invite you to join my blog! By joining my blog, you’ll make your path to stay updated with the latest news, issues and things that will be helpful to you to better understand the journey you will be going through.

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