"Where to even begin?  When I explain to others that Brian and I went abroad from America to
Greece to do IVF, their first question is “why?”  My immediate response is because Ruth is
phenomenal.  There really is no other word to describe her and the process that we went
through.  A year ago we were just beginning IVF and now we have an awesome baby boy!  Let’s
start from the beginning.
We first heard about IVF Treatment Abroad from an infertility conference.  To say we were a bit
apprehensive is an understatement.  We obviously didn’t want to get scammed, but we really
didn’t have the money to do IVF in the states.  Our thought process was that we could do the IVF here and hope for the best, or we could go abroad and do IVF and even if it didn’t work, at least we would get a vacation out of it.  But it was not an easy road to get there.  We had so many bumps along the way to even start the process such as getting shingles, financial crisis in
Greece, meds being held up in customs, starting the cycle four days early, flight delays, etc… it
seemed like pretty much everything was going wrong but the great thing was that Ruth was there as a support.  She walked us through every step, every mishap, and encouraged us to keep going.  Ruth is not just a nurse that facilitates the whole process, but she is the foundation of your journey and rock to lean on.
Once we got to Greece, it was beautiful, smooth sailing!  Kosta was a great doctor and explained what he was doing the whole time. The clinic was very clean and all of the doctors were very professional.  The egg retrieval went well and I liked that we got an update on how the embryos were doing each day.  The transfer was great as well.  We used our own eggs/sperm.  It was great to have Ruth there as a resource through the whole thing because I had borderline OHSS and so having her there to help explain the symptoms I was feeling was a huge help. She was very reassuring. But the awesome thing about this process is that she continues to be a support system even when you are back home.  She kept up with us via social media and email to make sure all was well.  I had complications early on as a result from the OHSS and she would check in and make sure I was doing okay.  Now she gets to see pictures of my little one and watch him grow!
We are so beyond grateful for Ruth and IVF Treatment Abroad.  It is impossible to say in words
how amazing our experience was.  With all of the complications we had, our IVF experience
could have been a disaster, but because of Ruth’s dedication to making her patient’s experience
nothing but the best, it was one of the best times of our life.  We highly recommend IVF
Treatment Abroad!"

As some may know, it was my parents' wedding anniversary on the 12th October - their 25th wedding anniversary - and we held a party the other night. The letter below was written by Simon himself for all of our friends who attended, (intended for all other friends and family everywhere as well), in an envelope titled 'Not a Bill!'. This is a little of an inside joke between our friends - me father is known for his cooking, and has been told on multiple occasions to open a kitchen, so he can start billing people for his cooking. Of course, this envelope was to just clarify to everyone that the message inside was NOT a bill for those attending!

In any case, I've been around for almost 21 years of this marriage, and the only request I have is that they TRY to not kiss around asexual me! However, I can't complain about the support they have given me regarding my choices over the years, and acceptance of who I am. I am far from the easiest person to handle, but they couldn't have done it better.

Now, onto the letter!

"Let me make things clear. There is no way that anything I write here will ever express enough of my love, admiration and feelings for my family and friends, pets included.

Oh, my goodness! 25 years of being married and some of them living in sin beforehand. Nowadays, the sin is more acceptable to others of our age group behind locked bedroom doors to keep the dogs or children out whilst still keeping the noise down. Even though the kids are shaking their heads and making disapproving noises.

People who know me, know that expressing feelings are difficult for me. This might be a male thing, although where this myth originated is a bit of a mystery to the male population. I mean, we love to talk about sports, our favourite takeaways, possibly MasterChef and how good our Lasagne would be against a 3-star Michelin chef served at a motorway service station cooked on a Bunsen burner, if said chef was blindfolded and had to stand in a bowl of blancmange with one hand tied behind his back. I’m sorry, but that image just made me smile! And who won!
When we had our church blessing all those years ago, Ruth walked into the ceremony, given away by her brother Ian. Her father Eric was there with the local priest to conduct the ceremony. The music she walked into was from Riverdance, which was actually an Irish lament, but to this day, after all these years, I still get goose bumps listening to it, because I saw something else in the music and I saw something else in myself. The music evokes a certain amount of sadness as there is in any relationship, but I also saw hope and determination to try and make it work and get it right. The last crescendo and dying strains will never be a burden to listen to. It helps to enforce the love I feel for my family, (including the ones with fur, four legs and a tail).

It’s hard to explain if you have not heard that particular piece and it was not exactly “our song” in the normal sense. I’m not even sure or remember that we have one of those. What I do know, is that music is hugely emotive and can stir emotions from our childhood throughout our entire lives in whatever form it takes, and whilst that particular piece is not meant to be joyous, it described a life together the way it turned out to be. Ups and downs, pissed at each other, loving each other, and everything else in between that we as partners go through in relationships and life in general. I still love it because I find joy in my interpretation. So, find love in whatever life throws at you no matter the circumstances and go with the flow of the haunting lyrics and the rhythm and crescendos, and if it gives you goose bumps, join the club.

If you want to listen to this piece of music Google: Bill Whelan - Caoineadh Cú Chulainn (Lament)

I have made so many wrong decisions and so many mistakes. I am who I am. But right here, right now I am because of my wife, my partner, my friend, and my daughter Emily. She is intelligent and brilliant, artistic, vulnerable, loving and accepting and loved by us wherever her life takes her. She will always be supported and loved by us in the decisions she makes. And if she gets frustrated with my parenting skills, then she is not alone, but she needs to accept that I do get her, and I do understand her needs. I also apologise for the traits that are so very much from me. They will get better over the coming years, I promise.

True love. Everlasting love. Love at first sight. I’m sure that, that exists. I know that the first impression that Ruth had of me was nowhere anything like that. Still married to my first wife (and her best friend at the time), I was in a darkened room, streaming eyes and sneezing suffering from hay fever. Not a pleasant site and not a great first impression, but we are still here and thank God for that!

I have spoken about my own failings and insecurities, but this was not meant to be about me. I speak from my heart about this because my family make me strong enough to do so. I can only talk about this stuff because of them. I have my wife and my daughter, our pups, and my steadfast friends who we consider part of the family. Something to always believe in and embrace.

We will always open our doors and hearts to those that respect that ideal. Those that accept us for who we are. There are also those that have gone way beyond the norms to help us out when we needed it most, (you know who you are), but there are also those that do not respect our ideals and who only have their own agenda. Please consider yourselves a foot note and are worthless to us.

Although both of our fathers were priests of different denominations, I guess we both felt that the best faith lay in human nature. The comment in the above paragraph will seem unchristian to some, but for all the hope and admiration we hold dear for friends, family and acquaintances, there is a line that should not be crossed. We want to be forgiving, but in certain circumstances that is not always possible. The trail of destruction they left was too much, and we are not the only ones affected.

But enough of that. We know that we are not perfect, that we are far from it, and we accept it. We are dysfunctional, and yes, we don’t communicate as much as we should as a family (my fault again, because I’m a bloke but at least I recognize my own failings). But we are here for each other, and as long as we have breath in our bodies, we always will be, not just as a family, but for everyone that is happy to be with us to socialise and take some time away from the humdrum.

The past year and a half have pushed all of us to our limits, whether it be a psychedelic 3D jigsaw of butterflies, or working out where the next rent payment is coming from, and we know that we are not alone in this. Things are slowly getting better globally and life as a whole is improving. Maybe not as quickly as we would want, but it is, what it is. We hang in there. I know that we used to send criminals to Australia, but now we can’t get their ancestors out! Yet. I feel a jailbreak coming on!

The Pellow family lynchpin and superglue that holds us together is Ruth. Pure and simple. No argument. I do my best as a house husband, and whilst I have run my own successful business in the past as well as being a great estate agent in the UK many years ago, nothing compares to what Ruth has done generally, but especially over and during the pandemic. There is nothing, I mean nothing that can describe her strength and devotion to us to keep us going emotionally and financially. She wholeheartedly loves her job in trying to get our clients pregnant, whilst advising them as to the latest Covid protocols in the various countries we deal with, as well as all the other facets involved with each individual patient. I know that we will grow stronger as a couple and as a family.

My love and admiration for her devotion to us, is boundless. I just hope that my contribution to our marriage and friendship is enough.

Thank you. 

​When we created IVF Treatment Abroad back in 2009, knowing that Ruth's thirty years of experience in the field of infertility, working in some of the leading institutions in the UK and then working at a clinic in Spain, just as going abroad for medical procedures was becoming more popular, she was forefront in promoting IVF and predominantly egg donation as a real alternative option.

Of course, this started with patients from the UK, but now encompasses most countries where egg donation is no longer anonymous, where particular procedures are not available, or where treatments are prohibitively expensive. 

We are not here to find you the cheapest option. We are here to find you clinics that meet our own high personal standards of patient care, with competitive prices and success rates that are comparable to the leading countries in this field.

To meet these requirements, we have selected a small number of clinics within the European Union that we feel can offer the criteria we, and you are looking for.

We would like to make one thing abundantly clear in that we are not "middle men" and we get so frustrated when this gets bandied about. We are an independent family business that is treated as part of the medical team at each of the clinics that we work with, liaising with them about each of our individual patients, coordinating treatment plans, troubleshooting, and supporting them throughout each treatment cycle. Everything you could possibly think of related to your treatment is dealt with by us and the clinic.

There are many clinic directories out there as well as "agencies" that will direct you to a "suitable" clinic. The question that we ask, is would you prefer to have your own fertility specialist that has over 30 years of experience that has personally vetted each of the clinics we work with, working with you to achieve your dream of starting a family, and who will tailor-make your experience to your own individual needs and that will give you the best possible chance of achieving your dreams of becoming parents. Or would you rather pay an agency more than we charge and who do far, far less than we do, to select a clinic they probably have little knowledge about and which might be completely unsuitable for your needs, and will then leave you to get on with it with no backup or support?

You could of course go to a clinic direct, but of course, there are potential problems here as well.

Whilst many clinics have personnel who speak English, this is not their first language and sometimes things can get lost in translation. 

They might also assign you a particular coordinator, but this person is unlikely to be medically trained and will only be available during office hours and will not be seven days a week. I on the other hand will be able to make certain medical decisions and I am available out of office hours and will be available seven days a week.

We know that if you are considering traveling abroad for treatment, that you are not going to choose a clinic by sticking a pin in a map and hoping for the best. No. You are going to do hours of research by looking at clinics based on price, what they say their success rates are, and probably most importantly, what other people's experience of them was like. Lots of clinics develop a "fan club", but that does not mean that clinic will be right for you as well. Over the years we have had hundreds of patients that have come to us because their chosen clinic could not get them over the finishing line. Our "motto" says it all; "A better alternative, a fresh perspective" and out of those hundreds who have come to us, in many, many cases we have succeeded where their clinic failed and in the majority of those cases the words "I wish we had found you or come to you first" were spoken. 

We also hear things such as "I felt that I was on a conveyor belt" or "I was just a number" and our favorite one "I never saw the same person twice". None of the above should be true, but in reality, this is what happens far more often than it should. This is why when clinics approach us to start a collaboration, we spend hours doing our own research to ensure that they meet our requirements and that their ethos towards patient care is as high a standard as our own. We then build a working relationship to ensure a mutual level of working trust and to establish acceptable protocols and high levels of communication, but sometimes things don't work out, and if we feel that a particular clinic is not conducting itself to our high standards, it's prices are no longer what we consider to be competitive, or its success rates have fallen, then we will drop them from our list and find a better one. In the twelve years, we have been established we have made the decision to stop a working relationship with four centres due to the above reasons.

So, now, hopefully, you are asking yourself, what should I do now? Whether this is your first time going abroad for treatment or whether you want a fresh perspective even if you are preparing for another cycle with your current clinic, we suggest contacting us for an initial consultation which usually lasts between 30 and 60 minutes. Even if you are still having some doubts about what we can do for you, just give us fifteen minutes of your time to let us show you that our services can and will work for you.

At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!