Here’s my experience of NGC St Petersburg in case it’s of use to anyone:
Firstly, I found that the communication was excellent, both with the medical and non-medical staff. Having previously had one round of IVF in Poland, where the administrators spoke perfect English but the doctors hardly at all, this is something that was extremely valuable to me as I got really frustrated and upset at not being able to communicate my questions properly. Not only did Dr Diana Lobzeva speak perfect English, but I had direct email correspondence with her at all points during the process, with extremely quick replies, even on a Sunday when she was able to respond immediately and reschedule the date of my FET later that week due to early ovulation. I was really impressed by this; taking away the stress of inadequate communication is so important but completed overlooked by most clinics. The clinic were also excellent at spending time discussing the choice of donor eggs with me. I’m not sure on the ethics, but they were happy to provide photos of the donors as adults, which I found useful in any case!
I had one round of IVF using frozen donor eggs and sperm. The eggs were from NGC and the sperm I arranged to have shipped from Cryos in Denmark. I hadn’t realised that I would have to arrange my own shipping as Cryos only ship within Europe. This was easy to arrange but the cost was outrageous.
The fertilisation rate was excellent (15 out of 15), but on day 4, NGC reported that most of the embryos had stopped growing. The timing of this would suggest genetic issues with the sperm rather than the eggs, but I have to take it on trust that this is indeed what happened. By day 5 there were only 4 embryos left to freeze but all of these passed chromosome screening.
The first of the FETs I wasn’t at all sure about. The doctor, overseen by Dr Lobzeva, struggled a bit with the catheter and I had quite a bit of cramping at the time and for a few days afterwards. It was unsuccessful and I can’t help but think that this might have been why. The second FET I opted to use two embryos, and this was done by Dr Lobzeva herself. It was extremely quick and smooth with no cramping whatsoever. This resulted in my little boy Thomas, who is now 3 months old and happily snoring away beside me. If I were to return to use the final embryo I would definitely ask for Dr Lobzeva again.
Finally, another note on the logistics of going to a clinic outside of Europe is that non-EU prescriptions are not valid in the UK, so if you need to obtain any drugs whilst over here which I frequently did, some of them will require your GP to write you a private prescription.
Anyway, good luck with your journeys, wherever they may lead you!
