[The Guardian] ‘Time is precious in IVF’: the women who fear they have lost their chance to have children

‘Time is precious in IVF’: the women who fear they have lost their chance to have children

Due to the lockdown, all fertility treatments are postponed. It is a terrifying time for women whose egg reserves are dwindling and who have no idea when the process will begin again

Her fertility medication had arrived and Ellen Rayment was waiting for the first day of her period so she could begin taking it. Rayment, a 40-year-old health professional from East Sussex, had been trying to conceive with her wife Debby for three years. It had been costly and emotionally draining. The Rayments were declined treatment on the NHS because they were using donor genetic material, so they had spent in excess of £20,000 on private IVF.

In November 2019, Rayment had miscarried twins at 22 weeks. After taking some time to both physically recover and grieve, Rayment’s doctor gave her the go-ahead to proceed with egg implantation using the final frozen embryo from their second round of IVF in March. She was waiting for her period to start before taking the medication to thicken her uterine wall, ahead of embryo implantation. But when that came it was on the same day Boris Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus. All non-urgent medical procedures, including IVF, would be postponed. Her clinic called her to confirm the bad news.

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Source: ‘Time is precious in IVF’: the women who fear they have lost their chance to have children

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