19 replies to this topic

[cj123]

Hey everyone!  I'm new on here.  My husband is the source of our infertility.  He has a condition called CAVD (congenital absence of the vas deferens), in simple terms he was born with a vasectomy.  We adopted our son from the USA a few short months ago, and are now trying to attempt to control our spacing between babies.  We got our dr to refer us to Aurora in Saskatoon, as our only option to conceive will be IVF with ICSI.  I am curious what current wait times are like there?  

 

I have also been hyper researching on the internet, and I am just curious how many embryos they allow people to transfer?  I know with eSet, they have the goal of healthy singleton pregnancy, but I am curious if eSet is actually elective or if they give you the choice of transferring more than one embryo?  I know I'm way ahead of myself, just curious as I research things way too much!

 

Any experiences anyone has to share would be great!  We aren't in a hurry to do IVF - we are thinking fall or so of this year, but I'm just curious as to when we will hear from the clinic.  

 

Thanks!

[CdnHockeyGal]

Hi cj123!  Welcome to the site - glad you found us!  Congratulations on the arrival of your son!

 

I can't speak knowledgeably to Aurora as I'm not from Saskatoon but a few ladies have male factor infertility as part of their infertility diagnosis due to absence of vas deferens...I believe a number of them have success with a TESE procedure rather than a PESA.  Does Aurora make the TESE procedure available?  If not...you may wish to consider asking your GP to refer you to a clinic where that is available (i.e. VFC) as I believe the success rates are higher using TESE sperm.

 

Nearly all clinics in Canada support eSET.  As you've stated the goal is a single healthy pregnancy and provincial healthcare budgets are such that each province budgets "x" dollars towards twin pregnancy monitoring (usually 10%) and there is no funding to exceed that number...ergo...there is heavy pressure from the province to go with eSET.  Generally you only see dET if there are other issues (avanced maternal age, multiple failed transfers, etc) or if you're doing a day 3 transfer.

 

Best of luck to you!

[cj123]

CdnHockeyGal, thanks for the reply!  According to their website Aurora does do the TESE/PESE procedures, which we made sure they did before referring as I knew we would need these done to get my husband's sperm!  We are excited to get everything going later this year!

 

I've been researching eSet, and my only concern is spending so much money to not get pregnant.  I know and am aware of the risks associated with multiple pregnancies, but would rather a multiple pregnancy than not get pregnant at all.  At $10,000 a cycle.... we just adopted which isn't cheap either.... it's just hard to think of spending that money with nothing to show for it.  I'm sure a lot of people doing IVF feel this way..... it would be nice to be able to grow my babies for free!

[cj123]

Thanks for your reply baby_bun!  It was very helpful!  

[BrooksieH]

I'm starting ivf next month in Saskatoon. It took 3 months for my referral and we did an IUI the next cycle then another IUI the next. They both didn't work. We decided to go ivf and I called the nurse end of January and she told me I could start in the February group. They do all the Ivf's together as a group. We decided to take a month off and start in March.

[Rae272]

We are also awaiting our referral to Aurora we were told about 3 months to have our consult and then after doing our consult there will be another wait to start our IVF.. Our referral was sent about a week ago

[KrisW]

Hey, I'm hoping I can join your group and hopefully provide you with some info. I was referred to aurora in November and I have my first consult on Monday!
I have tubal blockages so we hope to move on to ivf as soon as possible. I will keep you updated with what our timeline is looking like.
Kristin

[KrisW]

We just had our appointment this morning and paid our money to be put on the ivf waitlist! Dr. Case the wait list is 2-3 months so we are looking at April or May likely. We are so happy to be continuing through this process relatively quickly!

[cj123]

KrisW that's exciting!  I called today to make sure that our referral was received, turned out our Dr hasn't sent it yet.  Called them and they are waiting for the form to come back from the lady that transcribes them (?).  didn't realize that my Dr couldn't do that.  It's been a month since my appointment, I could have transcribed it for him.  (eye roll).  I'm a little annoyed.  Oh well.  We aren't wanting to do IVF right away, probably towards the end of this year, maybe Oct/Nov.  So hoping it will all work out for then.  Did Aurora share with you their success rates?  I'm curious.  I've also been looking into the victoria fertility clinic and I've heard nothing but good things.  I don't just want to go to Aurora because it's the closest to us.  I'd like to be confident in that they can do what they are supposed to.  Hoping when we finally have a consult that we will feel comfortable with them.  

[KrisW]

That is so frustrating when things fall through the cracks in our health care system, a month to transcribe a form, really??

So what Dr Case told us today was that the chance of pregnancy from an ivc cycle starts at 50% and goes up from there depending on things like age and other health conditions. We were told that we were very good candidates for ivf based on our age and history and we would likely have a higher likelyhood of success. Dr. Case also talked to us about the single embryo transfer. She said we would be very good candidates for it but it sounded like we would likely get the choice. But it will depend on how many and the quality of the embryos that are created.
I had a friend that used aurora and just had her baby in December and she had good things to say about the clinic and their experience. Based on my discussions with her and my experience today I am comfortable continuing on this journey in Saskatoon at Aurora. I have heard good things about Victoria though as well.

I will try to keep you updated as we continue through the process. Hopefully your referral is on the way now!

[eyedoc]

Sounds like the wait times haven't changed too much from when we first went there (way back in 2013!). We also did a consult with VFC as we had heard such great things about them. We ultimately ended up doing our IVF at Aurora - we sort of made the decision to try a cycle close to home and if that failed we would go to VFC. We were successful on the first shot and our baby is 7 months old. We also had 3 embryos to freeze and may hop back on the crazy train to ttc #2 later this year.

[cj123]

Thanks for all the input.  So it's really funny, I called on Monday and they didn't get our referral, yesterday we got a call that they received our referral and we have our first consult in March!  Apparently one day makes a difference!  Holy smokes that moved way faster than I thought it would.  So that's exciting!  

 

We are going to meet with Aurora and see how we feel with them and go from there!  I'm hoping everything goes good and that we feel comfortable with them because it will be so much easier to do this closer to home!  

[CattyMom]

I've been very happy with Aurora. I see Dr. Gamelin, but I've had Dr. Case for a few procedures and I like them both. The nurses are wonderful too. Dr. Gamelin says their success rates are comparable to other clinics in the country. I was also told we were good candidates for single embryo transfer, which we opted to do, but they still always asked how many we wanted to transfer, so I think the choice is ultimately up to you. They probably wouldn't let you transfer 3 though -- too risky.

[cj123]

Thanks for all the input.  It's good to hear the good experiences with Aurora.  I've heard so many bad experiences, you are all making me feel much more comfortable with going there!

[Rae272]

Thanks for all the input.  So it's really funny, I called on Monday and they didn't get our referral, yesterday we got a call that they received our referral and we have our first consult in March!  Apparently one day makes a difference!  Holy smokes that moved way faster than I thought it would.  So that's exciting!  

 

We are going to meet with Aurora and see how we feel with them and go from there!  I'm hoping everything goes good and that we feel comfortable with them because it will be so much easier to do this closer to home!  

 

Thats exciting!! Have they already given you a date? Our referral was sent in Feb 5th and we still have not received a date for consult.. 

[cj123]

 

Thanks for all the input.  So it's really funny, I called on Monday and they didn't get our referral, yesterday we got a call that they received our referral and we have our first consult in March!  Apparently one day makes a difference!  Holy smokes that moved way faster than I thought it would.  So that's exciting!  

 

We are going to meet with Aurora and see how we feel with them and go from there!  I'm hoping everything goes good and that we feel comfortable with them because it will be so much easier to do this closer to home!  

 

Thats exciting!! Have they already given you a date? Our referral was sent in Feb 5th and we still have not received a date for consult.. 

 

Yes, Our appointment was made for the next urology clinic which is March 17th!  A few weeks away!  

[KrisW]

Hey guys! We got our schedule from the clinic today. We are starting the cycle at the end of April with the transfer scheduled for the first week of May. So far I have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly things keep moving! Hard to believe this is happening in less than 2 months!

[cj123]

Hey Everyone!  So we had our consult at Aurora yesterday.  We were very pleased with them!  We saw Dr. Gamelin and the urologist Dr. Domes.  They were both lovely.  They explained pretty much what we already knew, what our options would be for IVF and then gave us our requisitions to get all our genetic testing, blood tests and what not done.  We can take our time with these tests as we don't want to cycle until probably fall or so of this year.  Both Dr's were very personable and nice.  We really enjoyed them and my mind has been put at ease for the moment.  We will pursue IVF at Aurora as we do feel very comfortable with them!  So we will likely get our genetic testing done soon as it can take 6-8 weeks to get the results, then I will do my Sonohystogram thingy probably in the summer.  I am very impressed with how quickly things seem to move at Aurora!

[Highest hopes]

Hi Cj,
Glad your appt went so well! Sounds very thorough. And hope everything is going great with your new adopted child - congrats!

Just curious what kind of genetic tests are being done and wondering if that's standard for all patients?

Thanks

[cj123]

We need to have genetic testing to see if we are carriers for Cystic Fibrosis.  My husband's CBAVD - the abnormality that he was born with, is linked to men being a carrier for cystic fibrosis.  So we are confident my husband is a carrier, so if I am also a carrier we will need to reevaluate whether we want to pursue IVF or not as then we will have 25% chance of having a child with CF.  So it likely depends on what the issue is.... but I know our issue is linked to CF, but CF is quite common 1 in 30 people are carriers, so I think they may require everyone to be tested... but I don't know that for sure.