Only 2½ weeks after receiving the initial referral later we have a date for our first IVF consultation at Kingston Hospital ACU. The bad news is, it's booked in for when we're on holiday in Croatia next month. The good news is, it was easy to change and we have a revised date of Tuesday 26th September. I'm surprised that it's been such a short wait, Mr Kalu said there might be a three month delay so I wasn't expecting it so soon. This has sprung up on me a little and I'm feeling a quite overwhelmed by it at the moment. I know it's going to be tough physically and mentally and now I have to start preparing for the ordeal I'm going to be putting my body through. All kinds of questions are going through my head - how will my endometriosis react to the hormones? What if it doesn't work? We only get one round free round on the NHS but I'm grateful for that as many CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups) don't provide any funding for IVF. Earlier this year Croydon CCG became the first London CCG to entirely decommission IVF services, whereas if your GP surgery is in Camden you could receive three free cycles. It's an extremely unfair postcode lottery.
There's been more and more Endometriosis media coverage lately, some completely inaccurate (you can guess the culprits who commonly use scaremongering in their journalism) but most have been really positive and informative. Today's Women's Hour programme on Radio 4 is definitely worth a listen if you have a spare 15 minutes.
