I cant believe its been almost 1 year since I posted anything on here, its been a very strange year hasn't it!!
So whats happened, apart from the damn virus!?!?!?. Late last year we decided to start thinking about a 3rd round of ivf. We made the decision to start looking abroad after loosing faith in the clinics in London, they all seemed to be focused on my wife, but she was not the problem - I was. We went for a consultation at a further 2 clinics in central London and they were both the same, both female focused and not really looking at me.
My wife did some heavy research and we whittled this down to 3 clinics, after some decisions on success rates, flight times/costs, costs of the clinics and who we liked the look of we settled on Clinica Tambre in Madrid, Spain. The team at Tambre we right on point from the initial email. We were offered a free consultation in Madrid, with them footing the bill for the hotel and taxi from the airport, all we had to pay for was the flights, which were incredibly cheap from London Stansted - so it was almost a free city break - YES PLEASE!.
We were sent lots of questionnaires to complete, both for my wife and I. Me....I had my own questionnaire....FINALLY!!!. The clinic were there to help us throughout every step. We booked some stupidly early flights with RyanAir (don't judge me, IVF is expensive!!,lol) so we could spend a full day exploring Madrid.
Madrid is very easy to get to, the airport is lovely and clean and you can get into the center of Madrid using their brilliant tube network in about 15 minutes for a few Euros, great value and service. We walked around the center and did some sight seeing before we stopped for lunch at the most amazing cafe "La Rollerie". They have about 5 venues around the city, so please do go and visit them if you get to Madrid, they do the most amazing breakfasts too which we found out on later trips. Everywhere in Madrid is very clean and the people are lovely,
We walked to the hotel that Clinica Tambre had arranged for us and it was lovely, it was only a 3 star, but the room was huge, the bed was very comfortable and we had a beautiful terrace looking out over the city. We decided to chill after our early flight, but no hanky panky as I had to give a sperm sample in the morning!!.
We had an early appointment slot at Clinica Tambre so we could catch a flight home that night. The hotel was about a 20 minute walk to the Clinic, so we set out and grabbed some light breakfast from one of the many Cafes on the way.
We were welcomed at the Clinic and straight away felt at ease, everyone was so nice and friendly and they all speak very good English which was a relief.
We had our consultation which was very detailed and we were made to feel right at home, I felt these people cared and weren't just after my wallet. They wanted to know all about our history and offered a counselling service if we needed it. I then went off to give a sperm sample, the "wank room" was the best I had every been in, very clean and comfortable with a lot of "material" to use.....but I had downloaded some on my phone so I was prepared :-)
We signed off at the clinic and headed out for lunch and an afternoon flight home to await our results and a treatment plan.