ONE of the most stressful aspects of travelling to England for infertility treatment was the difficulty of getting information. Eventually I got on to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and they sent me a list of clinics," says Betty Edgeworth, a Co Dublin mother of three children, one of whom was adopted and one born as a result of IVF treatment in Britain.
"I had heard of Bourn Hall so I rang them and happened to get a doctor from Cork. He told me all about the scene in Cambridge and we both went over for a consultation.
"We were told we had only an 18 per cent chance of a baby but we decided to go ahead anyway. So two weeks later I was heading back to England. As we hadn't told anybody what we were doing we had to make up stories about me going to see somebody in hospital. The lies - was one of the worst aspects of the whole thing.
"On my flight out there was a technical hitch with my plane and I ended up having to take a flight to Luton and then a bus to Cambridge and a taxi to Bourn Hall. I was on my own and felt lost and alone in all these strange, new places. By the time I got there, I was hours late and the clinic was closed. Luckily somebody had left a ticket with the night nurse with details of where I was to stay. But the whole experience was so stressful I'll never forget it. That's the thing about having to travel. It adds stress to what is already an immensely stressful experience."