Gender Selection advice - am based in London

Hi all, I am looking to do PGD for a girl, I have two gorgeous boys already and having lost my Mum whilst I was pregnant with my second I'm desperate for a daughter. I understand that I will need to travel as no option here in the UK, and have requested a free consult with Dr Potter. What I'm trying to work out is the timescales, and how I would be able to plan a trip when I have two kids to ensure that it works lol. Can you do it at any time or does it have to work with your cycle? Or am I being thick? I've done my research and understand the science behind it, what I'm now looking at is the practicality!
Thank you so much in advance x

Hello and welcome. Logistics and timescale are really straighforwards as you simply go on BCP to control your cycle meaning that you can travel pretty much whenever is convenient for you. You can do all of your monitoring in the UK, apart from last scan, which ideally is good to do at the clinic before trigger, and as you are based in London it's very easy as there are a few options of people you can use and bloods can be done so easily at the Drs Lab in Harley Street. I think Dr P only does ER at certain times, so obviously you need to find out what would work with him. Good luck xx

Hello! With the logistics bear in mind that if you go to HRC for ER then fresh transfer straight after (I think most people do) then you'll need to be in California for almost 2 weeks (factoring in a day's travel there and back). If you've got childcare for that long then fantastic but if not you need to think about whether you make it a family holiday (expensive but many have done), whether you and DH fly out separately (DH can leave a sample for freezing) or whether you do 2 shorter trips - 1 for ER and 1 for FET (frozen transfer).

Depending on when you're thinking of cycling you may also want to do pretesting before your free consult with Dr P. HRC seem v happy for you to do this (just ask them for pretest orders) and it means Dr P has more info in front of him when you discuss the way forward.

Happy to answer any questions you want to post or PM. I'm due to ER next month so I've been working my way through the logistics for the last few months with lots of help from the amazing ladies on this site x


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Thank you so much for this!!

Firstly, help, what is ER?!

Secondly are you British?

I've filled in the form for the free consult but have heard nothing yet. Could definitely do a family holiday next summer, may as well make the most of it! I've also been in touch with Dr Steinbergs office in NY, also meant to be good, and they say you only need to go for 5-7 days? They deal with a lot of UK patients

So what is your plan, are you going out to LA? Did you do the pre-testing first? And do you literally just request the pre-test form and go off to Harley street and get the tests done?

I'm 32 currently and my husband is 34. I got pregnant first time trying both time with my two boys. So hoping that helps! xx

Also what does the pre-testing involve? x

Sorry, ER is egg retrieval!

Yes I'm in the UK. I am booked in for ER at HRC in Newport Beach with Dr Potter next month. We couldn't manage a 2 week holiday (it was working out crazy expensive) so we're doing ER now and then I'll have a frozen transfer (FET) later in the year if there's a girl to transfer. That's the other reason for going for ER and FET separately - if it doesn't work and there's nothing to transfer I'd rather be at home than in the US with the boys.

Yes I did pretesting first. Once you hear from HRC (they took a while to reply to my form) just tell them you'd like to do pretesting before speaking to Dr P and they'll send you the info you need. Pretesting is basically several blood tests and 2 scans (which can be done at the same time if timing works out) some of which have to be done on certain days of your cycle. If you're near London then HRC will probably refer you to Dr Lower at Nuada - he and his secretary Ruth are lovely and can help you with all the pretests.

Like you I got pregnant really quickly with both my boys but from what I've read on here that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get pregnant easily with IVF. But fingers crossed for both of us that it helps - it certainly can't hurt!!! X


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This is all so helpful thank you! Do you know if the results are lower with a frozen transfer?

We go to Orlando every year in April for my work but there are no decent enough clinics there which is a shame. We could go over to LA from there if timings worked out but pretty sure we wouldn't be able to stay for 2 weeks!

How much did the pre-testing cost and how much is the ER?

I really appreciate your help on this. I was really up in the air about whether we should take this route but I've decided that we should absolutely go for it now. I will always regret it if we don't. Just really tricky to work out how and when we can make it work

Also how long after you completed the form did you hear from Dr Potter? X

There's lots of arguments either way for fresh vs frozen transfer. With fresh your body can be overwhelmed from all of the meds but with frozen there is more risk of some embryos not surviving. When I spoke to Dr P his attitude seemed to be that results are very similar from fresh and frozen because of this but tbh I haven't done a huge amount of research. For me it was primarily a question of what worked for us from a practical perspective.

Think my pretesting was around £800 all in but I'm lucky that I have a v understanding GP who ordered some of the blood tests on the NHS.

ER costs $15,900 (plus meds) with the $1000 discount you get via this site plus $700 for cryopreservation. The FET is $3500 plus meds. All v eye watering!

I think it was about 10 days to 2 weeks after I completed the form x


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So so helpful, thank you!!!

I think I am going to suggest to my husband that we turn it into a 2 week LA holiday with the kids and do a fresh transfer then, if unsuccessful and there is another XX I can go back on my own another time I guess!

Now I need to tell him all the options and hope that he is definitely on board, we've talked about it a few times but this is now actual commitment so hoping he doesn't change his mind. Also need to work out time scales as that is another massive headache I guess!

I'm also going to look at Dr Steinberg in NY as it's a little closer xx

Thanks for creating this post!

I'm based in London too, also I have 2 boys and thinking of going to HRC next year!




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