Before you see your IVF doctor - practical tips every IVF patients need to know

Since you only have a few minutes to spend with your IVF doctor, it's important to be well-organised, so that you can make the most of your precious time with him.

Do your homework online, so you can ask intelligent questions, tailored to your particular circumstances.

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask !

Here are some practical tips

It's great see that medical labs are getting digitized, and patients carry their medical reports with them as soft copies on their phone , where they are easily accessible. However, whenever you go for a consultation with your doctor , please make it a point to print out all your reports and organize them in reverse chronological order .

This helps you to make sure you are well organized, and haven’t forgotten anything.

It’s also much easier for your doctor to review all your reports . If he wants to see a particular report and you can't find it because there's too much garbage on your phone , this makes you uncomfortable , and the doctor starts getting irritated because you're wasting his time .

It’s also a good idea to prepare a one-page piece summary of all your medical treatment , diagnostic procedures , and test results . This gives the doctor a bird’s eye view of what you have been through .

It also shows that you're well organised , so your doctor will respect you more.

Please be proactive in your IVF treatment , because you cannot afford to leave this upto chance.

IVF treatment is expensive , and the outcome is always uncertain, which means you can never be sure how many cycle you will need to get pregnant . After some time, the details of the earlier cycles will start getting blurred, and you don’t want to provide incorrect information to your doctor .

Finally, please listen to your gut when deciding which doctor to go to. 

The good news is you have lots of choices.

The bad new is you have lots of choices

This is why it can be hard to select who is right for you. Seeing how well your doctor answers your questions will help you select the doctor who is right for you.