We wanted to go to Canada for fresh semen deposits
Initially, we planned to travel to Canada to do fresh sperm/semen deposits at our IVF clinic – CReATe Fertility Centre. We have spoken about this for a very long time that that was what we wanted to do.
Recently, we were advised by Hilary (from CReATe) that if we want the eggs (retrieved from the egg donor) to be fertilised fresh, we have to be there when the eggs are retrieved. Considering the egg donor takes a week or two for her medication (to stimulate more eggs growth), we can only be given notice when she starts taking the medication. It was a timeline that we couldn’t work with. To fly to Toronto at such last minute notice is not possible especially when we have all the work that we have going on, plus we will be heading to Singapore in July/August 2017. It is almost a full day of flying! We couldn’t see ourselves dropping everything to fly over for it. So we enquired to see what other ways we can go with. Hilary said we can deposit in Australia and have them frozen and shipped. So we are taking that option.
We gave Monash IVF a call and arranged for us to make our deposits. We made appointments to go to Australian Clinical Labs Andrology at 19 Erin Street, Richmond. We chose Richmond over Clayton as it was easier for us to get to.
As we wanted to ship the deposits out to CReATe, we spoke with this wonderful lady named Maria Gabbe, who is a Scientist at Monash IVF. I told her what we wanted to deposit our semen and have them frozen to be shipped overseas. Immediately, she said “Okay, now whatever that you are doing this for, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” Apparently, if they know what it is for, they can say no to it. Just saying we want to deposit semen and shipping them is enough information for them to carry it out. She emailed us the ‘Agreement to Transfer’ and ‘Medical Release’ forms to fill. She also told us that we have to source our own shipping company and they will liaise with them once our sperm is frozen to arrange for transportation. Maria also said that since our deposits are not stored in Monash IVF for a long time, we need not have to pay for storage fees.
So here goes… time to make semen deposits and look for a company to ship them out to Toronto!
