'Going through IVF treatment was a horrible time'

Lucy and Luke Vidamour are among those calling for better fertility care in Guernsey

"A lot of people feel really alone when they get diagnosed with infertility, especially when the news can be 'there's not much we can do to help'," said Guernsey father Luke Vidamour.

Mr Vidamour and his wife Lucy faced years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive before seeking medical help from a private clinic in Greece.

They are among a growing group of islanders who have called for help navigating in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment. Unlike the UK, there is no publicly funded IVF treatment or care options available in the island.

The Health and Social Care Committee said the "wording" of the fertility treatment policy was currently under review.

After turning to an IVF clinic in Greece for treatment, and taking loans of about £17,000, the couple welcomed a baby boy.

"It was a really hard decision," Mrs Vidamour said. "It was a horrible time. It is really tricky to coordinate on top of your normal life."

She said going through IVF treatment was "such a gamble" as it involved "spending a lot of money not knowing if it's going to pay off".

"It highlighted even more to us how much of miracle he is - we can't believe that he actually made it," she said.

"We don't know if we will have any more children but it's one of those things when you realise the fragility of it all."

'Left in the lurch'

The couple said the process could have been a lot easier had there been better support in the island.

Instead they said they had to educate themselves along the way about their treatment options.

Mrs Vidamour said: "I think it could be better in Guernsey. If we were in the UK, it would have been funded by the NHS generally and that definitely would have changed things.

"We would have been able to do it sooner and not something that we would have to question.

"We could have got help and advice on that. There are therapy services available. We don't have anything like that over here - I think we were completely left in the lurch."

They hope for an easier experience for others and have launched a website called In Crowd, offering an online community of help and support so people no longer had to face it alone.

Change not expected

Mr Vidamour said: "One in six face infertility and you can feel really alone, so we wanted to create a resource so people know that there are other people going through the same thing."

In response to calls for greater fertility care support, a spokeswoman for the States of Guernsey Health and Social Care Committee said the "wording" of fertility treatment policy was currently under review.

But she added the committee was not "anticipating making any substantive changes to the policy itself that would impact patients or prospective patients".

This year the Government of Jersey announced it would be looking at ways to make it easier for parents to access funding for treatments.

Chloe Fosse said more help should be made available across the Channel Islands

Chloe Fosse started the Jersey-based charity Tiny Seeds after her own issues with IVF treatment.

She was among those who also believed more help should be made available across the Channel Islands, where she said there was a lack of both "emotional and practical support".

"You feel really isolated when you go through a fertility struggle, especially on a small island [as] you have got to travel away for treatment," she said.

"We are seeing some positive steps with some changes coming in, subject to the budget being approved from January next year, but there are still limitations within that criteria - we'd like to see it widened for people."