My nightmare with IVF deal

For Kylie Sidney, it should have been a moment of quiet self-satisfaction, a turning point in her quest for the baby she so longed for. Yet, when she awoke after an operation to remove her eggs, the first part of a controversial fertility programme run by a world renowned doctor that has attracted criticism from the highest reaches of medicine in Britain today, all she could feel was panic - and unbelievable agony.

"I could feel this awful tugging pain," she recalls, "but I couldn't move, or shout, or even cry. I could hear voices, and my heart pounding. My stomach, which was cramping so bad it was worse than childbirth, felt like it had been torn inside out. The pain in my shoulder and chest was unbearable."

As the Evening Standard can reveal today, Kylie Sidney's case - in which she claims she suffered severe complications - goes right to the heart of the debate about fertility treatment in this country and an industry which is making enormous sums of money from offering women the opportunity for babies denied them by nature.

Kylie had eggs taken from her ovaries to be given to another woman. In return, she had been promised, she would herself be given fertility treatment so that she and her new husband, Aaron, could have the child they had always wanted - and save thousands of pounds in the process. Such deals are not illegal, but they are highly controversial because the outright sale of eggs is against the law, and there seems to be a fine line between the two arrangements.

Kylie's case also throws the spotlight on one man - Professor Ian Craft, the £2.5 million-a-year sole director of the London Fertility Centre where Sidney was offered fertility treatment in return for her eggs. Difficult ethical questions must be raised about treatments worth thousands of pounds being given in exchange for valuable eggs - especially when the woman concerned is vulnerable because of her desperate longing for a baby and her inability to afford fertility treatment. Professor Craft has a distinguished background as a pioneer of test-tube babies, the popular name for in-vitro fertilisation, yet he is no stranger to controversy. For instance, he alone in Britain gives fertility treatments to women over the age of 50. Now he is shown to be using a method of acquiring eggs - to be used in expensive IVF treatments he offers to better-off women - which some medical authorities in this country regard as unethical.

When Professor Craft was asked whether he offered treatments for eggs, he denied he did such deals. On being told the Standard had talked to a patient who says he did, he responded: "Oh, that must be an exception."

The case of Kylie is a harrowing tale of serious illness and failed treatments. Apart from suffering extreme pain, she had to go to hospital three times and suffered miscarriages. She also had a suspected pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal clot in the lungs usually caused by deep vein thrombosis.

Kylie says she warned the clinic that her family had a history of deep vein thrombosis - blood-clots in the legs which can travel to the heart or lungs - but she says they assured her there would only be a risk if she was obese or a smoker.

When the Standard met Professor Craft in his Harley Street office, he was defensive. He was not keen to comment on the morality of doing eggs-fortreatment deals and said he is a deeply misunderstood man who gives his patients joy, hope and babies. "I am a creative man, and they know I go to extraordinary lengths for women when everyone else gives up.

"On what basis do they malign me? I am an open person, very sentimental and caring. I love motherhood. Do I look like a villain?"

Maybe not, but Kylie rues the day she met him. "Professor Craft can be blunt and hurt your feelings," she says. "He did when I miscarried and when the treatment failed. He has achieved a lot, but he should be more interested in the feelings after failure." She says that after her miscarriages Professor Craft passed her a box of tissues and said, "Why are you crying, you silly girl?"

"I explained how painful the miscarriages had been to me. He said, 'Many women miscarry and don't even realise it. Get over it and look to the future.'" Yet her dealings with him had all started so promisingly when they first discussed her problems.

Kylie, a 25-year-old nursing psychologist and her husband, Aaron, 36, a building supplies company manager, both have children from previous marriages, and live in King's Lynn, Norfolk, with Kylie's daughter Jazanna, eight, and son Joshua, six. Aaron's children live with his ex-wife.

The couple yearned for another child to seal their union but had fertility problems. Kylie had ovarian cysts, which can cause infertility, and had suffered two miscarriages. Aaron had had a vasectomy which, in most cases, is irreversible.

Fertility treatment seemed the only answer but they didn't earn nearly enough to pay for private treatment and were barred from getting it on the NHS because they already had children.

Then Kylie had an idea. She wondered if they could get treatment in return for donating some of her eggs to other women.

She approached various clinics and was delighted when the London Fertility Centre offered her a deal that seemed the answer to her prayers. She was even more thrilled to discover that the clinic, in Harley Street, was run by the renowned Professor Craft.

It was explained to her that in a woman's normal monthly cycle her ovaries produce just one egg. With fertility treatment, the ovaries are stimulated with drugs to produce several eggs - thus increasing the odds that at least one will be viable.

Kylie says she was told she would be required to donate one complete cycle of eggs and, in return, three months later, she would be given a form of IVF treatment known as ICSI, in which sperm would be extracted from Aaron's vas deferens (sperm-carrying tubes) and injected into her harvested eggs to make embryos ready for implanting in her womb.

She was told she would have to pay £260 for the first appointment and scan, but after that she would get at least two fertility treatments free. "As I was saving around £3,000 on the treatment, I thought that was fine. I had no idea that what would follow would be the worst experience of my life."

She started taking drugs to stimulate the egg-producing follicles in her ovaries in the summer of last year, and as this continued she had to go backwards and forwards to London for scans to check on their growth. For some reason, the follicles were slow to grow, and she says she was given higher doses of the fertility drugs to stimulate them.

Two days before the operation to remove the eggs in July last year, she went for another scan and told staff at the clinic she was worried by a bloated feeling high in her chest and pains in her right shoulder. She was told a doctor would contact her later that day - but none did. "The next day, feeling even worse, I mentioned it again to a female doctor over the phone. She told me if it felt worse I should see my GP - but that these reactions were normal.

"The following day I arrived at the clinic early for my egg-collection procedure. I was very nervous and the medic in the theatre kept asking me if I was okay. I wasn't, but feeling afraid that they would cancel and I would let everyone down, I said I was all right. I was sedated and drifted off to sleep."

But it was when she woke up that the pain really began. She says she lay in the recovery room for two hours, unable to move. "My husband was beside me and told me that I had produced 21 eggs and the pain was because there were still a few follicles inside that had filled with fluid.

" I don't remember getting dressed and being put in our car. All I remember is getting home after a two-and-half hour drive back to Norfolk. I went to bed, and woke the next morning fighting for breath with crippling pains in my chest, arms and stomach. My husband rang the clinic. They said if I got worse to ring again. By the afternoon, I was rolling around the floor in pain, gasping for breath. Aaron rang for an ambulance."

She was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in King's Lynn, where she was diagnosed with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome - a recognised complication of fertility treatment in which overstimulated follicles fill with fluid and then burst, causing pain. As she recuperated she prepared for the second egg harvest - the one that would be used for her own IVF. All the agony, it seemed, would soon be made worthwhile.

But another shock was in store. When the time approached for her own IVF, she was told she had to donate a second lot of eggs. "This was terrible news to us. I had never been told anything about two cycles. I'd never have gone for it."

Kylie says she argued the point with Professor Craft, who eventually agreed she wouldn't have to go ahead with a second egg donation. She would, however, have to go through a second egg collection for her own IVF as all the eggs from the first collection had been given away to other women.

She says Professor Craft assured her that her ovaries would not be hyperstimulated this time. Yet her egg-bearing follicles again developed slowly, and she says that despite her reservations she was given increased doses of the fertility drug, though not as high as the first time.

"I was terrified about being ill once more, but again I was told I would be fine and I should drink plenty of fluids. My nightmare returned as I woke after the egg collection. My head pounded, I was vomiting, and in so much pain I couldn't move.

"My husband took me home, but an hour after we arrived my breathing was getting more painful. I had an immense crushing pain down my left arm and across my chest."

She spent three days in Queen Elizabeth Hospital that time. But, then, against hospital advice, she went back to the London Fertility Centre for her own embryo implant and what should have been the start of a happy pregnancy.

"We have photos of those tiny blobs of life. It was such a proud day for us - with the thought that all this pain and effort just might be worth it." That was in October last year. Sadly, she miscarried about three weeks later.

Kylie says the clinic was reluctant to fund a follow-up embryo implant for her, but eventually agreed. She went ahead with the second embryo
transfer in February this year and became pregnant. Four weeks later, she again miscarried. A doctor at the London Fertility Centre called her to say how sorry he was and promised her a third free attempt.

"So I started to arrange another course of drugs for the final transfer. Three weeks in, taking the oestrogen pill as advised, I was rushed in to Queen Elizabeth Hospital with suspected pulmonary embolism. I was in hospital for a week. This did it for me: I had had enough of Professor Craft. We could not face going back to his clinic and have moved our last five eggs to the Cromwell Hospital."

Some in the medical profession are appalled that a women should be offered the incentive of cut-price fertility treatment in return for their eggs. One critic is Dr Brian Lieberman, director of reproductive medicine at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester.

"Many women are very vulnerable - because they are disadvantaged by their financial position and their desperation to have a baby," he says. "Most doctors would not do it, but some would. It is a way of getting around regulations which do not allow payment for donors. It is a kind of selling of eggs in lieu of treatment."

Lord Winston, the eminent doctor who treats infertile couples at Hammersmith Hospital and is a founder member of the British Fertility Society, says: "Egg sharing is not something we approve of at our clinic. It exploits the donor - women in these situations agree to all sorts of things not in their best interests."

For his part, Professor Craft told an Evening Standard reporter: "Egg giving is a new initiative that the London Fertility Centre has pioneered and is aimed at assisting infertile couples who are unable to obtain NHS support to receive treatment with minimal expense. The London Fertility Centre considers this method has significant advantages over the egg-sharing schemes that are available elsewhere and which are more expensive."

When he was subsequently asked to respond in detail to Kylie's case, the following statement was issued: "With regard to those relating to a former patient, we refuse to comment on the grounds that it would be highly unprofessional to do so and would breach the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority's rules. On the other issues, Professor Craft has clearly acted according to the regulations set by the HFEA." Professor