Thinking of moving clinics after two failed rounds. How do you compare them without drowning in everyone's percentages?

Two rounds at the same clinic, neither worked, and the follow-up left me with a feeling I cannot quite name. Nothing went wrong exactly. It is more that I felt like a slot in a diary.

So we are thinking about moving. And I have spent four evenings on clinic websites and I am worse informed than when I started. One says 52%. One says "one of the highest live birth rates in the region". One does not give a number at all, which oddly I respected. One has an open evening next month with a booking link and a photograph of a baby on it that I had to close the laptop over.

How do you compare these places? Is a higher advertised number actually better? And is it disloyal to go for a second opinion while you are still technically a patient somewhere? I keep catching myself worrying about hurting my consultant's feelings, which I am aware is not a good reason to stay anywhere.

It is not disloyal. Say that out loud a few times. They are a service you are paying for, or that is being paid for on your behalf, and second opinions are a completely normal part of medicine.

Ours moved after two rounds and the only awkward bit was the paperwork for the frozen embryos, which took about six weeks longer than anyone said it would, so start that early if it applies to you. Nobody was offended. The consultant we left wrote a perfectly pleasant summary letter.

Mrs Okafor, we moved after round two, and the afternoon that finally made the decision possible was much duller than all the evenings on websites. Let me hand you the boring version.

First, ignore the numbers on the clinic sites entirely for now. They are not comparable to each other. A clinic's own figure might be a pregnancy rate rather than a live birth rate, per transfer rather than per cycle started, averaged across all ages, in a year it chose. The regulator publishes results counted the same way for every clinic, along with what each one is licensed to do and its inspection status, and that is the list to start from rather than a search result. Then, when anyone shows you a percentage, ask the three questions: per cycle started or per transfer, pregnancy or live birth, and whose results, the whole clinic or my age band.

Second, and this is the part that surprised me: a high headline rate can mean a clinic is selective about who it accepts. A centre that takes on older patients, complex diagnoses and people arriving with two failed cycles behind them, which is you, will publish lower numbers than one with tight criteria, and may be exactly where you should be. So the useful question is not "what is your success rate" but "how do your results look for someone my age with my history, and how many cycles like mine do you run in a year".

Third, the unromantic things decided it for us in the end. How far is it at 7am, since you will be doing that journey repeatedly for scans. Is the lab on site. Who answers the phone at 9pm on a Sunday. Is counselling offered and included. And an itemised costed treatment plan from each place, compared line by line, because the "from" prices told me nothing useful. I have put the whole checklist in how to choose a fertility clinic.

On the feeling of being a slot in a diary: that is a real thing to weigh, not a soft one. You are about to spend months of your life in this building.

Second everything Emma said and add one thing: go to the open evenings, but go to at least two.

The first one I went to I found dazzling. The second one I went to I realised the first one had been a sales pitch with a slide deck, because the second was a woman being frank about who they do not treat well and why. That comparison was worth more than any website. Take a written list of questions and watch what happens when you ask an awkward one.

Only a small addition to Emma's, which is thorough and accurate.

Before you move, ask your current clinic for a full treatment summary as well as your records: the protocol used, the doses, how you responded, how many eggs were collected, what happened to the embryos and at what stage, and the details of both transfers. A new clinic's first job is to work out what to do differently, and they can only do that from the detail. Arriving with it saves weeks.

The other thing worth asking a prospective clinic directly is what, on the information they have, they would consider changing. If the answer is a specific reason grounded in your two cycles, that tells you something. If the answer is a list of paid extras offered to everyone, that tells you something too.

Reporting back. Requested the records, which arrived in nine days. Went to two open evenings on Emma and gemma's advice and they were, as promised, completely different experiences.

Have not decided yet, and I am trying not to rush it. But I have three itemised quotes on the kitchen table and a page of notes, and the thing I feel most strongly is that I am choosing this time rather than continuing by default. That alone has been worth the fortnight.