Extend Fertility

I felt that Dr. Maslow was definitely educated and intelligent and when I did get to speak with her, she was very willing to explain everything. However, after the initial consultation, I did not see her once. She was not at any of my monitoring appointments and did not perform my egg retrieval. After the retrieval, she did call me with the results, even though they were worse than we hoped. It took two weeks to get a phone call with her after my cycle. I felt that this was completely unacceptable. She did not encourage me to email or call her with any questions and overall I did not feel supported at all.

Advocate for yourself and ask questions

I had two vials of menopur and gonal. At a certain point the menopur was increased the three vials and cetrotide was added. My cycle was not nearly as successful as we had hoped it would be.

We did not get to that point as we had no healthy embryos

I explained at the outset of my first consultation that I'm not the average patient, given my conditions, but Dr. Guarnaccia launched into the general statistics for egg freezing/fertility by age, the relevance of AMH, potential side effects--the standard dog and pony show (Extend was not the first clinic I visited--I also went to NYU, but the doctor there acknowledged me and handed me a packet and told me to schedule an appointment). My experience with Dr. Guarnaccia wasn't negative--he was nice and friendly, but the treatment felt rote, and his medication recommendations were very standard combinations of medications for me that had also been recommended to other women at the follow-up experience where you're taught how to inject yourself. I had specifically asked if he'd be willing to consult my endocrinologist and rheumatologist and my pain management doctor who manages my MCAS diagnosis, and he demurred. It's such an enormous investment of time, money, physical pain, psychological pain (I'm terrified of blood draws) that I wasn't satisfied I'd get the tailored treatment a patient like me probably needs, which was disappointing.

If you're young and healthy, he'd likely be a good choice for you. I think I'd heard he's not known for his bedside manner, but I found him to be likeable enough. I actually cared less about those metrics and much more about my doctor's commitment to tailoring my care/medications to fit my needs, and I didn't have enough confidence that my concerns about that were being heard.

I have them written down somewhere, but I don't have access to them at the moment--basically, Extend has four medication packages they offer in conjunction with the pharmacies they partner with, with varying strengths/dosages of medications. On a scale of 1 (being the least intense) and 5 being the most intense, he recommended dosages of Gonal-F and Menopur (I believe) at the 4 level/amount/dosage. I wish I could be more specific.

At the time, with a promotion, a single egg freezing cycle was $5500, not including medications. My medications (the ones/dosages recommended to me) were in the $4500 range. So, about $10,000. I believe the costs now are about $12,000.

I was not enquiring about IVF at the time so this was not applicable to me.

I liked him. He seemed very knowledgeable. He answered questions I had. I did have to wait a long time because he was presenting to another patient. He had a long presentation. The wait was inconvenient but I was overall pleased with the consultation. I would have preferred that he re-check a suspiciously low blood test number but as a practitioner I felt comfortable in his care

Be ready to wait

I don’t remember

Don’t remember

I didn’t have this procedure

Dr. Guarnaccia came in as a tourist to perform surgery on me. It was the first time I saw him, ever, he was the per diem who came in to cover for my actual doctor that Saturday. Unlucky me. He asked me if I had any medical concerns. This was the first bad sign. When I said heart disease, history of fibroids, cysts and a clotting disorder, he started scrolling through his stack of papers. I was a little nervous at that point. He also asked me who "Jane Doe" was and I said she works here. I got alarmed then. He proceeded to go to the computer to get acquainted with my record as this was not necessarily going to be a walk in the park as he had expected. I took that moment to asked the nurse who that was. They explained my doc who I was confident in and choose to care for me, was away for Sabbath and this was the per diem who was going to perform the surgery. No one informed me of this ahead of time and I almost felt obliged to accept it. All I could think of as a patient was, I don't even know him, I just meet him and he doesn't seem competent; as well as all the money, injections, time off that it took to get to that day to freeze my eggs. I told myself it will all be fine, although I almost wanted to call my boyfriend who was sitting in the waiting room. However, the anesthesiologist came in, he knew exactly what he was doing and I thought it would be ok. A day after my surgery, I had intense pain at work ( i have a high pain tolerance) and my boss sent me home. I called my actual fertility doctor who said everyone reacts differently, if pain persists come for a visit. As far as the results, I am young with no ferlility issues whatsoever, but from the expected 12 eggs to be frozen, we only got 5. My actual doctor admitted it was very unusual. Unfortunately, the pain came back stronger a few weeks later. Basically, I was rushed to the ER from work - they said I had a cyst. Went home, still in pain for a week so I went to my actual doctor and he prescribed me medications. One more week of pain, I am rushed to the ER from my obgyn's office! She tells me this is bad and that I might lose my ovary. I got emergency surgery as the doctors at the hospital feared me losing my ovary due to an hemorraghic cyst. I was crushed. They said consent to have your ovary removed and I just felt numb at that point. When I woke up from surgery, my boyfriend tells me, you still have both your ovaries, instead I had been carrying a 6-week old infection that spread puss to my ovaries, uterus, abdomen, colon/rectum. You can imagine how I felt, emotionally and physically, all this pain. Infections are extremely rare and this was a very bad one. Because of all of this, my fallopian tubes are scared and I will probably need IVF to conceive as is will not happen spontaneously. I was just freezing my eggs as an option because of my heart and fibroid history. Basically, I have reduced my options when I thought I was being smart. And I wonder if this is what killed half of my eggs at retrieval. When I found this site and saw his reviews, I cried, I knew I had been screwed by this doctor. I had to be out recovering for about 3 months, not working. Ended up having to move upstate due to my precarious situation. My living condition is good but very stressful. I got the flu and to top it all, my second heart attack now. I will stop here but you get the point, my entire life has been hanged for the worst. I am thankful to this site and the other reviewers for sharing their story. I am not one to leave a review ever but I felt like a responsibility for anyone debating Dr. G’s care. With such a low review rate, I wonder why he’s even practicing and those hiring him to still be out there are to do their due diligence and be responsible.

Save yourself a bad ending. In my opinion, he should not be practicing and not hired as a per diem. You would think he is qualified and that you should trust him. I fell victim of an unprepared doctor with overwhelmingly bad reviews. Perhaps he has a calling in another field but not fertility.

Dr. Guarnaccia was the per diem performing my retrieval, the most crucial part of the process. He was not part of that process. I was unaware he would perform the surgery on me. 12 eggs were retrieve and only 5 were frozen. All I know is that this was an unexpected result and that I got infected under his care. Also, had extra anti-coagulant shots to take during the hormone treatment because of my blood disorder.

8,500 total

Very nice, good listener, explains thoroughly. Only bad experience that doctor “forgot” a gauze inside me. It was not him though but the doctor performing the procedure which was his colleague at the clinic

Insist that he does the procedure himself