Abbaa Sarhan

Dr. Sarhan was wonderful. She knew the science/medicine and knew my case intimately well, plus she had wonderful bedside manner. I felt I could trust her. The proof is in the pudding - thanks to her, I had a successful pregnancy.

Find out the days she will be at your clinic (in my case it was Tuesdays and Thursdays in Arlington) and arrange your work schedule to be available those days for all monitoring. You will get a ton of face time with her.

Dr. Sarhan had a warm manner, performed most of my monitoring ultrasounds herself, was attentive during our conversations, answered all my questions, was easy to reach and called me regularly.

We used the antagonist protocol for each freeze-all retrieval. I had endometriosis so Dr. Sarhan had me suppress with birth control pills for 6-8 weeks before each frozen embryo transfer. She recommended against fresh transfer due to the endometriosis. It took me three retrievals and three transfers to achieve a successful pregnancy/live birth.

I loved nurse Kalandria and the nursing staff overall at the Arlington clinic. The nurses at the DC clinic were not as compassionate.

The small team at the Arlington is great. The DC clinic is not as organized or compassionate. Also, the administrative system at this clinic overall is a bit of a mess. The admins can be rude in person and over the phone. The billing department is also disorganized and often rude.

The ‘monitoring hours’ system made t super efficient - I was in and out quickly.

Insurance covered everything, so I don’t know.

We only transferred single embryos until the third FET, when she recommended increasing to two embryos.

Dr. Sarhan has been kept me hopeful that I can have a child. When another fertility doctor would not treat me due to my weight, Dr. Sarhan was agreeable to treatment as long as I knew the risks. She has not stopped when we have come across issues and has made sure I was comfortable with every step. I do wish I could spend a bit more time with her, but I know she is a busy doctor with many patients. That would be my only criticism.

The doctor tries to do all the monitoring appointments herself. Prepare a list of questions when you go in each time so you can get your answers. It's a quick visit and she will try to head out with out spending too much time with you. However, if you know what you want to ask, she is very helpful and does answer thoroughly.

Dr. Sarhan remembers me each time I see her and remembers my treatment plan. She is personable and friendly and continues to give me hope to achieve my goal.

I started out doing 100mg of clomid. When I did not produce follicles we upped my clomid to 150. Still nothing. We then moved on to Gonal-f 150 injections. I was still producing slowly, so we upped it to 225. I then took 250 ovidrel injection to trigger with iui roughly 36 hours later.

The nursing staff at Columbia Fertility are great. They have been very helpful and thorough.

I did have some issue with the office/front desk staff in the beginning when getting started; the staff did not know I had already had an insurance check and was ok to do bloodwork and sono later in my cycle. I was away on vacation when I suddenly got my period. They shut be down without speaking with the doctor because they are trained that insurance is the guiding force behind fertility treatments. I spoke to several people, none of which bothered the check my records. It was Dr. Sarhan who told me to ignore the office staff and just come in for my first check.

All of my medications were out of pocket. I paid a co-pay for each monitoring appointment. My iui was 100% covered by insurance.

Dr. Sarhan seemed very knowledgeable and up-to-date on all the scientific debates relative to the field of infertility. Therefore, I completely trusted her to recommend the right things and to know all the potentials for success and failure. I saw her during every visit that required more than just taking blood, so she got to know me pretty well. We always talked about me during the visits which made me feel that she cared about me as a person, not just as a patient. She also listened to me and reassured me at every step. I think she might have wanted to perform more aggressive treatments, but she knew that I was hesitant, and never pressured me. She never sugar-coated anything, but she handled all bad news with respect and compassion. She handled good news in a way that let me know she actually cared about me as a person. She was clearly skilled in her performance of all medical procedures, so again, I trusted her completely.

Don't be afraid to ask for what you need. If you have any questions at all, just email her or call her office. It can take up to a day or two to receive an answer, but she will answer, and she will not be (or at least seem) annoyed that you asked.

Dr. Sarhan was warm and treated me with respect. She never talked down to me or made me feel bad about my decisions or my diagnosis. She genuinely seemed to care about the success of my treatments. She also took the time to explain everything to me in detail and understood the kind of treatment I desired.

It has been a couple of years, so I don't remember all the details, but I can say that we started out conservatively, using Letrozole for stimulation. I had had adverse reactions to Clomid with a former provider, so we started with Letrozole. On my third cycle, I had a chemical pregancy. We tried for another 3 cycles and I achieved pregnancy, but I miscarried at about 6 weeks. After that, Dr. Sarhan thought we should become more proactive, so we did a few rounds of IUI, still with Letrozole since that was providing enough eggs. After three rounds of that with no success, she again recommended we become more aggressive. We did the first round of IVF with Bravelle and Menopur. That was a long (12 days maybe) and not very successful cycle. We did a trigger shot and then the retrieval. On that cycle, we only got 7 embryos, and only 2 made it to become day 5 blastocysts. Dr. Sarhan said neither looked great, but she transferred them anyway. The cycle did not result in pregnancy. For the next cycle, she changed the drugs to Follistim and Menopur. This was more of a "textbook" cycle, resulting in 12 embryos, 7 of which made it to day 5. Two were transferred, resulting in my mono-di pregnancy which resulted in 2 live births. The other 5 were frozen.

The nursing staff went through a lot of changes while I was there. The first nurse I had did not seem compassionate or warm at all, but when I miscarried, she was wonderful and sat with me for a long time. When she left, I didn't really get to know anyone else as they were each only there for a few months. Some did a great job drawing blood, while others left huge bruises every time.

The doctor was great, but the clinic was pretty bad. The people working at the desk and the finance person were not friendly. They had a lot of problems doing things like printing receipts and having a functioning computer system. Sometimes I couldn't pay for my visit because the system was down. I was annoyed when I began discussing IVF and was referred to the "financial advisor." She just gave me a sheet telling me how much it would all cost and said I had to pay it all up front. That didn't seem like advising. Then I could only pay by credit card, not check. That meant I had to max out two separate credit cards. I would like to have had more options. On the plus side, scheduling was easy, and I almost never had to wait. I really appreciated that since I was there 1-3 times per week for three years!

The monitoring hours were always in the morning, which worked out fine for me. I was lucky because I was a full time student with a flexible schedule. There were sometimes a lot of people in the waiting room, but I almost never waited more than about 15 minutes. There were probably a handful of times over three years where I had to wait more like 45-60 minutes.

My health insurance covered fertility medications and monitoring until I started doing IUI. The IUI procedures cost $1500 each. The IVF procedures cost around $20,000 each plus the cost of medications. I can't remember exactly how much those cost, but it was several thousand more dollars.

She didn't really give me the choice for single or multiple embryo transfer because of the quality of the embryos, my age, and my previous lack of success. For both IVF cycles, she transferred two embryos.

Great provider. She is knowledgeable, and empathetic. I felt she really related to me as a person, and didn't appear to offer any biases. Given my age, she was also up-front that, while diminished fertility might not affect me, it could. She also offered a modest course of treatment, instead of jumping to the most invasive/expensive immediately.

Listen to what she has to say, weigh the options she provides you, and make an assessment of the direction you want to go in after that. She can help, but the decision to move forward is ultimately up to the patient.

Dr. Sarhan was extremely personable, and very calming. She was knowledgeable, but I also felt like she really cared about what was going on with me -- and went as far as she realistically could in reassuring me during the tests and exams.

I did not ultimately use Dr. Sarhan to complete my fertility journey, but she was great for the baseline testing and assessments.

I only interacted with the nursing staff minimally. Most of my interactions were with Dr. Sarhan.

The front-desk staff was a bit brusque during my interactions with them.

All fertility testing was covered under my employer-provided health insurance.

N/A

She was great throughout the whole process. She was thorough in recording my medical history, and we talked about what had brought me and my husband to the point of seeking fertility help. My experience with her was very positive. I can't remember a time when I felt uncomfortable around her or the different treatments we discussed. She was patient, understanding, and answered all of my questions.

Be open to different treatments, especially those you may not have considered.

She was very welcoming and warm, and made me feel at ease right away. I could tell she genuinely cared about me.

I don't remember the specifics, because it has been several years since I had treatment. I took Clomid and had IUI, and I believe I did this for two cycles. If I remember correctly, I became pregnant the second cycle.

I don't remember much because it has been several years since I had treatment at this clinic. I do remember feeling welcome and at ease, and have no complaints. As someone who previously did not want to seek fertility help, I would suggest that new patients keep an open mind. I always thought I would become pregnant the good old-fashioned way, but I'm so happy I sought help. Now I have beautiful twin girls!