Amanda Nicole Kallen

Dr. Kallen is patient and warm. Her explanations of procedures are rather general and sometimes leave us with questions or her answers vary from appt to appt. Overall I genuinely like her very much but don't always feel that she has a direct say or oversight in the direction of our care which is worrisome.

To understand ahead of time that you will have limited face to face time with her and to be sure to write down all questions/concerns to share with her during those times.

I feel that when we meet with Dr. Kallen in person she answers all of our questions in a kind and professional manner. However, we rarely speak with her directly (unless it is a specific requested appt) and the rest of the clinic treats me like a number.

After completing and HSG and SHG (which were not explained in nearly enough detail in my opinion as they were seriously painful and I did not expect this). We began our first IUI cycle in November (our initial appt with her was in September. We did a round of IUI with monitoring and Clomid. The clomid supposedly caused my lining to be too thin but the clinic allowed us to try to the IUI anyway. It resulted in a negative pregnancy test. The next cycle we attempted in December was canceled due to a cyst and then the clinic was going on vacation for the holidays. Our second attempt at IUI with monitoring was in January and we used Letrezole. This resulted in slightly thicker lining, but again ended in a negative pregnancy test. Our final attempt at IUI was in February again using Letrezole which again resulted in thin lining. This cycle resulted in a negative pregnancy test and we are currently in the beginning steps of IVF. For the second and third cycles, I used vaginal Estradiol daily and used Ovidrel for the trigger shots each time. I requested further assessments to evaluate if I have endometriosis or to assess the quality/thickness of my lining without these additional medications, but Dr. Kallen recommended we attempt an IVF cycle before we investigate this further.

The frustrating part of this clinic is not being able to speak to anyone directly. You can call the general IVF line and request to speak to someone but it is never a consistent person who calls you back. When instructions are provided for the next steps they are always from a different nurse. Lakresha is the only person I've spoken to multiple times who gives me answers quickly and concisely. I typically try to reach out to her directly through the online patient portal but you can not do that directly so you have to wait until someone else sees it and sends it to her.

When I had my first monitoring appt for our first IUI cycle I was not given ANY instructions. I arrived and immediately was approached by a research coordinator asking me if I would participate in a study. I didn't even know where I was going in the building. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. While I don't expect to have my hand held, some guidance would have been nice. The fellow that performed my ultrasound did it quickly, without explaining anything and initially told me "oh you have a cyst we might cancel this cycle" and left the room. I sat there getting dressed nearly in tears as we had finally gotten to this point and was so disheartened. Later in the day I received instructions to return days later for another scan to see if we would proceed. While I like Dr. Kallen very much, I do not like that every time I go to the clinic I see a different doctor. Sometimes an RE sometimes a fellow. I have had multiple times when I have not received instructions for the next day and have had to call the "on call doctor" who has not relayed information to the rest of the team and when I showed up the next day was questioned as to why I was there. Two of the fellows I've worked with have been kind and compassionate. One (the on call dr.) acts as though he can not be bothered with questions or feelings (when doing our last IUI he did not check in or ask if I needed a break when I was clearly in pain and crying. )

I do not know specifics of costs. I know we reached our 4000 dollar deductible within the first 2-3 appointments.

Dr. Kallen told us she only transfers one embryo for someone my age. While I appreciate the attempt to prevent multiples, I do not feel that the reasoning behind this approach was explained enough and if our cycles result in multiple losses, I will request to transfer more than 1 embryo or access a dr. who will do so.