How was your experience with Barbara Osborn at Shady Grove Fertility?
Dr. Osborn is a very good doctor and one of the best in this field. I think that personality-wise, she might be a bit shy and is respectful of your privacy so she is not as nosy about your preferences as other REs might be. But you just need to be very well informed and go into your appointments with her with a lot of questions because she is patient and will answer every last one of them honestly and truthfully. She is forthcoming about why Shady Grove recommends some things (for business/cost reasons vs. strictly medical outcome reasons).
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Barbara Osborn at Shady Grove Fertility?
Make sure you are well informed, read the latest findings and studies (i.e., about Ubiquinol/CoQ10 studies) and ask about their applicability to your situation. Shady Grove is a busy practice and Dr. Osborn is not going to spend time with you providing endless amounts of information if she does not think you are interested. But if you ask her specific questions about the latest research, about your situation, etc., she will take the time to answer honestly and thoroughly.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Barbara Osborn at Shady Grove Fertility?
Dr. Osborn has a calm bedside manner and is not particularly chatty. But she was empathetic, listened carefully, and took time to answer all of my questions. She was also available for phone discussions outside of scheduled appointments. Shady Grove has many locations and a lot of staff but I always felt it was key to have a very good nurse coordinator and to schedule as many appointments in the Sibley office as possible so that you build rapport with the staff in that office. The Sibley office is smaller but it is more boutique like than the other locations so the staff does get to know you.
Describe the protocols Barbara Osborn used in your cycles at Shady Grove Fertility and their degree of success.
4 fresh IVF cycles with own oocytes, ICSI and assisted hatching. After a failed cycle, Dr. Osborn adjusted the medications and protocol to encourage more eggs to be developed for retrieval. Adjustment in medications led to successful outcome.
Describe your experience with your nurse at Shady Grove Fertility. (Assigned nurse: Cerone)
My nurse coordinator was essential to the success of my treatments. She was organized and communicated with me via phone or email daily or multiple times a day during a cycle. Without her organization and attention to detail, I would have messed things up for myself.
Describe your experience with Shady Grove Fertility.
Shady Grove is like Starbucks. But the multiple locations, range of hours for monitoring, and fact that they provided dedicated financial advisors, and on site acupuncture made the process much better than most medical experiences. We also considered going with GW, and the doctors are great there and always gave great insight into our issues, but the staffing and locations were just more limited than what is available thru Shady Grove.
Describe the costs associated with your care under Barbara Osborn at Shady Grove Fertility.
With insurance, IVF with ICSI and assisted hatching was $3500 out of pocket. Medications were approx. $500. After employer dropped IVF coverage from health insurance, IVF with ICSI and assisted hatching was $10,500 and medications were approx. $4,000.
Describe Barbara Osborn's approach to eSET (elective single embryo transfer) vs. multiple embryo transfer at Shady Grove Fertility.
Dr. Osborn actually recommended multiple embryo transfer because of my age but I requested eSET twice because that was what I wanted. On one cycle, where the embryo transfer was not a 5-day blastocyst but 5-day morulas, I agreed with multiple embryo transfer recommendation.
What specific things went wrong at Shady Grove Fertility?
- Lost paperwork
- Failed to convey critical information
Describe the specific things that went wrong at Shady Grove Fertility.
During one embryo transfer, the RE doing the procedure informed me that one blastocyst would be available for transfer, and one would be frozen. I had asked for two embryos to be transferred if none could be frozen. But unfortunately, the RE had misinterpreted the grading on the embryo (a perfect blastocyst as she described it) that she said would be frozen and it was actually not good enough to withstand the rigors of freezing and discarded. But had I known that that blastocyst could not survive freezing, I would have decided to have that additional blastocyst implanted as well. This was tremendously upsetting. Dr. Osborn did investigate what happened and apologized for the RE's misunderstanding of the grading and said she spoke to the other RE about it and that they will improve procedures going forward.