Christine Mullin

I met with Dr. Mullin after leaving a different clinic (from which I had serious concerns about their level of care). She was matter of fact about my potential options for treatment, but listened to me about my concerns and wishes and responded appropriately and with empathy. Sje was involved with my care - which took place over the holidays - and never made me feel like a number or "just another" patient. She encouraged me to keep going with my retrieval when I considered cancelling it due to an unusual course of events during my stims phase. I went through with my retrieval only because of how much I trusted Dr. Mullin. The retrieval resulted in 9 embryos (8 PGS normal), and one current pregnancy. I would recommend Dr. Mullin to anyone in the area undergoing treatment for infertility.

Don't be afraid to say what you want out of treatment. Dr. Mullin will listen and let you know if it's possible - she won't just push her standard treatment without explanation or consideration to your wants/concerns.

I always saw a doctor for my monitoring appointments, and often that doctor was Dr. Mullin. She was super involved in my care, and always made me feel like I was her only patient (even though that obviously wasn't the case).

Antagonist protocol; ICSI; PGS; FET with embryo glue. 21 eggs, 19 mature, 17 fertilized, 9 day 5/6 embryos, 8 PGS-normal.

The nursing staff was overall great, though I thought Mary Jane was the stronger, better organized of the two (she was wonderful).

Always see a doctor for monitoring, though sometimes not your primary doctor. Patients in satellite offices need to go to Manhassat for at least some monitoring appointments and all procedures - Manhassat is definitely busier than Mineola, but still moves fairly quickly. Had a couple of issues with billing, but they were easily resolved. Robyn, who handles insurance logistics for the Mineola office, is excellent and helped me through a really confusing insurance policy.

Monitoring at Manhassat was generally during any window of time, definitely busier. Monitoring in Mineola was for a set time and a breeze.

Insurance covered all procedures except PGS and embryo glue. Total out of pocket was ~$5500, excluding deductibles and coinsurance. I believe i was quoted ~17k (plus medication costs) out of pocket if I didn't have insurance. They gave me the price information very early on in the process.

I strongly wanted to avoid the possibility of multiples, Dr. Mullin agreed with an eSet.

Dr Mullin is very to the point - she does not sugar coat. She gives you the results and the percentage of chance things can go the way you want them to. She never says no - but will always give you the probability of a positive wether you want to hear it or not. She is very cautious and does not get overly excited.

Be sure to go there with an open mind and be prepared to hear things that might go against what you dream of. She is fact and reality based and won't fill you up with dreams and maybes. She also does not take risks her goal is to give you one healthy baby at a time.

Everyone in the office will know your name and will give you a big greeting when you arrive. The receptionist knows where everyone is in their cycle and the nurses are all fantastic. They listen and care.

My first cycles were IUI cycles - We were prescribed injectables (Menapur and Gonal-f). The rational for using the injectables was to get me to create as many follicles as possible due to my advanced maternal age. Although I did create follicles both of these cycles were negatives. My recent cycle was a donor egg transfer. I was prescribed oral meds - Estrace and some antibiotics. Then after the transfer, I am continuing with Estrace and Progesterone in Oil injections for about 10 weeks. We are currently pregnant and awaiting our 8 week sonogram.

The nurses are fabulous at both offices - Mineola and Manhassat. They are caring and supportive and very comforting during a very difficult process. They are not the best communicators and sometimes forget to inform the rest of team about an appointment or a request you made so be sure to write down everything you discuss with them and which nurse you are talking with.

The clinic is clean and calming. There are busy hours so be sure to ask if it is a busy time when making your appointment - Mornings are typically a packed office. If you are going the route of donor eggs - their in house donor pool is not that big so go into that with a you can't be too choosy mindset unless you are willing to pay the extra expenses of going to an egg bank or hiring your own donor both of which can get quite costly as you will need to pay for them to go through the clinics approval process.

All office visits went through insurance as well as my IUI cycles so I was only responsible for the co-pay. But my donor cycle was not covered under insurance at all. We were responsible for the entire cycle which when all was said and done it cost us about $32,000. We were the sole recipients of the eggs - so if you did a shared cycle it would be a bit less expensive.

Dr Mullin only believes in a single embryo transfer. She feels it is safer. Unless you are under age 35 and specifically request a multi embryo transfer but be prepared to hear all the risks of multi births and how it increases your chance of miscarriage.

When first meeting with Dr. Mullin I felt totally comfortable. She diagnosed my PCOS right away and explained everything to me. We did one cycle of Clomid which I didn't respond to and then one cycle of Letrazole which I didn't respond to. She then suggested IVF since we had no coverage for infertility she said she didn't want to waste our money with oral medications since she felt we would do best with IVF. I trusted her and moved along, which did get me pregnant. After talking with other people who have a similar diagnosis as me, I wish that I had pushed to try Metformin or even injectables for an IUI before spending so much on IVF.

Ask a lot of questions and follow your gut.

Dr. Mullin is part of a big network of doctors at NSLIJ but she also has her own office in Garden City. When you are at Dr. Mullin's office you feel like a person but at the hospital I felt like a number.

For my IVF cycle I was on Follistim and Lupron. I don't remember the specifics though.

The nursing staff was very nice. Again, in Dr. Mullin's office they were friendlier because there were less of them. At the hospital, you see a different nurse at every appointment.

The practice is very by the book which happened to work for me but they don't flex a lot as far I was concerned. If something didn't work once, they didn't try again. They are also a little rude if you decide to see an OBGYN or neonatologist outside of their network.

Monitoring appointments were done very early in the morning. You signed in and went to the back to have blood drawn, then waited to be called to see a doctor. Wait could be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on which doctor was on call that day.

We did not have infertility coverage so everything was paid for out of pocket. We opted to enroll in the Attain program through NSLIJ which was about $15,000 and covered 2 fresh cycles and 2 frozen cycles until you had your 'take home baby.'

I found Dr. Mullin to be warm and companionate but also very to the point which I appreciated it. She explained everything in detail and gave me realistic expectations. She always made me feel hopeful. I appreciate that her approach is not aggressive and she is a doctor who likes to try the least invasive procedures first and works her way up to more Invasive treatment like ivf.

To be honest with her and ask as many questions as you have. Tell her your concerns and ask her for her honest opinion because she’ll give it to you.

Dr. Mullin spent a lot of time with me and always answered all of my questions. I felt like I was a person and not a number. Her staff would greet me by name and always remembered who I was.

She did monitoring with blood and ultrasound, prescribed letrozole and a trigger shot of hcg in preparation of IUI.

I only had an interaction with one nurse and I found her to be the least friendly of the office. She was blunt and to the point and didn’t seem to show as much companion as other staff.

Small clinic with one doctor even though she is part of a large practice. This allows you to feel like a person as opposed to a number. Everyone knows your name and the staff remembers you. Everyone is very friendly and I felt comfortable there.

My insurance only covers office visits and consultations, not procedures. For my medication I spent around $175 and my IUI was $350.

No

Dr. Mullin is extremely smart and good at what she does. She is always thinking of different ways to make each cycle successful and goes above and beyond to try and get a positive pregnancy test. If I ever had questions I needed answered, I never had to wait more than a day for her response.

If you are expecting warm and fuzzy, that is not what you will get with Dr. Mullin, but you will get the best care.

Although most appointments were very fast, she would still answer any and all of the questions I had.

All of the nursing staff is excellent!

This is a very big clinic with many patients and can sometimes feel like it's a revolving door, but I didn't really expect anything different. As with any other medical care, you have to be your own advocate and do your own research and ask questions. Try to become knowledgeable regarding your treatment so you can give it the best shot possible.