Christine Murray

Dr. Murray was very accommodating at the beginning of treatment. The clinic is 2 hours away and my initial consultation was over the phone, on a Sunday. There was miscommunication between Dr. Murray and clinic staff that resulted in a delay of my first IVF cycle and in it’s place we were asked to do another IUI in the meantime. It was not in our plan, but we went ahead with it regardless as the IVF meds could not be expedited in time to save the cycle. Over the course of the actual IVF cycle I did not see Dr. Murray again as Dr. Cason performed an HSG and Dr. Brown did my retrieval. I felt a little disjointed with so many “cooks in the kitchen” but at the same time confident in the team overall.

Be prepared to advocate for what you need. Entering into fertility treatment can be overwhelming and it helps to know as much about your options going in so as not to get overwhelmed.

NERM-VT is committed to personal care. The standalone facility removes the clinical “feel” of treatment. Nurses and staff were attentive and welcoming.

BCP (10 days), Gonal f 150iu, Menopur 150iu. Ganirelix then Lupron/Pregnyl trigger. Uncomplicated retrieval, 11 eggs. 1 broken shell, all 10 fertilized (5 with ICSI, 5 unassisted). 2 embryos made it to day 5 and were transferred (both pre-blast). None made it to freeze. Pregnancy resulted, lost at 6 weeks.

The nursing staff was always responsive and made sure my questions were answered. The nurses telephone line was helpful as they would always return a call in a timely manner. The patient portal was an added benefit as we could communicate electronically.

The clinic is very peaceful and in times of high stress regarding fertility challenges sometimes that can make all the difference. I would highly recommend NERM-VT to any of my friends who many need to access services in the future.

IVF - SHG $350, Anesthesia Fee $530, Monitoring Fee $1000, Procedure Fee $7000. Monitoring coverage began at baseline and ended at embryo transfer. Procedure fee included injection training. Also included was 1 year of embryo storage.

I was counseled on industry recommendations through current research. Pros and cons were clearly expressed but the ultimate decision was left to us. I appreciated the guidance and conversation we had regarding single vs multiple embryo transfer.

I feel like I always asked the hard questions and Dr. Murray always provided a well thought-out answer. She celebrated with us when we saw the heartbeat and she was right by my side when it was no longer there. I feel like I'm a pretty demanding patient, and she's always been nothing but patient with me.

Take advantage of your one-on-one time with Dr. Murray. NRM is a small clinic, but they're very efficient so tasks that can be handled by a nurse will be handled by a nurse. You may not see Dr. Murray every time you're there, so really soak it up, ask all your questions, and get out all of your concerns when you're meeting with her.

It's a small clinic, which helps with being made to feel like a human. Everybody seemed to learn my name quickly. Another doctor at the clinic (who was not my primary RE) even learned about me and my husband.

For my IUI cycles, I was on Clomid. Both cycles had multiple follicles, but neither one resulted in a positive pregnancy test. For my IVF cycle, Dr. Murray used an Estrogen Priming protocol because I'm older and have a lower egg reserve. I feel like the cycle went very well, but my egg quality is just too poor as determined by my miscarriage and the fact that I didn't have any embryos to freeze. My only real concern with my IVF cycle was that I think the doctors could have stimmed me for an additional day to get more mature eggs out of me. This will not deter me from using NRM again, though. I'll be back.

There are three or four nurses and most of them are very friendly and knowledgeable.

NRM is a relatively new clinic, but the doctors have many years of experience. They started their own practice in order to have more control over billing and other "red tape" issues with a larger, university setting. They take a team approach to patient care, from the Business Manager straight to the doctor. The only weakness I can see is that they might get too busy for the smaller staff they have and hopefully that doesn't influence important decisions regarding patient care.

Each meeting with my doctor costs $150. Each IUI cycle cost $400 (monitoring was done at an off-site location, I'm not sure how much this would cost at NRM). The IVF cycle was $8,000. This does not include medications, but all monitoring was covered. This included one frozen embryo transfer, however, we were unable to do this.

Dr. Murray cautioned me of the complications with twins when I transferred two embryos, but ultimately left the decision up to me.

Dr. Murray is very patient, kind and knowledgeable. She clearly states the science and the implications for treatment in a way that is very supportive. She was always professional, and I never felt rushed during any of my visits. I would say the same of the other two doctors at the clinic.

Just relax and know that you are in really good hands.

Dr. Murray, along with the other Doctors at NERM, are warm, caring and generous people. They always took the extra time to discuss any concerns and were completely supportive of decisions I made along the way.

I was given a lot of choice in how I wanted to proceed. As a forty year old woman, I tried three unmedicated IUIs, one medicated and then asked to go straight to IVF. They would have supported more IUI tries if I had wanted to go that route too, but they agreed that moving to IVF at that point was probably the best call based on the numbers. They really understood the financial considerations and constraints I had and balanced their advice with those in mind. For example, they didn't recommend testing the embryos for a few reasons: one- they knew it would be expensive for me, two- at my age they knew I was likely to have few viable embryos, three- the current research shows that the testing can produce false positives for anomalies.

The nurses were great, especially the head nurse.

The clinic is so relaxing. My first child I had through a hospital based clinic. That experience was nowhere near as nice as it was at NERM. Very nice facility, friendly people, easy scheduling, and very seldom having to wait. All three doctors here are excellent, and I would recommend any one of them.

Relatively affordable in comparison to other options.

They respected my strong desire not to have twins, and transferred only one embryo at a time at my request.

She’s pleasant. She treated us like more than just a number and we really felt like she was family. There were two times after cycles failed that she was supposed to call us and didn’t. So that diminished our trust in her. She didn’t do any other testing though we asked, and she didn’t seem to have any ideas

I’m not sure

It was small and personal

Some of the nurses were better communicators than others and had answers to our questions

It’s small so they treat you like a human and not a number. They all work together very well so even when you are assigned to one doctor they all know your case. Everyone is very friendly and answers your questions or knows how to find them. There’s no money back guarantee here though like there is at some other clinics

I’m not 100% sure. A good chunk of ours was covered by insurance