Dara Havemann

She was cordial but she was not forthcoming with information. We only met with her 3 times throughout our IVF process. The initial consultation, decision to do IVF & course, and the last diagnosis consultation.

We choose to do a round of IVF after that as it gave us the greatest chance to get pregnant. She tested my husband and everything was fine with him. She also tested me and I had fewer egg reserve then normal for my age but everything else was fine. We proceeded with the shots and medications. Dr Havemann retrieved 5 eggs on a Saturday in July & sent them to the lab to combine them with my husbands sperm. The lab called me on Monday and informed me of the development. They called me again on Tuesday and one egg had stopped growing. They called me again on Wednesday to inform me that all the eggs had become defragmented. We scheduled an appointment with Dr Havemann to discuss our options the following week in August. My husband and I went to the appointment disappointed but with the hopes that we would continue working with Dr Havemann and discuss another round of IVF or other options. We never thought we would hear what Dr Havemann told us that day. Dr Havemann went over what happened to our eggs. She couldn’t really explain why they defragmented. She said they were bad eggs and that all my other eggs would be the same and give us the same results and didn’t recommend IVF. She told us I would never have any biological children and my only options were to do donor eggs or adoption. We left her office heartbroken that day in August. But we regained our hope the following month when I took a pregnancy test at home and it came back positive. We were cautious and didn’t quite believe it. I scheduled an appointment with an OBGYN for October and that’s when they confirmed I was pregnant. I continued my doctors appointments and the baby was healthy. I gave birth to my daughter on May 10, 2017 the following year. Fast forward 19 months and I took another pregnancy test which showed positive. I scheduled another appointment with my OBGYN who confirmed another healthy pregnancy. I gave birth to my second daughter last 7/01/19.

We choose to do a round of IVF after that as it gave us the greatest chance to get pregnant. She tested my husband and everything was fine with him. She also tested me and I had fewer egg reserve then normal for my age but everything else was fine. We proceeded with the shots and medications. Dr Havemann retrieved 5 eggs on a Saturday in July & sent them to the lab to combine them with my husbands sperm. The lab called me on Monday and informed me of the development. They called me again on Tuesday and one egg had stopped growing. They called me again on Wednesday to inform me that all the eggs had become defragmented. We scheduled an appointment with Dr Havemann to discuss our options the following week in August. My husband and I went to the appointment disappointed but with the hopes that we would continue working with Dr Havemann and discuss another round of IVF or other options. We never thought we would hear what Dr Havemann told us that day. Dr Havemann went over what happened to our eggs. She couldn’t really explain why they defragmented. She said they were bad eggs and that all my other eggs would be the same and give us the same results and didn’t recommend IVF. She told us I would never have any biological children and my only options were to do donor eggs or adoption. We left her office heartbroken that day in August. But we regained our hope the following month when I took a pregnancy test at home and it came back positive. We were cautious and didn’t quite believe it. I scheduled an appointment with an OBGYN for October and that’s when they confirmed I was pregnant. I continued my doctors appointments and the baby was healthy. I gave birth to my daughter on May 10, 2017 the following year. Fast forward 19 months and I took another pregnancy test which showed positive. I scheduled another appointment with my OBGYN who confirmed another healthy pregnancy. I gave birth to my second daughter last 7/01/19.

$15,000

Our experience was that she never wanted to think outside of the box and give us a diagnosis or even theorize why we aren’t getting pregnant. She seems very timid and scared. For example, after 3 miscarriages I had to push hard for a recurrent loss panel - which is pretty standard. So, all of our treatments and procedures were a very generic, blanketed approach. She was supportive and sweet throughout our time with her. Once we got to IVF everything fell apart. Due to going into IVF with unexplained infertility and a very generic approach, I was concerned about a zero fertilization rate and had requested to do ICSI. I was assured by my nurse if it was deemed necessary on day of procedure it would be done and I let it go because it wasn’t explained clearly how that decision was going to be made so I assumed it was going to be done because I had asked. (Rookie mistake) Dr. Havemann also pushed for us to fertilize “X” amount and freeze the rest because since we were on the younger side she prepared us that we would probably end up with more embryos than the number of children we wanted. We decided to fertilize 10 and freeze any remainder. We ended up with 10 to fertilize and 7 to freeze at retrieval. On the day of retrieval the embryologist suggested doing ICSI and Dr. Havemann made the executive decision to do conventional IVF because she made the statement we had a religious objection to ICSI because we had only requested 10 eggs to be fertilized and we were worried about having too many embryos. Fertilizing “X” amount and freezing the rest was her idea! For the record, we do not have any religious objections to any fertility treatments/procedures and this was a complete assumption made on Dr. Havemann’s part and I found out after speaking with embryologist this was actually noted in our medical chart!! In the end, we had a zero fertilization rate and had one slow-to-start embryo that was poorly graded and we were told ICSI probably would have circumvented this issue. That was an expensive and upsetting lesson, especially when it was not communicated to me clearly we were not doing ICSI and I had to find out my doctor put notes about me being religious in my chart. Even worse the embryologist later denied our conversation where she told me she recommended ICSI but Dr. Havemann made the decision to do conventional due to our “religious objections” to ICSI. Also, since our embryos were doing so poorly, we kept being told every day when the embryologist would call that Dr. Havemann would call us that day to check on us and explain where to go from there. This was told to us 4 times and we never received a call from Dr. Havemann. That was very upsetting. We did do a fresh transfer on day 5, in which that morning the embryologist called me and chewed me out denying our previous conversation about the ICSI and called me crazy and a liar. Which was very unprofessional and upsetting. We did get pregnant from this transfer but it ended in a chemical pregnancy a week later. In our appointment to debrief this whole IVF cycle and figure out how to move forward, Dr. Havemann was looking across her desk at me 8 months pregnant and crying tears saying how unfair this was for us but that at least we learned a lot. She apologized for the religious assumption and the poor communication and said she would do ICSI moving forward. And used the cliche hindsight is 20/20. I would not recommend her if you aren’t a straight forward, text book, simple case. I think her bed side manner is great but her intuition as a doctor and her confidence in herself and her decisions she makes needs some growth. Communication and professionalism in the whole practice is very poor. I truly felt that Dr. Havemann and the embryologist knew they had both made poor and unethical decisions and were both trying to cover their behinds so we couldn’t sue or wouldn’t get a compensated cycle. We had an independent doctor that has been doing IVF for 30 years look at our case and he said the least Dr. Havemann owed us was a free cycle with our frozen eggs. I don’t even trust Dr. Havemann to do something for free on me.

Make sure you are communicating yourself very clearly about your wants and needs as a patient. I would get as much in writing as you can.

Timed Intercourse- Letrozole, Follistim 75 iu every other day for a total of 3 shots and progesterone suppositories 100 mg daily for 14 days IUI - Letrozole, Follistim 75 iu every other day for a total of 3 shots, Pregnyl trigger shot, progesterone suppositories 100 mg daily for 14 days IVF - Ganirelix 250 mg for 4 days, Menopur, Gonal F 300 iu daily, Pregnyl trigger shots and Crinone 90 Mg progesterone daily for 14 days

For the most part, since I was working I requested the earliest appointment so there wasn’t much of a wait. The only thing I didn’t like was our ultrasound tech didn’t seem familiar with IVF because I had some follicles measuring 22 mm and she told me that I had already ovulated and caused a big scare and she told a nurse and she came in and looked at the size of the follicles and told me I had not ovulated.

An IUI was about $500 plus the medications. IVF was about $15,000 plus medications

I was pleased that my doctor felt one embryo was best for us.

Dr. Havemann was very helpful and knowledgeable. She is compassionate, and we truly felt like she cared about whether or not we had a baby. She explained the process in a down-to-earth manner that helped us understand it much better.

She is great at explaining each step of the process in detail. She doesn't seem to cut corners and is very thorough.

We did not undergo any IVF cycles with Dr. Havemann, but we will be starting with her soon.

They offer a 3 cycle guarantee program, where if you do not get pregnant (up to 12 weeks) after 3 cycles, you receive a partial refund.

I am unsure about her thoughts regarding eSET.

I feel like we did not get a realist C expectation and full analysis of what could have been done differently... I feel like even she was surprised by our results but offeremed minimum explanations or resolutions... especially bc we were very clear that we only had 1 shot at IVF

Expect to be oversold on Expectations... but she is very nice

IVF with freezing multiple embryos. On at least 3 different injections plus oral and suppository meds. Only 2 embryos made it to implantation

$27,000+