How was your experience with Elizabeth Kennard at Ohio Reproductive Medicine?
She is very professional and some may not see her as a warm fuzzy. As patients who were comfortable in a medical environment and advocating for ourselves, we appreciated her candor. I can imagine others who are looking for someone who focuses more on the personal, she may seem a little scientific. She is. But my husband and I cover the spectrum of needing compassion and needing hard data and numbers. She does both. She accommodated some of our requests to try differently as long as she felt it did not compromise what she felt was good medicine. We actually moved on to another doctor, but had supervision by her and she was very gracious about it. She was open about saying her goal was for us to have a baby and whatever we felt was best she was okay with it.
What's one piece of advice would you give a prospective patient of Elizabeth Kennard at Ohio Reproductive Medicine?
Know that she cares deeply AND is a medical professional with a goal to get patients a baby. Patients may be focused on keeping themselves sane and she gets it, but her way to help is to focus on what is the next step in trying to increase chances of success. She will let patients keep trying even with small odds - which some appreciate and some will not. People who appreciate dry humor and steady will like her best.
During treatment, were you treated like a number or a human with Elizabeth Kennard at Ohio Reproductive Medicine?
Dr. Kennard was very straight forward and answered the gazillion questions we asked. She gave us warnings about how things get technical so prepared us for some of the impersonal nature that we may experience while trying to stay human. She responded to our needs to be serious and to be funny. She got to know us (it was years) and seemed to follow our logic as we progressed. She cried when we had losses and when we got pregnant.
Describe the protocols Elizabeth Kennard used in your cycles at Ohio Reproductive Medicine and their degree of success.
Since I got pregnant twice, there was not too much tweaking to the protocol once we got to IVF. We moved quickly from meds to IUI to IVF based on research that said in the long run, the costs of many IUIs didn't indicate continuing without success. At one point, We decided to do another IVF before transferring frozen, which was the first time someone had done that, but we were looking at long term outcomes with siblings and impending loss of insurance.
She tried a protocol (different drugs) that another clinic had used on us that produced extremely large numbers of eggs, but it did not work when she tried it. She noted that her lab didn't like it, but she was willing to try since I had responded. She ultimately was frustrated along with us that I could get pregnant but not sustain a pregnancy. Moving to genetic testing was our reason to seek another lab/doctor.
Describe your experience with your nurse at Ohio Reproductive Medicine.
It was still done on paper, but everyone was organized and straight forward. They answered questions, took my calls and responded quickly, and were always compassionate. We asked everything from technical (how to do something, what is this) to personal experiences (what do others do, how to people respond) and they answered everything kindly.
Describe your experience with Ohio Reproductive Medicine.
It's a little cozy and not the high tech new clinic. It has a lab attached as well as a lab corp in the suite so everything is right there, but it is not enclosed in a building. I hope they upgraded a little bit of their paper work to something more computer based. The doctor's personalities vary quite a bit, as did some of their technique. It would be interested to look at success rates by doctor. They had limited donor experience (don't know if that has grown). Their billing and release forms were more simple vs other clinics that had nitty gritty every dime outlined and pages of legal forms to sign. They kept it simple (for better and for worse).
Describe the costs associated with your care under Elizabeth Kennard at Ohio Reproductive Medicine.
I have the cost sheet still. They made it simple (but this was 6 years ago). They knew they were lower cost and they seemed to prefer it that way. They gave us the whole cost sheet and it was updated once a year. Simple. IVF-ICSI - $8483, FET 1861 IVF-DE $15,278 (we didnt' use that, but I'm pulling it from the sheet I have). They gave a breakdown of those costs as well as an additional sheet with the lab costs (storage, PGD, hatching, sperm processing).
Describe Elizabeth Kennard's approach to eSET (elective single embryo transfer) vs. multiple embryo transfer at Ohio Reproductive Medicine.
Since I was in my late 30s early 40s and the embryo's didn't have good grades, she tranferred several. Her logic was correct in that we only ever had single pregnancies. I know she felt strongly about eSET for younger and donor cycles, which we appreciated.