Isabelle Ryan

I thought she was fine. Nothing special, for sure no love or warmth came from her. She was very by the book, cut and dry. If you need a bit more information, time and care - I would find another doctor. She did provide some good information to my husband and I and set us on a path towards frozen egg donors which is a journey we are still on.

Be ready to hear the a lot of information much of which we had no idea meant as she was the first doctor we had seen about our Fertility problems. She doesn't handhold or provide any warmth or love. It was overwhelming. She would probably be a better doctor if we had seen someone else first and knew a bit more about the process. Coming in cold to her was tough.

We did the initial consultation, my husband did his donation and I did the water ultrasound. We got stuck looking for donor eggs with PFC. There donor pool is very small and we spent this past year looking with not much help from them so we ended up stuck with PFC and just switched clinics.

Well, I mentioned in the clinic review section so I'll briefly explain here. They are quick to take your money, even though everything we did with them was covered by insurance they are so slow to submit to insurance. I've had to follow up several times to ask them to submit everything, not just one or two visits but everything. We've yet to receive any refund from PFC even though insurance has covered our appointments so I'm currently trying to get a refund since they have received payment from our insurance company as well. Lots of back and forth in their online tool. Not much help, there is zero sense of ownership or urgency in helping to me to solve this. Again they take your money very quick and then they couldn't be any slower to work with insurance and solve problems. It was very disappointing and really left a bad taste in our mouth with this clinic. Huge area where you feel like a number.

no comments, I'm fine with 1 embryo transfer vs multiple. Whatever is the safest and gives a good chance of success.

She did not come across as sincere to me. It felt like this was a job to her and she did not truly care about my results and the outcome. When explaining the details of egg freezing, she seemed bored having to go through the materials with me.

If you like a straight-up, less warm doctor, Dr. Ryan is a good choice.

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Isabelle Ryan has a very direct, succinct, blunt manner. That didn’t bother me at first, but at a later stage in my care I realized that many crisply communicated statements really glossed over important nuances, and areas of uncertainty. Our meetings were always very quick, and I left thinking I had gotten all the information I needed, but it’s hard to know what you don’t know. As a small example, I was a first-time patient, and it was never communicated to me that at PFC my doctor likely wouldn’t be performing my retrieval surgery. I now know this is very common, but this shouldn’t be communicated to a patient the first time in the middle of a stimulation cycle. Most importantly, I feel she handled my case poorly from a medical standpoint, and made critical errors which, subsequent doctors pointed out, introduced unnecessary risk. She and her care team overlooked disturbing symptoms that I had and, in retrospect, gave me a treatment which was dangerous rather than helpful. This aspect of my case would not apply to most patients, but I think it speaks to a lax attitude about complications, and an unwillingness to take the time to think beyond the obvious norms. Finally, she was coordinating care with an outside specialist, and the communication about the status of this coordination was bad -- I realized months later that the tests from the outside specialist had actually given me the opposite results that Dr. Ryan had used in her assumptions and care.

I probably would see a different doctor unless you are ready to go home and independently fact check what you hear, and almost act as your own secondary doctor.

Before cycling she had my husband and I do prophylactic antibiotics (zithromax and cipro). First cycle (which ended in a cycle cancellation with no retrieval): 3 weeks birth control pills, started 200 IU Follistim & 75 IU Menopur, this was increased but not sure to what levels. Never triggered because cycle was canceled for poor response. Second cycle: Removed IUD; no birth control pills. Estrace priming before cycle start (4 mg daily). At baseline ultrasound start micro-dose lupron (10 units, twice per day); then starting dose 300 IU Follistim and 150 IU Menopur. Trigger 10,000 IU hCG. Resulted in 19 eggs retrieved.

Not sure how much we paid for the first canceled cycle. Second cycle where we did a retrieval was about $12,000, though they gave us a $1,500 discount because of issues in our first cycle, and because we were self-pay patients. This did NOT include all of the lab tests and drugs, which added several thousand dollars, or the $1500 to Natera which is the outside reference lab used for PGS testing.

Recommended eSET with PGS, but did not do a transfer at PFC so it wasn’t a lengthy discussion.