Laura Reuter

She is very proactive and up front with you. If for some reason she doesn’t think you’re going to get the outcome you’re hoping for she’ll tell you and make another plan. I feel that she explains things well and will answer all questions. She has always been available to me for a telephone consultation when I’ve needed it, as her office is about an hour drive from where I live.

We began with Letrozol, and on the morning of our first scheduled IUI we had to cancel because my husband’s sperm count came back to low. Dr. Reuter set up an appointment with a specialist for my husband. After we got his issues squared away, we went back to the letrozol, unfortunately after 3 attempts Dr. Reuter discovered that i was ovulating prematurely and we kept missing the window for the iui. She called after the 3rd cancellation and suggested that we switch to an injectable. We have now made it through two IUIs. If this last one doesn’t take we are scheduled for another consultation and a change of plan.

Midwest Fertility attempted to bill my insurance, but since I don’t have coverage for fertility treatments, they have two options, you can pay as you go or purchase an all inclusive package deal.

Dr. Reuter is compassionate with her delivery of news that could be discouraging. She thoroughly explains all options and what her recommendations are based on test results. I appreciated her suggestions for tests to get as much information as possible before making any recommendations for further treatment.

Try and think of as many questions as you can before you go to an appointment with Dr. Reuter. That is your one-on-one time with her, so you want to make the most of your time together. I regret not thinking through more questions before speaking with her. But I do know that she is happy to answer questions that we have, even if it is after speaking with her.

Dr. Reuter suggested a medicated IUI due to my low AMH and my husband's male factor infertility (low motility and morphology). I responded very well to the medication and produced 3 follicles, and had amazing progesterone levels with medication afterwards. Unfortunately, the IUI did not result in a pregnancy. I also developed a cyst after that cycle and had to take birth control for 16 days to shrink the cyst. During that time, she recommended that my husband get a sperm DNA fragmentation test. The results of that test would help us determine if another IUI would be worthwhile or not. Unfortunately (again), my husband's sperm DNA fragmentation came back at 38%, which is considered abnormal. Due to this, Dr. Reuter explained that another IUI would not be in our best interest and that she would recommend IVF if we wanted to pursue further treatment. We are currently saving money and taking time to decide if IVF is something we can do or not.

Unfortunately, our insurance doesn't have fertility coverage. After an HSG, several semen analyses, ultrasounds, blood work, medication, and one IUI, we have probably spent around $5,000 so far.

My very first IUI she did the procedure and made me feel at ease! She was very good with her communication style and put any worries I had away! She was quick to ensure I had all my questions answered and explain the procedures!

While she doesn’t see you every single visit (as you come in quite a few times) she is always there when you need her! It’s so nice to know you have someone who has your back.

My first consultation after my HSG, she jumped right into IUI with Clomid and trigger injection, which surprised me because I was almost mid cycle, but she went for it. My 2nd IUI she changed my meds to let letrozole, gonal f and trigger- my estrogen was a little lower with letrozole, but she proceeded with IUI because numbers still looked good. My final round she decided to do gonal f and trigger- which resulted in me becoming pregnant!

My health insurance luckily paid for the majority of it since I had not hit my out of pocket yet, so they paid about $2500 for three IUI’s, testing and meds

I did not have to have this done

Dr. Reuter always showed compassion and empathy. Whenever we spoke on the phone, she would say "sorry" when we had bad news,and would be happy along side us when we finally had better news. She always answered all of my questions thoroughly, I never felt rushed. Often times when we met, she would answer all of our questions we had written down, before we even asked them! She always exuded confidence, which something that is so necessary in this unknown infertility roller coaster.

Be ready with questions, she will be ready with answers! She is very personable, so if something does not seem right or you have more questions, do not be afraid to ask.

After failures ( IUI, egg retrieval etc), Dr. Reuter had fresh ideas, she always adjusted things, we never felt like we were doing the same thing twice. She even solicited/ referred my husband to urology.

Facility fee is separate. Payments were due on the first scan day (IVF cycles). When paying out of pocket for meds, they suggested cheaper pharmacies/ options.

Dr. Reuter always had MY health at the forefront. If she did not feel something would be "safe" for ME, despite our dreams of being parents, she did not do it.

Dr. Reuter explained everything (other than the medication; that information was explained by the nurse). I truly felt like she cared about our outcomes, my feelings, and everything in between. She told it to us "straight up", but with as much love as possible.

The egg retrieval will be more painful than you expect. You are under sedation when it takes place, but I was not aware that I would be sore/ in pain the next day.

Due to specific male factors, we knew we would have to either use IUI or IVF. The chances with IVF were higher, and we went with this course of action. Dr. Reuter was a little surprised I think, but supportive. 8 eggs retrieved, 6 progressed to 5 day maturity, 2 came back with chromosomal abnormality meaning we had 4 for implantation. First implant was unsuccessful. Next 2 implants resulted in pregnancy. Each time only 1 embryo implanted.

Our insurance covered most of the charges. We did have co-pays for visits and medication. Some medication was hard to obtain (due to our insurance) and we paid out of pocket. Even with coverage, we still paid over $2000 for each IVF cycle/implant.

Since we did PGS testing, the clinic / Dr policy is to only do eSET. We ha no issue with this.

She's highly knowledgeable so I never doubted her skill or expertise. She answers questions thoroughly and doesn't rush patients through appointments. IUIs were done by nurses but we did need her to do it at one point so she came in and helped. Also, when I had a bleeding scare after I conceived she was on-call and talked me through it. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing! Now the cons. Apparently I had PCOS during my first round of treatments but she didn't tell me that. I was surprised to find out I have PCOS as I try for my second child. If I'd known that I would've modified my diet, tried different supplements, and otherwise try to minimize the effects of PCOS on my own. Another thing is she's kind of a fat-shamer. She always comments on my weight while I'm there and while I understand obesity impairs fertility I never get any advice other than "eat less." I'm obese, so clearly I'm aware it's a problem. I'd rather leave weight conversations to my PCP. Last con: she's very conservative with treatments. Again, I understand, the risks of multiples is high. But I wish she'd be more okay with twins if they happened. I don't particularly want to experience a multiples pregnancy but I wouldn't avoid doing an IUI with 3 or 4 follicles because of that concern.

Make sure you come with your questions. She will listen to your concerns and will address everything you ask. Just make sure you're prepared so you can take full advantage of the appointment.

I did 3 cycles with Clomid to start. They yielded 2-3 good-sized follicles with each cycle so I understand why she wanted to keep trying. Statistically you're likely to get pregnant in the first 3 IUI cycles without further intervention if you're relatively young and healthy. I didn't get pregnant, so she did an HSG to see if I had any tube blockages and the ramped up the medication to Femara + FSH. I didn't respond to Femara well and only had 1 follicle. That cycle failed. I did one more IUI with all FSH and that resulted in 2 large follicles (1 20 mm, 1 22 mm) and I got pregnant. I'm trying the same protocol again this month and hope it works!

$800-ish for an oral-medications cycle, $1500 for a FSH cycle.

If I were older and only had one shot to get it right, I'd be okay with eSET. But at age 35, if I had to do IVF I would transfer 2 embryos. The likelihood of both implanting isn't that great and I would rather risk twins than not have the procedure work at all. She said there's a 75% chance of getting pregnant with eSET but it's also prohibitively expensive for those not covered by insurance.

Dr. Reuter was very polite. We had a good understanding of what would need to be done. However, she lacked social skills and was occasionally hard to get ahold of. In addition, we started with her in August of 2018 and the egg retrieval procedure was set to happen the first week of July. We didn’t hear until May that she was retiring mid June. We wish we would have chosen a different doctor to follow through with our course and that knowing her retirement was impending, she would’ve advised us to go with a different doctor.

Don’t expect to get any phone calls from her personally.

We did a lot of preliminary testing. My sister was the egg donor, so the testing was for all of us (her, my husband, and myself). She helped guide my medication protocol when I switched from synthetic to natural hormones.

None I specifically remember for the doctor.

Not applicable

She explained the issues, best course of treatment for best odds, was excited for us when things went well. She called us personally for all of the big ivf cycle updates. Overall we appreciated all the time she took to explain things and help us to have a child with the best odds. We were in control of our treatment.

Dr Reuter is less emotional than some of the other doctors in the practice (so I heard from the nurses). But she was still compassionate, and we appreciated the objective discussions.

Overall strategy was to have two kids. We had male factor infertility with genetic fragmentation problems. I think Dr Reuter targeted getting a reasonable but not too many eggs for the cycle to help improve the odds. I remember expressing concerns about OHSS, but the nurse said the practice had not had any issues in years. I have no female infertility that we know of. I think I did 9-10 days of injections- gonal-f and menopur. They did ovary ultrasounds every 2 days. We did HCG injection before the egg retrieval. I had 19 eggs retrieved, which was more than Dr Reuter targeted. No OHSS. It took me a few days to feel better and function normally after the retrieval. On my husband's side, we worked with a urologist. That Dr recommended getting an immature sperm sample from the testicles to use for the fertilization with ICSI. So my husband had that surgery so the sample was fresh on the same day as egg retrieval. He had a frozen sperm sample back up. This was after a year of him trying different medications (clomid, hcg) to balance his hormones and improve sperm quality. We did a freeze all with the plan to transfer one later in the year. At five days, only two embryos remained. We did PGS testing, and both were normal. I was very glad to do a frozen transfer later so that my hormones and body would be more balanced and ready for the embryo. We did the egg retrieval in July, and FET in September. With the FET, I had to have a regulated cycle with estradiol and later PIO injections. Also with the FET, I did acupuncture weeks before, on the day of transfer, and throughout the pregnancy. The transfer was successful! I had to continue PIO injections through 12 weeks, which was really tough while I was very nauseous. We still have one frozen embryo for transfer later. They recommend transferring about 18 months or later after delivery, and you have to have stopped breastfeeding due to the hormones.

I think it was about $20k for one ivf cycle. About $4k was medication. We spent another $10k on my husband's surgery and specimen handling.

From all of my research and the clinic's practice, it is best to transfer only one embryo, especially if it is genetically normal. This reduces the risk of pregnancy complications. I agree with this approach.

I think at times she doesn't read the charts before seeing a patient. When she is in there, she doesn't seem rushed. She has been receptive of feedback we have provided and we feel like she has taken action based on that feedback.

Be patient, this is a long process, but ask questions

We did 4 IUI's first with fertility drugs, now we are on our 2nd IVF with injectable fertility drugs, egg retrieval and transfer. Our first IVF we miscarried.

We had $15,000 from work, then the rest was out of pocket

We hope to do multiple embryo transfer this time

I felt like I was given high quality medical care by Dr Reuter and her staff. She was kind and caring in all of our encounters. Unfortunately after being treated for almost 2 years by Dr Reuter she still did not give me a formal diagnosis and I suffered 2 miscarriages and no living babies/successful pregnancies.

I feel like you need to be clear with what you expect from her treatment. Not only did I want to have a baby, but I wanted to know why I was having a hard time having a baby since I had conceived my daughter without fertility treatment. She focused her attention on getting me pregnant and not so much on figuring out why I wasn't getting pregnant.

I first had 3 cycles of timed intercourse with letrozole and a trigger shot and followed with crinone gel. -all of these cycles were unsuccessful. I then had 3 IUIs with letrozole and a trigger shot followed by crinone gel. -all of these cycles were unsuccessful. I got pregnant naturally on an "off" cycle between IUIs and was given crinone gel. Sadly I miscarried around 8 weeks. I had one egg retrieval where I took folistim. Of the eggs retrieved 9 fertilized and 5 made it to 5 day blasts. I then had my first FET transferring 2 eggs. I became pregnant with one baby. I was taking PIO injections daily. Baby was doing great and had a high heart rate at 7 and 9 weeks. However at my 12 week appointment the baby had passed and I had a D & C that evening. I waited 2 months and then had another FET with 2 eggs. Sadly neither took. I took a few months off and was preparing to use my last frozen embryo, but on the day of my transfer the embryo did not survive the thaw.

Facility fee Procedure fee Consult fee

I transferred 2 each time. My Dr said 2 was all she would approve given my age and the risk of having more than 2 babies.

She was very knowledgeable and quirky. The only negative was sometimes I wanted her to explain more. I didn't get to talk to her very often. I usually had to speak with her nurses.

Be patient. Do your own research and ask LOTS of questions at your first appointment, so you'll have enough information to make choices about how to proceed with your fertility treatment. As someone with unexplained infertility, we had quite a few options. Doing my homework helped us understand the process and the risks.

We did two rounds of IUI with injections. No luck with those. We could have done another IUI, but I was frustrated because we didn't have any problems with eggs/sperm, so we went on to IVF. We chose not to do ICSI even though it was recommended, because we wanted "nature" to take its course instead of having someone pick the best sperm. First IVF fresh cycle went well, but ended in a chemical pregnancy. Medication costs were higher than expected because my body needed help producing more follicles/eggs. Just know that YOU will be expected to order more medicine, not your doctor. That surprised me. Second cycle was frozen cycle with our final two embryos. We now have beautiful fraternal twin girls!

IVF "shared risk" plan was $20,500, which included two fresh IVF cycles (if needed) and unlimited frozen cycles. Medication for IVF (one fresh one frozen cycle) was around $5,500 total. I don't remember how much we spent on IUIs. Ultrasounds were about $600 each when they weren't included in the "shared-risk" plan.

Dr. Reuter was very professional. She took everything seriously and explained everything to us upfront. She explained all our tests and how hopeful our course of treatment would be. In the moment, I often thought she was a bit too professional and only told me things about each test or the next step. Never much more, but after I went through the experience, I understood and was completely grateful of how she is as a doctor. There are so many scenarios and what ifs, that I would have worried myself even more than I already was. She took all that and didn't let me fuss over things that may not matter. When I had a miscarriage, she was the one who told me that I did get pregnant, so that was very hopeful. While I was devastated, I kept going back to what she told me and it helped get me through and still have hope.

I have personally referred 2 people to her and they have since had successful pregnancies. I always told them to call the office if they needed ANYTHING! Sometimes we just need to know things are ok and they can help calm the nerves.

I only really remember our "goal" was 1 baby.. Dr. Reuter had my best interest in mind through the entire process and I was closely monitored. I ended up with twins, which I was ever so grateful of.

During our first meeting, Dr. Reuter explained to me the treatment process and some general things about the female cycle. She was very cold and mechanically cited some facts. I did not have the feeling she was interested in me or my personal story at all. When problems occured, I got to talk to her on the phone once. Within the first few minutes, it became clear that she had no idea who I was or had ever looked at the lab results of my blood and hormone tests etc. She was unapproachable and did not care about my case.

Go to a different doctor.

Her treatment strategy was always the same: Force patients to get expensive blood work and ultrasounds done of which the results were never really discussed or ever mentioned again. Then give the patient some treatment options and have the patient (who has not studied medicine and cannot properly weigh her options) make a treatment decision. She never made a treatment decision for me.

I think an ultrasound was between $350 and $375. An IUI was about $300. A consultation was about $300. The costs for blood tests were the most- about $3000 and some of the tests were redundant, since I already had brought in documentation about the tests and their results. Things like blood type do not change after all.

I liked her as a doctor, and I loved the clinic. But I didn't get to actually see her very much. I had to pay to have a phone consultation, which is fine, but I wish I could have seen her in person. My egg retrieval went smoothly, though we got fewer eggs than expected. However, I do have PCOS, which could have affected egg maturity.

Ask to see her more if needed. Speak up for yourself!

We did IVF with Menopur, Gonal-F, and Cetrotide. I did birth control for a while before starting. We did a Lupron trigger due to fears of OHSS. We got 7 eggs, 5 became embryos, and 3 were tested as PGS normal.

She prefers eSET, especially since I have no histories of pregnancy loss and am under 35.

She isn't very personable. She didn't care about us or our struggle to grow our family. She was unwillingly to modify my treatment even after two failed cycles with no embryos. She also couldn't really give us any reasons our embryos kept arresting. She pushed donor sperm hard even though she knew our insurance coverage would not cover donor gametes. We opted at that time to decline donor material.

Don't. Choose any other provider at Midwest. We wasted two cycle and endless amounts of heartache under her care. Do your research!

She has me on max doses of menopur and gonal-f for both cycles. Neither cycle produced any embryos. Seven eggs both cycles (five were mature each time).

We paid $0 out of pocket due to VA funding.

We never made it this far in our treatment.

She was caring and compassionate. I truly felt she wanted this to work for us! After our fresh transferred failed she was caring! She was excited and caring when our first FET worked and I could tell she was excited for us! Unfortunately our final FET with our last embryo work but ended in miscarriage and she was very considerate of my feelings and even calling me on her personal phone to check up on me!

She is very soft spoken so listen carefully.

Our IVF was over 3 years ago I don’t remember the protocol very well.

It was close to $25,000 for IVF an icsi and for each FET (we had 2) it was $5,000

I was able to transfer two embryos each time, I wish I was told the the percentage of getting pregnant with two babies wasn’t that much higher then if you just transferred one. I probably would have only transferred one at a time.

She was very nice and compassionate but I felt like I had a better relationship with the nurse because that's who I saw most, and who did the IUI's. Although we were diagnosed with unexplained fertility, she was quick to push us to IVF, even though we told her we weren't financially really for that yet. Also, a few years after the failed IUI's I stated seeing a different doctor. That doctor immediately suspected I had endometriosis. (I had surgery shortly after and endo was found.) Dr. Reuter never even mentioned that could be an option.

Do your research and get informed. Ask questions and speak up.

3 medicated cycles with letrozole and timed intercourse.. 2 medicated IUI cycles with letrizole and follistim... 1 medicated IUI cycle with only (twice the dose) of follistim.. all cycles finished with prometrium during the 2 week wait.

Dr. Reuter is very knowledgeable, thorough and is comfortable with aggressive treatment which I appreciate. She will share details if she knows that is what you want, but doesn't seem to do that naturally. She listens to your concerns and adjusts her style based on those. Overall, I have been very pleased with Dr. Reuter's care.

Make sure that she understands your expectations and the level of communication/detail that makes you comfortable.

I began treatment with Letrozole and IUI. The first round of treatment produced 1 follicle, but was unsuccessful. Our next round of treatment we moved to Follistim 100 IU, we still got 1 nice follicle, but the cycle was unsuccessful. The next cycle we moved up to Follistim 150 IU and got 3 mature follicles and some smaller ones. The cycle was unsuccessful and I actually probably overstimulated because I ended up with a cyst and had to take a break for a month. This cycle we are doing Follistim 125 IU and will see how that works.

We are still waiting to undergo egg retrieval and IVF (my husband has to undergo a separate procedure from a urologist first), but during our initial visit with Dr. Reuter, she gave us a lot of good information and options for treatment that would be best for us. She mainly addressed me and not my husband, which made him feel uncomfortable and not part of the process.

Ask lots of questions and don’t be afraid to ask for clarification if you need it.

We have not gotten to this portion of treatment yet, but she said that she prefers single embryo transfer, especially for our first IVF attempt and for my age (I will be 30 when we do our first cycle).

She is kind and explains things well. Over time, it was easy to see her compassion shine through. She seems to sincerely care about explaining things and about positive results. She is a wealth of knowledge and she seemed to put our whole picture together well.

Give her a chance beyond the first visit. While she may seem informative, one can miss the compassionate side of her.

I will be on menopur, gonal-f, and cetrotide. I'll do a 10,000 hcg booster. I'll then be on estrace, PIO, etc.

Our consultation (initial) was about $270. Our second consultation was $85 (and much more informative). IVF costs about $14,000-$16,000 before meds.

She was a strong proponent of a single embryo transfer because of improvements in IVF and the hope for a healthy single pregnancy.

She was very detailed in her care and made us feel very at ease despite going through something so stressful. After meeting her during our consultation/second opinion, I really believed if anyone was going to get us there, it would be her

I would take vitamins daily. Fermera, an ultrasound to check follicules, then the trigger shot, and then the iui procedure.

Each iui was about $700