Meredith Brower

Dr. Brower is a rockstar. We came to her so desperate, confused, and with multiple issues. She instantly became our North star. She was so wonderful at explaining the process and such an expert while guiding us through it. I felt safe and in skilled hands the entire time. IVF is a strange and lonely experience and what I appreciate most about Dr. Brower is that through her approach -- she made me feel brave.

Don't be afraid to reach out. She is communicative and compassionate and will answer any question you have, no matter how silly you think it might be.

I always felt like an individual under Dr. Brower's care. She and her team were so compassionate and confident during our work together. She calmed all my individual fears, gave us realistic expectations, and developed a very specific protocol. Most importantly she kept us focused and relaxed during our journey.

Antagonist protocol with HGH.

The nursing staff was always available to us and willing to go over ALL of my questions (and I had a lot). they guided us through each step, taught us how to use each of the medications and always returned our calls. I was impressed and appreciative.

The best thing about FSAC is that they have numerous offices and all the doctors see patients at each office. I could always get an appointment at a convenient time, place, and with my specific ER. And while that might sound hectic, it's not. The nurses and office team are so on their game that the three different offices function as one.

I can't remember.

Dr. Brower's approach was always realistic and rooted in the best outcome for my health. I really appreciate the single embryo transfer approach.

Dr. Brower is one of the best doctors I have ever seen. I cried the day she graduated me to my regular OB. She was always understanding and sympathetic to our needs and wants. At the same time she provided her expertise and experience in a way that gave us the opportunity to make the best decisions for our situation. She is simply the BEST!

Trust her and trust the process. She knows what she's doing!

Dr. Brower was absolutely incredible. She was the perfect combination of knowledgeable, honest, and empathetic. I could not have asked for a better doctor. She made a stressful and emotional process as easy as it could possibly be. She was always very responsive and caring.

On day 1 Dr. Brower outlined the different stages and steps to fertility treatments. She went over the pros and cons of each treatment based on our situation (a previous ectopic pregnancy requiring removal of right Fallopian tube). She gave us the option of starting with more conservative treatments, which we did, and gave us full decision making authority to decide when we wanted to move on to the next stage of treatments. Although she let my husband and I decide how quickly we wanted to go to IVF, she provided her recommendations and insight along the way which was just what we needed to make smart, informed decisions. The balance between letting us decide for ourselves and guiding us in the right directions was perfect!

All of the nurses were great! very knowledgeable and accommodating.

I loved the clinic. It was always clean and inviting and there was never a long wait. The clinic was extremely efficient. I liked the fact that you did not need to go to a separate lab for blood work.

Our insurance covered most of the treatments. I generally paid a $40 co-pay per visit

Based on my medical history and the reasons behind our infertility treatments, Dr. Brower felt that a single embryo transfer would likely be successful and we would get pregnant without the need for multiple embryo transfers. She was right!

Dr. Brower is so warm and kind. She took the time to know my husband and I, our life circumstances, work and our personalities. I made mistakes with my medications (just 2) and she made me feel like it wasn't the end of the world and had adjustments for me to make. Despite all of that I had a successful transfer and so far 1st trimester.

Know that she's got you! Allow her to do the worrying for you. Relax and trust that she is excellent at what she does. The process is already stressful with cost and fear of the unknown. If you can do this, your experience will be as good as it can get given the circumstance. Try not to think to far into the future and focus on what's happening right now, get past that and then onto the next hurdle.

Dr. Brower is very warm and personable. She created a realistic expectation for me so that I could remain hopeful but not be surprised if I was disappointed. She is informative, writing things down for my husband and myself. Available to email and would call me personally after procedures and test results. I am very lucky to have received treatment under her care.

I don't remember the specifics, I tried to just do what she recommended. Trying to get the dosage and timing right of the drug administration. I don't recall anything being out of the ordinary from a protcol standpoint. I did messing up the estrogen patch and orally taking a vaginal medication. OMG! :) but I'm pregnant

The staff were great!

I only waited to see Dr. Brower one time longer than 5 minutes. All other appointments I was see right away. The lobby was always quiet and pleasant. Easy street parking. Warm exam rooms.

The costs for us were out of pocket. Approx $7500 for the drugs to facilitate egg production, $1000 for egg retrival and $2500 for embryo transfer. Approx $200 weekly ultrasound visits. Plus medication for post embryo transfer approx $1000.

We did 3 IVF cycles with Dr. Brower at UCLA Santa Monica. She started the 3rd cycle and setup the protocol, and left for maternity leave during the cycle. Dr. Rodi did the egg retrieval on the 3rd cycle. We were initially referred to Dr. Brower by my husbands urologist, and they communicated with each other during the process. We did a few tests in the beginning, such as a genetics test, blood work, urine analysis, and tested my husbands sperm motility. That was it, and we began stimulation. Each time we tried a different injection recipe with similar results. We were told there was no way to test the quality of the sperm and eggs. We both have physical complications and a little more testing would have been beneficial. Instead, we were given donor options. Dr. Brower has since transferred to a new facility, and we have chosen to seek a new doctor. The new doctor performed some critical tests, that Dr. Brower did not do or recommend. These tests would have saved us a lot of trouble and money from doing the 3 unsuccessful cycles.

If you run into some complications, it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion. That goes with any medical procedure from any doctor. She is very knowledgable, but there could be something she is missing. It happens to everyone.

Dr. Brower was always straight forward and very personable. She is very knowledgable and very good at communicating. She has a very warm bedside manner.

Cycle 1 (max dosage): Birth Control 16 days, Androgel 12 days, Androderm 5 days, Gonal F 300 u 11 days, Menopur 11 days, Cetrotide 4 days, and Ovidrel trigger. Cycle 2 (max dosage):: Androgel 18 days, Lupron 21 days, Gonal F 300 u 10 days, Menopur 10 days, and Ovidrel trigger. Cycle 3 (lower dosage): Birth Control 16 days, Menopur 11 days, Omnitrope 8 days, Cetrotide 4 days, and Ovidrel trigger.

Teri is the nurse who I worked with all 3 times. She is knowledgable and kind, but it could be a struggle to communicate with her via phone or email.

The staff is friendly and we always felt comfortable there. Jessica was the nurse who usually greeted us and drew blood. She is very sweet, and seems to enjoy her job. Parking is expensive if you don't have an early morning appointment.

My insurance did not cover IVF so, it was all out-of-pocket.

We only had 1 so, there was never an option.

I was referred to Dr. Brower by my ob/gyn after the loss of our first pregnancy. I consulted with her as we were coming up on six months (over the age of 35) without a successful pregnancy. My husband and I met with her after we got my initial blood work back. She was sympathetic about our loss, presented different treatment options, and was appropriately candid about the less than rosy statistics for them. We decided to proceed with IVF as it offered our best chance of success and we liked the prospect of being able to test to reduce the risk of another loss. I began priming and OCP suppression later that month. When our first retrieval cycle did not go well (objective was to get something to test), she gave us the option to repeat the same protocol or to try a different one for our second cycle. I found Dr. Brower to be appropriately communicative, candid, and caring.

Maybe not specific to Dr. Brower, but it's important to understand that infertility is a very frustrating branch of medicine that does not offer the same quality of data that others do. There are still a lot of unknowns and every patient is different.

I appreciate that Dr. Brower considers the emotional aspect of infertility and related treatment. I also appreciated seeing Dr. Brower (or her partner in Dr. Brower's absence) for my ultrasound monitoring appointments instead of an ultrasound tech. She was very responsive to email/web portal inquiries.

My first cycle with Dr. Brower was antagonist - I testosterone primed with Androgel for 34 days and stimmed with 300 Gonal-F, 150 Menopur, and hgh for nine days (adding Cetrotide days 7-9), triggering with a single dose of Ovidrel on the 10th day. We retrieved 12 eggs, of which only 7 were mature and ICSI'd, of which only three fertilized. One became a morula, but the other two did not make it that far. We had no blastocysts to test and freeze as was our goal. Because that went poorly, we wanted to try a different protocol to see how that would go. The cycle after the first egg retrieval, I started OCP on CD3 preparing for another antagonist protocol. I testosterone primed with Androgel for 24 days (stopping 2-3 days before beginning stims as I ran out because it had been ordered before changing to the luteal lupron plan). We had subsequently decided on a luteal lupron protocol (without OCP), but I needed to remain on the OCP for about a week for hysteroscopy visibility. After that I had to monitor for ovulation with OPKs to ensure ovulation before starting lupron suppression (10u once daily) on CD20 for 13 days. I began stimming this time with 450 Gonal-F, hgh, and reducing the lupron to 5u for days 1-4. Beginning day 5, I reduced the Gonal-F to 300 and added 150 Menopur along with the hgh and lupron through day 10. I triggered on day 11 with a single dose of Ovidrel. We decided to try half IVF and half ICSI since all ICSI didn't work out well for us last time - we admit the human element with ICSI scares us a little bit and like the idea of some natural selection. We retrieved 10 eggs, of which 8 fertilized (5/5 IVF, 3/5 ICSI), and are currently waiting to see how they fare.

Teri is an experienced IVF coordinator/nurse, but I'm not sure if her workload is too much handling all IVF patients. She was very helpful in getting my IVF cycles approved with my insurance, but sometimes I would not get responses to my emails. The other nurses I saw for blood draws and to take my vitals were pleasant and professional.

My only comparison is with a private clinic (not affiliated with a large public university), and I had much better service (at a price!) at the private clinic. Monitoring was only every other day toward the end of stims, so I didn't know what my actual situation (E2, largest follicle size) was at trigger, whether hcg in my system was sufficient after trigger, etc. At my last monitoring appointment, I noticed that they do not measure all of the follicles (I didn't have that many being AMA), just the few largest to get an idea. While I understand that this appears to get the job done, I usually like more information when possible. Again, I like the frequency with which I got to see my own doctor, which I understand doesn't happen everywhere.

I had insurance coverage for my two IVF cycles with her. The office uses another fertility center or one of the university surgical centers for its surgeries, so bills came separately from different departments at UCLA (physician billing is different from hospital billing) or from the third party fertility center directly. Genetic testing (of me, not embryos) was also billed separately.

Dr. Brower made clear that multiples basically increase the risk of everything that can go wrong. We would probably only transfer more than one if untested.

Dr. Brower is an amazing doctor with an incredible bedside manner. I unfortunately needed the assistance of a doctor to conceive, but my husband and I were lucky enough to have Dr. Brower on our side. IVF can be an emotional and time consuming process, nevermind the financial implications if insurance doesn't cover it. However, with Dr. Brower you feel like you have another person besides your spouse and/or any family and friends to turn to. Too often you hear a doctor say he/she understands what is happening to your body or knows what you're going through and they really don't. But this is not the case with Dr. Brower. During every single little step in the process she was there. She is incredibly prompt and detailed in her response to any and all questions - day or night AND on the weekends. She is up to date on her research and studies and is willing to work with you to make your protocol personal and what you specifically need. She helps you find financial assistance, if needed. In addition to Dr. Bower, you get her wonderful team - Teri, IVF Coordinator, who knows where to get the protocol meds cheapest and gives a great injection tutorial, and Jessica, nurse, who is an incredible joy to be around even at 7:30am and can draw blood at first poke even with the tiny veins I have! It is a true blessing to graduate from Dr. Brower's care to the care of a regular OB for the remainder of your pregnancy, but trust me when I say this (as you'll be thinking/saying the same thing) - you'll wish she delivered babies too! I did not want to leaver her office at my last appointment. She invited my husband and I into her office to see if we have any final questions - I always have questions (which she is beyond happy to answer) - and I couldn't muster one, not even to stay longer. I will miss her care immensely, but am excited to work with her again in the future when we want to conceive again.

You made a great choice! Dr. Brower is patient, empathetic, sympathetic, and always available. Even if results aren't always great, you'll know that you have a support system always available.

Dr. Brower has an incredible bedside manner and treats every patient uniquely based on that patient's needs and protocol and how the patient like their news/information delivered.

I am not infertile, but went through fertility treatment because I have a chromosomal dominant disease that I did not want my child(ren) to have so my protocol may be different. I started off on birth control and the reason for this is to regulate your cycle, calm your ovaries, and so your doctor knows when you are most likely to ovulate. I had ten days of ovarian stimulation which included Gonal-F and Menopur and the final four days included Cetrotide so I wouldn't ovulate. I have a Lupron based trigger shot, which is great if you're a candidate for it as it helps combat the likelihood/side effects of OHSS. Post-retrieval for seven days I took Cabergoline which continues to combat the likelihood/side effects of OHSS. After starting my period, post-retrieval, I started birth control again (I wanted to do the transfer as soon as possible) so that my doctor would know when I would ovulate. I stopped birth control pills about 10-12 days in and got another period and then started a protocol of Estrogen by transdermal patches on my abdomen, which helps produce a thick uterine lining making it more likely that your embryo transfer will produce a pregnancy (thick lining=easier implantation of embryo). The Estrogen also stops ovulation. The five days leading up to the embryo transfer I started Progesterone. Dr. Brower provided a protocol of two Endometrin suppositories and a 1ml evening injection of Progesterone. She allows for Progesterone to be administered in one of three ways: three Endometrin suppositories; two Endometrin suppositories and a 1ml evening injection of Progesterone; or a 2ml evening injection of Progesterone. I started on the original protocol, but found that the injection was a breeze and the suppositories were frankly quite messy that about two days into this (three days prior to transfer) I switched over to the last option - a 2ml evening injection of Progesterone. Big plus is the progesterone by injection is MUCH less expensive than the Endometrin. The Estrogen transdermal patches and Progesterone (whichever protocol you choose) is done until you reach 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Teri, IVF Coordinator, is so much fun and so incredibly nice. She has been in the IVF business for over ten years and worked at a couple different clinics. She's seen the industry evolve and really is a great help for injections. She knows the best pharmacy to have your protocol meds purchased through, regardless of them going through insurance or being out of pocket. Additionally, she will coach you on your injection trainings. She has the best tips for painless injections and knows how to administer an injection that normally may sting so that it doesn't. Jessica, nurse for Dr. Brower, is so incredibly sweet and nice ALWAYS. I had doctor appointments at the crack of dawn, 7:30am, and she was always so nice and had a great attitude even at that time of day. A big plus is she is great with blood draws. I have tiny veins that sometimes like to roll, she gets the blood draw in the first poke, no bruises and no pain!

First thing is it's in Santa Monica, which is notorious for awful, expensive parking. Go across the street and park in the meter spots if you have an appointment in the early morning, meter parking is free there until 9am! As for the clinic, it is always clean, comfortable, and warm. The staff are nice and quick with check-in and check-out. You're going to be there every other day sometimes, and they really do recognize you and get to know you. The bedside manner really is great across the board.

0% of IVF and related expenses are covered by my insurance so it was fully out-of-pocket. One cycle of IVF cost about $3,000 and one transfer cycle monitoring cost about $2,000 - these are both paid directly to the doctor's office at the end of the cycle

Dr. Brower is careful to be cautiously optimistic. She was very clear about my chances of getting pregnant and didn't sugar coat anything. Also, her encouragement helped my spouse and I focus on the next step and kept us from drowning in the big picture. The big picture can be very overwhelming. Dr. Brower is very thorough in her explanations and she took the time to answer all of our questions. I never felt rushed which is important because this kind of treatment is very emotional. She is very compassionate and I feel that she is very invested in the success of her patients. UCLA has a great online system where you can email the doctor, see test results, upcoming appointments, etc. Dr. Brower always answered my emails within 24 hours and often within 6 hours. I never had an inquiry go unanswered Against pretty big odds, I am happy to say that I am 12 weeks pregnant today.

I think this could be advice to anyone. Take really good notes, so when you are in an appointment you can give accurate answers about yourself and you ask every question that's on your mind.

Dr. Brower is very patient and calm. She took the time to answer all of my questions and I never felt rushed. When I received disappointing news, she stayed with me to comfort me.

I pursued 2 cycles of IVF. The first protocol: I prepped with bcp then I administered Gonal F, Menopur and Omnitrope. I had a poor response possibly due to the bcp over-suppressing the ovaries. For the second protocol: I prepped with testosterone gel and clomid (and an estrogen patch? I can't remember). I administered Gonal F, Menopur and Omnitrope then triggered with Ovidrel. We discussed doing something different if we needed to try another cycle, but I didn't have to!

I had very positive experiences with the nursing staff. The nurse I had most often, Jessica, really enjoys her job and gets excited about good news. It was nice to have people cheering for my pregnancy.

Scheduling and changing appointments is very easy and efficient here. Whenever I had questions about insurance, I felt like I received an informed answer. The UCLA online system is easy to use and I could send messages to my doctor without having to call. Don't park in the ramp as it is too expensive and there is no validation. Street parking in Santa Monica near the clinic is permit parking only. I would make morning appointments and park at the meters across the street. It gets busier as the day goes on. Parking always takes longer than you think it will!

UCLA offers a package for IVF. If your treatment is cancelled, they break down the appointments and bill the appointments individually. Dr. Brower is knowledgable about billing and insurance and was able to explain the cost with me along the way. She identified cost savings when possible. For example, I was scheduled for a polyp removal procedure. I found out I was pregnant and Dr. Brower recognized that it was ectopic. While I was in surgery for the ectopic, she removed my polyp at the same time. This saved me from a separate procedure, a lot of extra expenses and more heartache. I also qualified for a great discount for fertility medication through Compassionate Care. There was a time that I miscounted my meds and Dr. Brower was able to pull from the office supply (donations from previous patients) to cover me until I could get to the pharmacy the next day. She met me after hours and I was so grateful. The IVF coordinator, Teresa Abraham, is very good about calculating how much medication is needed, so you don't have to buy more than you need. Not a drop of my Gonal F was wasted because she was able to extract more out of the used pens to make another dose. This is a big deal considering the cost of the injection pens.

Dr. Meredith Brower is one of the kindest and capable healthcare professionals I have had the pleasure of working with. She is very knowledgeable while being able to explain things in a way that is easy to understand. She is nurturing, and it's so obvious how much she cares for each of her patients. We feel so fortunate that we found her!

Be honest with yourself and with your doctor about what you hope to achieve. Dr. Brower is there for you and will do everything she can to help you reach your goal, whatever that may be.

Dr. Brower is the kindest and most empathetic specialist you could ask for. She made us feel safe, welcomed, and cared for. She kept morale high with her positive attitude, while still being honest and open about realistic outcomes.

The clinic is great. Billing staff is helpful. Doctors, PAs/NPs, and nurses are the best. Location is easy to find. Equipment is up to date and the wait time is short. Overall we had an excellent experience with this clinic.