Paul Brezina

Brezina is great. He comes across a little cooky and talks fast sometimes but he knows his stuff. He personally called me after every IUI on my cell to wish me luck and that really made me feel important and like they really cared about me and my desire to have a child because at the end of the day I do believe they truly want everyone to succeed in a healthy pregnancy.

He is one of the only doctors in the office that doesn’t immediately direct you to go straight to IVF, which I appreciated because we certainly can’t afford it. He laid out all my options in detail in front of me, informed us on each, then left us to make an informed decision on what we should do next. He may not have done all my treatments himself, but he made me feel very comfortable every step of the way.

When I came in for my initial consult, he reviewed my file that was sent over from another local DR and looked at me and asked why I was prescribed Clomid because I have a regular/normal cycle and asked if I knew my TSH levels were low. Which I had no idea! So, he put me on Synthroid. Did a dye test and saline test both came back clear and normal so he gave us the “unexplained” label. We then decided to try IUIs. 3 to be exact, both failed. During those I took Letrovole for 5 days. Then we decided to try Donor embryos. We were going in for my trial transfer and ultra sound appointment when they found polyps. Brezina preformed a Hysterscopy and Laparoscopy the following week to remove my polyps and found I had scar tissue and early signs of endometriosis, which he also cleaned up. We then decided to try one more IUI after getting cleaned out and that recently failed. So now we are back to the FET.

We paid around $150/visit when we had to meet with Brezina. Most blood work visits were $20-30 each (depending on how they code them). Each IUI was around $800 including procedure, ultrasound, and drugs. The FET donor process is running us around $8k.

Brezina recommended single embryo transfer even though you got “2 for 1” when transferring 2 at once and obviously a higher chance. But he says the risks outweigh the odds.

We felt like he was a very compassionate doctor. Like he truly wanted to help. He could see that we really wanted to conceive. And think this may have been the down side. Him knowing how we really wanted this, I think maybe we shouldn’t have done some of the cycles but he did them anyway.

Just make sure to ask him for his honest opinion even if it is against your desires.

If I remember correctly the first cycle was a luteal lupron protocol and the second was antagonist. Some of the medicines I took were birth control, ganirelex, menopur, clomid, crinone, prednisone, and pregnyl, along with fertility vitamins and estradiol.

It was a cattle-call, but it was early in the morning and more convenient for me. Even being open on weekends was helpful.

There was no specific breakdown of what each procedure costs. That’s one thing I didn’t like. It was like a packaged deal. The cost is the frozen transfer was not clear and a lot more than I expected. After 4 IUIs, 2 IVF retrievals and 3 transfers, you’d think that some discounted rates would be offered. I know for a fact that some patients are given discounted package prices because a couple I know was given a 50% discount after the first cycle failed. We were never given such a huge discount. The cost is so expensive it seems that there is more the doctors could do financially to help patients

Each transfer except the last was multiple embryo transfers. On the second transfer I think we should have transferred all three embryos instead of two and then coming back and transferring a single embryo. This is because the first cycle was unsuccessful and the doctor was already concerned about the egg quality. So why not just transfer all three on the second transfer instead of doing a third transfer that costs us more money.

Dr. Brezina was very open and honest with everything. He's compassionate about what he does and his patients. He has dealt with infertility himself and that makes so much difference in the care he gives. He truly understand what his patients are going through.

Ask questions! If you aren't comfortable with something, tell him.

We only did 4 IUI'S with Dr. Brezina. I took femara days 3-7 and an Ovidrel trigger the day before IUI. We did a mid cycle ultrasound to measure follicle size and count. Our next step was IVF but we stopped treatment.

I was lucky enough to have insurance coverage for my treatments. With insurance my oop was about $500 for each IUI, including meds.