Zev Rosenwaks

For being one of the top experts in the field of fertility, you can understand once you meet him for the first time why that is. He has always made me and my husband feel our case was important to him, and that he had high hopes and reasonable expectations we would be able to have the family we hoped for. Our situation is unique compared to some others as we live in Georgia and chose to first see him for a second opinion until ultimately deciding he was the best doctor for our fertility journey despite the distance. He wanted to try an IUI first given my age (under 35) and once we returned to Georgia after the procedure, I had a very rare reaction. I ended up in the hospital for 5 days with what was later determined to be endometritis, or uterine infection. Despite being so far away from Dr. Rosenwaks, he and his team of fellows were on top of my case, in close contact with my local OB/GYN who was administering my care. Once I was well enough to travel back to NY, he had me come in on a Sunday and had doctors there to see me to ensure my continued recovery. He also sent me to other top notch specialists when there were still concerns with my health that were somewhat out of his wheelhouse. The infection did delay our treatment for a few months but I could not have imagined going through what I went through under anyone else’s care. We had other bumps in the road, having to delay our first IVF cycle in Jan. 2020 because of elevated FSH levels. Luckily we were able to start in February, and despite some severe cramping as a result of stimulation, I did get pregnant. Unfortunately, the pregnancy showed a low fetal heartbeat at 7 weeks and ended in miscarriage by 8 weeks. It was devastating, and still is, but Dr. Rosenwaks has truly been here for us, calling to check in on me and giving me as much information as possible about a plan moving forward despite the current COVID-19 crisis.

Dr. Rosenwaks is very matter-of-fact about plans and fertility protocols. But he will answer any question you have. Do not hesitate to ask anything you have questions about, or his opinion on something you heard or read. He will be honest about his thoughts. Even though he no longer performs procedures himself, he is the director of the clinic and has put together an incredible staff of doctors, nurses and fellows who have an incredibly high standard to achieve in working with him.

Dr. Rosenwaks informed us from the beginning that I may not get very many eggs from the retrieval because of low AMH/ high FSH levels, indicative of somewhat diminished ovarian reserve. I had a day 2 start after being on estrogen patches to suppress my eggs from having ones grow faster than the others because of my high FSH. I stimulated for 12 days on Follistim 300 units, Ganirelix cycle days 9 to 13, HCG trigger 10,000 units day 14. My egg retrieval yielded 4 mature eggs, ICSI, resulting in 3 day 5 blastocyst embryos. We transferred 1 and achieved positive pregnancy test. I was also taking intramuscular progesterone injections until miscarriage.

Often times lots of people waiting during morning monitoring hours. Generally didn’t wait more than 20-30 minutes. One side of waiting room is for scheduled doctor appts, other side is for monitoring.

Still working through this, but IUI under our insurance is 50% covered. No IVF or medication coverage, which right now having everything submitted through insurance which we are now receiving the bills for, comes out for about 23k. This does not included staying in an apartment since we live in Georgia.

Dr. Rosenwaks highly prefers single embryo transfer for day 5 blastocysts for women under the age of 35.

Dr Rosenwaks is thorough and ensures I am monitored frequently, he then may make changes to the plan based on the results of my monitoring to ensure the best possible result. Dr Rosenwaks is an EXPERT, and in fact he has trained countless other physicians in his field.

You are in good hands.

The IVF cycle was with gonal-F, menopur, and cetrotide. My trigger shot was initially going to be with Novarel but the team became concerned about high risk for OHSS so Dr Rosenwaks switched me to a dual-trigger to reduce my risk. I ended up with 18 eggs retrieved, 16 mature, 15 fertilized, 12 made it to blastocyst.

Morning monitoring starts at 6:30am, however you can arrive prior to that to sign in, which is helpful if it's important for you to be in and out quickly. The waiting room is spacious and has plenty of chairs. Generally for AM bloodwork and US I am there for ~45min.

The initial consultation with Dr Rosenwaks was approx $600-700 out of pocket. The lab work, egg retrieval, and embryo transfer were mainly covered by insurance and I was responsible for the co-pays.

Dr Rosenwaks is very direct that he only does eSET and does not do multiple embryo transfer due to the additional risks that it presents.

I don’t even know where to start... we’ve done two cycles with him, just finished the egg second egg retrieval. He is nothing short of brilliant, thoughtful, and compassionate. I broke down and started crying when I spoke with him over the phone when he mentioned the possibility of a second cycle... he was kind and referred me to his main administrative assistant who ended up finding significant financial assistance for us. He was also in constant contact with my husband and me after I experienced a rare reaction to progesterone injections. All this in the setting of living 3-4 hours away from the clinic. The only downside is he is not a great communicator... does not always tell you what he’s thinking or why, had some issues with calls back regarding a plan moving forward.

While he is not very delicate in his approach to care, know he cares, is always working for the good of his patients, and is at the top of his practice with respect to his approach to treatment.

First cycle - Follistim, Menopur, Ganirelix added in towards the end as the antagonist. Hcg trigger shot was 10,000 units. 14 eggs retrieved, 10 mature, 9 fertilized with ICSI. 1 early blastocyst transferred day 5, negative pregnancy test. Others were multinucleated and did not even approach the blastocyst stage. Trigger shot was done a little early based previous failed cycles with a different clinic, which produced no blastocysts between 2 cycles. Second cycle - clomid for five days total, after three days started follistim and menopur. Added cetrotide in after a few days. Hcg was 10000 units again. Had egg retrieval today, sounds like 10 eggs but won’t know until tomorrow how many, maturity, fertilization results. Not sure why the clomid first, other than I was using all donated medications and this is very inexpensive.

Some days were very busy and four of us would be called at a time and placed into rooms one by one. Other times, it was not that busy and one 1 or 2 would be called at a time. Sometimes you do bloodwork first, sometimes ultrasound first. There is a window from 6:30-8:30 am to get the monitoring done, so you show up and check in with the front desk sometime between those hours.

Since our insurance did not cover ANYTHING related to ART, we estimated the whole thing (IVF cycle, retrieval and hospital fees, parking, medications etc.) put us close to $25,000. We also live 3-4 hours away so would sometimes stay overnight, which also added to that cost.

Generally I think he prefers single embryo transfers, at least in younger patients. Other than that, we never had more than one so that wasn’t really applicable or discussed.

Dr Rosenwaks is not warm or bubbly, but he is a GENIUS. He knows the science and art of fertility. I did always feel like I was in the absolute best of hands. I never doubted, IF he would successfully get me pregnant, it was just a matter of time. He definitely is not forthcoming when it comes to providing information and a treatment plan, he only provides bits and pieces as time goes along, I think that is the case because he really studies you as a patient and makes decisions as things progress and he makes adjustments accordingly. I would definitely be going back for future pregnancy help.

I would tell a future patient to not expect that Dr Rosenwaks would "hold your hand" through the process and as hard as it is just to just simply trust him. He really does have the patients safety and interest first. He will get the job done.

Dr Rosenwaks definitely wanted to start as least invasive as possible, we started with a very low dose of clomid for stimulation and an IUI. His ultimate goal is a healthy singleton pregnancy. The first clomid + iui produced a chemical pregnancy...though I was devastated, he was thrilled because it proved I could get pregnant. We attempted the same a 2nd round and it was a negative test. After that, I pleaded to start IVF because I knew that would more likely be successful and I was impatient. He was on board and he gave me extremely low doses of the stimulation drugs to prevent on complications. He is very cautious. My first IVF cycle was very successful--I have a healthy singleton live birth and 5 frozen day 5 embryos that are reported "excellent quality."

I always went right at opening so I did not have to wait. I needed to be there early to make it to work on time. The line was very long on weekends and later in the morning, this was not an issue for me though because I was there at the earliest possible minute.

Everything was out of pocket, Dr Rosenwaks does not accept insurance. All procedures were attempted to be billed to insurance, though I had minimal coverage.

I know Dr Rosenwaks much prefers a single transfer as he feels that is safest for baby and mom. I pleaded for multiple and he was adamant for a single, and fortunately for me it worked out.

I am still going through the process so I can't detail my experience in full but everything so far has been positive. He is efficient in his testing procedures and had requested a lot of different tests than my previous clinic. This made me feel more confident in his skills than my previous doctor. He is also prescribing a different method of treatment for my next cycle which makes me feel like he is more thoughtful in his approach rather than just out to get our money by suggesting the most expensive option.

Know that you might not always see him for each visit. I have seen him most visits but he has not performed all the procedures, like the HSG. However, the other doctor I have seen has always been consistent so I do not feel like I'm rotating through the whole clinic.

We are just beginning my IUI cycle. It's going to be an IUI with Clomid. I do not yet know the dose. The pretesting has involved: A complete work up of blood tests 2 semen analysis for my husband Several vaginal ultrasounds An HSG ( no balloon method) A saline ultrasound

He does not accept any insurance

This has not yet been discussed because we are trying IUI first

I 100% attribute Zev to the birth of my daughter. He is not a doctor who will hold your hand or be your best friend. He is all business, all the time. A very serious guy. But thats what I wanted. Didnt care about bedside mannor or a nice doctor. I wanted to have a baby and he made that happen. But have a thick skin going to him. Also, he does not call back for most questions. And doesnt call back same day. He is really only going to pay attention when you are doing a cylce with him. The rest of the time expect to communicate with nurses.

Trust he is on top of your case and dont expect any hand holding.

Round 1 ivf - freeze all, pgs. Then FET with two embryos. Resulted in miscarriage at 8 weeks. Round 2 ivf - clomed priming protocol. Day 3 fresh transfer. Live birth.

Busy cattle call. Takes an hour sometimes.

He does not take insurance. Appointments were $200-$500. Ivf was $12k plus additional for icsi, pgs, etc.

I always transfered two embroys.

I went to Dr Rosenwaks after hearing countless stories about his success in treating patients who had suffered failures with other doctors. He presents as the deeply experienced, obsessive practitioner he is. He is the best kind of Doctor: confident, process-oriented, curious, and dedicated to helping patients achieve their goals. He has seen it all, and that gave me confidence that if I put myself in his care, I would get pregnant. He was there for me whenever I needed him, puzzling through scenarios and cracking my code. After a failed transfer, his nurse told me he took my records home to have time to quietly reflect and be sure he hadn't missed anything. He hadn't, we proceeded, and I was pregnant on the next try. He is a consummate professional, so he won't cry with you, but if and when you need that, you can lean on his amazing staff of nurses and the incomparable practice head, Wally. I wanted the most experienced, smartest, devoted, results-oriented Doctor I could find and Dr Rosenwaks is absolutely that.

Trust in his experience and in the process. Be patient and know that his success rates are among the best in the world and you will get there if you stay the course.

I previously froze eggs at another practice using the same follistim/gonal f/menopur combo protocol from a day 2 start. However, Dr Rosenwaks took a more judicious approach to medicating me, which made the process much easier and produced exactly the result he wanted (15 eggs retrieved, 12 isci embryos, 10 day 5 blastocysts, 5 embryos normal after pre genetic testing). Because I was not overstimulated by Dr Rosenwaks, the entire retrieval process was easier and recovery was much faster.

15 to 20k with pgs and icsi, partially covered by insurance.

Dr. Rosenwaks is very thorough and requires all exams/testing be done there as he really wants accurate info. He always communicated with me directly including calling me on my cell phone when we needed to make an urgent decision.

You can trust him to do the best for you. Cornell is a well run clinic and he is a top notch Doctor.

We used an antagonist protocol with 20 eggs retrieved, 16 mature, 12 fertilized, 5 day 5 embryos (my previous doc said my embryos would not make it to day 5)

Monitoring is very efficient. You come sign in during the window. They call you by when you signed in. You are in and out very quickly.

$19,000 for ivf with monitoring, ICSI and PGS

Hard to talk to but extremely smart.

Don't expect compassion, he will not hold your hand

Patch, gonal, menopur and ganerelix

I have insurance that covers 2/3 of my cycle

Dr Rosenwaks explained everything & he made me feel better when I got emotional. He’s not all smiles & warm & fuzzy. I had Doctors like that but I didn’t get pregnant. Dr Rosenwaks just makes sure that you get pregnant. He’s very knowledgeable & is highly competent in every aspect or reproductive medicine.

Please be patient, hormones make you emotional. Just pray or do meditation to get relaxed. Have faith & trust in your doctor. He’ll make it happen.

It was about $10k with our first son but then insurance covered more so our twins were about $5k but that was 15 & 20 years ago. You can’t put a price tag in the miracle of a child .... you just can’t.

Dr Rosenwaks transferred the current amount of embryos that would take and produce a liable pregnancy.