Northwestern Fertility & Reproductive Medicine

Dr. Bernardi is compassionate and knowledgeable. She made my husband and I feel very at ease during each of our meetings and explained things in terms that we could both understand. I feel like she is a partner in our journey.

Do your research before seeking consultation so you can have an educated conversation with the doctor. She does a good thing of explaining things, but you'll be in a better position to understand them and grapple with any emotional what ifs prior to the meeting if you are your own advocate. She will help you along the way.

It was determined that I had signs and symptoms of PCOS after an hour long consultation, labs and ultrasound. We proceeded to do genetic testing and an HSG to check if I had any blockages in my tubes. I had no issues with that so the suggested method of treatment was to recruit follicles with Femara and trigger with Ovidrel while doing monitored cycles. I am currently on my third month in a two week wait. This protocol is managed by a nurse through the mychart system to set up early morning monitoring appointments.

After insurance, I have minimal costs for my monitored cycles with letrozole and ovirdrel. However, if I decide to do an IUI, that would be approximately $720 out of pocket for the procedure itself. IVF is uncovered by my insurance and costs $10,000 per round made by check.

Not Applicable to me

I did not see Dr Jain too often, just twice. Once for initial fertility consult when be advised us his plan for IUI before IVF. We met again for an IVF consultation.i thought he was quite thorough and provided hope for our case

Most likely will be interacting with the nurses more

We started with provera to induce a period as I have anonvary (spelling?) Cycles. Once my cycle started I would come in for a baseline ultrasound to check if there were any cysts or abnormalities. If all was cleared, I would take clomid for 5 days and come back for a mid cycle ultrasound to get blood work done. If estrogen levels and follicle size were mature, I would be instructed to do an ovidrel shot before coming into doing an IUI cycle. I have not started IVF yet but Dr Jain informed me of the risk of OHSS

With insurance, each IUI cycle was about $600. Ovidrel injection is $92 each x 5 attempts. IVF meds were $2,000 after insurance. The IVF procedure would cost about $5,000.

None

Dr. Kim is very no nonsense. She's doesn't come off as the most compassionate person, but she knows her stuff. She's very black and white. I appreciate it because I don't need someone to sugar coat things, but other people may not appreciate her abrupt style.

She's going to tell you like it is, whether you want to hear it or not.

I've done 2 IUIs with Dr. Kim. Both were 100 mg of Clomid with monitoring and Ovidrel trigger shot. My insurance doesn't cover fertility treatment, and since I'm older, with unexplained fertility, she advised 2 IUIs before moving on to IVF. I've only had the consult for IVF with her to date.

My insurance doesn't cover anything, so it's all out of pocket. They will bill insurance, but most is not covered. IUIs are $700. The self-pay for IVF is $10,000, which doesn't include meds and PGS testing. They are very upfront on all the costs when you meet with the financial consultant.

In my consult, she's told me about multiple transfer vs. single and has told me the risks and the odds, based on my age.

Dr. Boots was so wonderful. She made me feel comfortable from the beginning. She answered all my questions, even when I came with long typed out lists. She was compassionate even when I was kist starting out and only doing the ovulation induction meds. I always felt like she cared about me, at each stage. She walked me through every step of the process every time I met with her and explained things until I felt comfortable. My body threw us a lot of curveballs and she had multiple ideas and solutions every time. We always discussed the pros, cons and risks of each option and she wanted me to feel good about our decisions. I trust her completely and always felt like she was doing and recommending what she believed was best for me. We had a rough road, but are finally pregnant. We are incredibly grateful for Dr. Boots and her care. We wouldn’t be here without her!!! My experience wasn’t easy but she made it as positive as it could have been.

Ask a lot of questions and come prepared to your appointments! Don’t be afraid to keep asking about something if you don’t understand it. Even if you read about something online or heard about it from a friend, she will help explain and never makes you feel silly for asking.

Letrozole & Clomid for timed intercourse/IUI. GonalF Menopur Ganirelix Omnitrope Estrogen Progesterone Lovenox for IVF. For frozen embryo transfers, we tried estrogen pills, then patches and then injections and on our last round we stimmed my ovaries with GonalF and Menopur to create my own estrogen and mimic a fresh cycle.

Efficient machine, first come first serve. Some days busier than others but that was to be expected. Most of the time it was quick.

Insurance covered.

Recommended single due to my young age and no history of miscarriage. After 2 unsuccessful transfers we discussed transferring two embryos. She was very open to it but discussed potential risks with me. She supported my decision completely. We ended up going with two.

Dr. Bernardi is up to date on the leading edge of fertility research and treatment options. She was really compassionate and a good physician, caring for our overall health and well being, not just getting the cycles done. She is a fast talker, very detailed, but also clear. She was willing to try everything, but she was also able to clearly communicate to us when we had reached the end of what was likely to be achievable using our own eggs.

Be prepared for lots of information, but also expect a kind and caring physician.

Dr. Bernardi made adjustments to the agonist dosage and tried some additional therapies, including HGH. Unfortunately, none of the therapies or approaches produced a viable pregnancy using our own eggs. Eventually she advised us to proceed with donor eggs, but we decided to pause our infertility journey at that point.

Illinois mandates coverage for infertility treatment, and at the time we had really great coverage through an employer. Our out of pocket costs were really limited to our copays and any outside-the-box treatments (like HGH and compounding pharmacy costs).

Dr Bernardi always remembered everything about my case and was so compassionate. She would frequently call me if something came up and didn’t only rely on her nurses to share sensitive information. I always feel completely taken care of when I meet with her or talk to her and know she’s doing everything in her power to help me have a successful pregnancy.

Make sure you get her as your doctor!

IVF

I had 100% insurance coverage for everything except PGS testing which ended up being about $4000 total

We are only doing single embryo transfers

Dr Boots was a wonderful, caring doctor. From our first visit she made us feel comfortable and made us feel heard. She used diagrams to help explain the process and answered all the questions we had. Our journey felt slow at times and not everything worked successfully, but Dr Boots was available to answer questions, always called to talk through solutions, and helped me understand next steps.

Dr Boots would only do a single embryo transfer for my age category given that I had previously become pregnant.

Dr. Feinberg has been a great resource for me. Not only is she my doctor, but I have felt like she is my mentor and confidant during this emotional time of dealing with infertility. Any time there has been a medical setback, she has personally called me to check in and make sure I am doing ok and help construct a plan of action for the future.

Call as soon as you know you want to see a fertility specialist as she sometimes has a waiting list.

Dr Robins has all of the FACTS! He is super knowledgeable and can answer all my questions well. That's what most of our discussions were about, facts of the tests, results, and next steps. I feel confident in what he tells us. If you are looking for special, tender care, Dr Robins may not be it for you. I need facts and look at things analytically, so I think it is a good match.

Go with lots of questions, research on your own too!

I have done 4 IUI with clomid and am currently in my 5th cycle with letrozole

Dr Robins recommend single embryo transfer if we start IVF in February

She was encourageing and empathetic to our situation and is always telling us not to quit. We had always left feeling reassured that no matter what course of action we take, we'll eventually get a positive result. Very considerate and was an expert on the topic.

Do as much research up-front and prepared with all of your questions when meeting with the doctor

She started us out on timed intercourse, followed by 3 IUIs, followed by IVF- all cycles with Letrozole/Femara protocol.

IUIs were about $1000 each including actual procedure, medications and blood work. Cost of single IVF is planned to be about $15,000

We loved her. She is extremely skilled and communicates well. I got OHSS, and she was calm and handled it in a way that kept me from panicking. We had a wonderful experience, even though IVF was hard, and she was always available for a visit or call when I needed.

Ask questions when you have them - she’ll answer them!

Insurance covered my care

Doctor Jared was awesome I felt 100% comfortable with him and my treatment plans. He went over all my test results with me & my partner.he explain the treatment we would do like first I start on the clomid pill then do ultrasounds & blood draws to track my hormones.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and do retest on anything that doesn’t sound right.

My insurance covered everything except my medications & IUI procedure so we decided to do clomid with the injection with time intercourses

Eve truly listened to my husband and I, validated our concerns, and made us feel like partners in the treatment plan versus merely patients. With five failed embryo transfers and three miscarriages under my belt, I was extremely apprehensive and nervous about starting over. Eve went through my records from my previous clinic thoroughly and found numerous errors they made in medication dosing, which she guessed was having an adverse affect on the quality of our embryos. She adjusted my medications and carefully monitored me during the stimulation cycle, and after a failed first cycle adjusted further. She called me herself to let me know that that first cycle would probably not result in pregnancy and I appreciated her honesty. She said we would do things differently the next cycle. She got it right. We were successful on our second round after a short three months of active treatment, versus a year and half at my previous clinic. The only regret I have in all of this is not going to her in the first place.

Ask questions and voice any concerns you have - she will listen to you. Call today because she books up months in advance!

After three miscarriages, Eve suggested an estrogen priming cycle before my first egg retrieval with her to increase the number of egg-containing follicles. She also lowered my injectable medication doses after seeing that they wreaked havoc on my embryos at my previous clinic. In addition, she added in human growth hormone to improve egg quality. That cycle did not work, but we started the next cycle immediately following my period instead of waiting an entire month to start again (like my previous doctor did). She suspected the dosing she had me on was not enough. She then increased the doses on my injectables and kept the growth hormone protocol. I produced 10 eggs that round, which is the most I had ever had. She also put me on an immune protocol after my embryos were transferred to suppress my system in case it was attacking the pregnancies. She put me on prednisone, Pepcid AC, Claritin, and baby aspirin. It seemed to do the trick because I became pregnant with twins.

I don't know offhand but my insurance covers most of my treatment. Our costs were minimal compared to most people, and the most we paid besides medication costs was the fee to freeze and store our leftover embryos which is $1200.

I know Eve feels strongly that eSET is the way to go in younger patients, but with my history of repeated pregnancy loss she agreed that transferring two embryos would yield the best results (despite the risks that come with a multiple pregnancy). That being said, she really takes into account your personal situation to make decisions like that.

Even though our first round of IVF with Dr Feinberg failed, we still trust her and the process and will not give up. We felt so well taken care of by her. She answers all my questions no matter how silly they may seem. When we talk to her, we feel as if she is more of a friend than a doctor.

She is determined to get you pregnant and will not give up!

I was happy that Dr Feinberg changed my protocol from my last retrieval with a different clinic. I was on less medications and in return I felt better physically and mentally. I also found it refreshing that she suggested a day 3 transfer instead of what I have done in the past, a day 5 and explained to us the reason she would transfer two instead of one. I liked how she mixed it up because we were afraid of doing the same thing as previous cycles and expecting different results.

Compared to other clinics, the costs with Dr Feinberg were significantly lower. They really want to make it affordable to everyone as they know it doesn't always work on the first try and you might have to do more than one round. My insurance has an infertility max that had already been met, so we knew we were going to be self pay. We were pleasantly surprised that the financial advisor said our blood tests and ultrasounds would be covered, as well as some of the drugs, so we went with the lower priced package.

She said if it was her, she would transfer 2 but still gave us the choice to make on our own. We valued her advice and transferred two.

She is really open and honest, explaining her thinking at each step. She has also been deeply caring when things have been difficult or unexpected. I have real trust that she knows what she’s doing and wants the best outcomes for us, not just for herself. She shares stories of other patients (anonymously of course!) in a way that helps us keep things in perspective

It is a long wait to get an appointment, but worth it! Also, she has 2 offices, downtown and Highland Park. The HP office is lower key - less crowded and more time with her.

We started with IUI since I had previously had a successful pregnancy and 1 miscarriage. I produced 1 follicle on clomid the first round and then she increased my dosage for another round, when I produced 2 follicles and became pregnant. Unfortunately genetic testing revealed a chromosomal abnormality and we had to terminate the pregnancy. Meanwhile we had also received information from our genetic screening that we are both carriers for a genetic disease. Dr Feinberg suggested changing course and we are currently doing IVF with ICSI and PGD. We did stimulation with 300 units of Gonal-F (increased to 375) and 75 units of Menopur (increased to 150), with Cetrotide and an Ovidrel trigger. This produced 13 follicles, 7 mature, 4 fertilized, 2 made it to blastocyst. Dr Feinberg told us she will adjust if future cycles are necessary since these were not the results she had hoped for. She explained her choices were based on my previous ability to conceive.

This is different for Highland Park and downtown. Downtown is a lot of people waiting to be called, and I would expect to be there for at least an hour if not more. Highland Park is a set appointment time and moves very quickly - in and out in half an hour.

Our IUI self-pay package cost $709 Our IVF with PGD (FET) cost $12,000 + meds cost of ~$6000 + genetic testing with Natera $6400

Dr Feinberg told us she does single embryo transfer and we are happy with this as we do not want multiples.

Dr. boots was great! I didn’t she her often but she responded to all message quickly and was always willing to setup a call to walk me thru everything. She was always positive and that helped getting thru all the appointments and procedures.

Get on a Facebook support group. I learned so much from those groups and they helped me understand more or have someone to talk to that was going they the same thing.

My first cycle, I was on BC then microcode Lupron protocol. My second cycle, I was on global-f and Menapur then added in ganerlix after a couple of days.

I have insurance but my deductible was $350 and I spent 7,800 on meds for 2 cycles.

I believe she only will transfer 1 if it’s a 5 day transfer. I think it should be up to the patient if they want 2.

Northwestern Fertility Clinic is a large practice, which means you deal with lots of different people throughout the process, from multiple nurses, to schedulers, to financial advisors, to psychologists, to doctors who are on call the day of your procedures. It is not guaranteed your doctor will perform your retrievals or transfers. Overall, I had a positive experience with NFC, and with Dr. Barnes. I am in the midst of my treatments still, so I am not able to speak to my results yet... that is still to be determined! Also, in the midst of my treatment, and after several appointments with Dr. Barnes, I received a letter from Northwestern letting me know that he was retiring. So, in the midst of my treatments, I was left without a doctor and had to switch to a different doctor in the practice. My husband and I were surprised that this was never mentioned to us during multiple appointments with Barnes or with the nurses. It seemed like something they should tell us, so we could've started the process with a different doctor verses being caught off guard. This was my biggest critique of working with the NW Fertility clinic thus far.

Dr. Barnes is now retired from Northwestern Fertility Clinic.

I took 300 units of Folistim and 150 units of Menopur for 5 days, and then started a daily shot of Ganirelix to prevent ovulation. Day 10 I took my trigger shot and went in 36 hours later for my ET. 7 eggs were retrieved, 4 fertilized. I also thawed my 18 frozen eggs, 11 which fertilized. Overall, 15 eggs fertilzed and we are now waiting for our results on day 5 blastocyst stage, after which the remaining blastocysts will be biopsied and sent for PGD testing.

Morning appointments were an open window from 6:45-7:45am. Some mornings the wait was longer than others. My shortest appointment time was around 20 minutes, and my longest was 45 minutes.

Luckily my insurance covers this process.

My doctor strongly steered us toward eSET, although I had my heart set on transferring 2 embryos. He explained that due to complications from multiples, the best practice now is to recommend an eSET.

Her care and drive is evident in everything she does and touches. She isn’t just a doctor, she is our angel and our hero for so many reason. When we learned of my health issues she personally looked into every option to potentially save my fertility, from preserving my ovary tissue, to trying IVF before my surgery, to talking to my oncologist on my fertility options before and after surgery. She’s stood by our side through all the ups and downs, and instilled hope every time we felt we were down and out. This has been the hardest journey of our lives. We’re lucky to have crossed paths so many years ago.

Have faith, because she believes in you and your dreams wholeheartedly.

I had a hysteroscopy and 1 cycle of IUI before they found the cancer. Since then, we tested known egg downer my sister and my cousin. My cousin was the match. We created 5 embryos and are now at beginning stages of surrogacy with a known surrogate

Ranges due to insurance

N/a - not there yet

Dr. Feinberg did a very good job explaining everything as we went through the process. She was great at being available for in-person consultations or phone calls when things weren't going well, and took the time to make sure all our questions were answered.

Trust her, she knows what she's doing. :)

We tried several different strategies over the course of our treatment. I felt like Dr. Feinberg did a good job of adjusting the strategy to our situation over time.

Monitoring occurred in the very early morning, which was tough on me, but they were very efficient and well-run.

I was lucky, my costs were covered by my husband's insurance.

Dr. Feinberg had some opinions to offer on this topic, but in our case was very open to what we wanted, which was single embryo transfers.

He was great he draws pictures to make sure you understand, he send you MyChart messages, 24 hour turnaround time for questions most times it was within hours, he listened to concerns, he’s opened for discussion. Just all around nice practice

This is a long process and you have to be mentally prepared

I didn’t have a baseline, so he started me off with gonal f 300, then I wasn’t moving like he wanted so he increased my med to 450, I was only able to produce 3 follicles, after a couple of days with those 3 he told me to start ganirelix the follicles grew but not big enough so I decided to end the cycle and start another one, I feel confident this time because Dr have a baseline to work with

My insurance covered everything OOP less then 5k

I chose dr. Feinberg because of a friend who rescued to have two successful pregnancies with IVF treatment. I had to go through two Ivf cycles, both unsuccessful ( because of mine and my husband's complicated fertility issues). I don't know if she did her best. Most of the times, our only way of communication was through an app. Maybe if I have had to see her more often, I would've been more confident. Anyway, she treated me with compassion. She is a good doctor, knowing what she has to do. And I would recommend her to my friends.

Ask as many questions as you need. Get all the tests done.

My healt insurance covered the expenses

Dr. Feinberg is an excellent fertility doctor, and has gone through IVF herself, so she has a strong understanding of the process herself. I felt that her recommendations for treatment made sense and were realistic. After a few attempts at IVF and IUI, she recommended using donor eggs, which is the option we are currently pursuing. She let us take our time to get there, and was clear that this was absolutely our decision. She was patient with us as we got other opinions and wasn't pushy until we got to the place where we felt that we had exhausted all other options and were ready to move to donor egg. Dr. Feinberg reviews all donors and emphasized that she is picky about choosing a donor, so we have the best chance for success. I know Dr. Feinberg also works with women who want to freeze their eggs, and I've referred a few friends to her who are interested in this option. I've sought complementary treatment from many other professionals (acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, therapists) and all of them consistently say that Dr. Feinberg is the best. I'm hopeful that we will have success with donor eggs in the next few months with her.

Dr. Feinberg books up far in advance, so I recommend making a follow up appointment around when you know your next cycle will end, so you can meet with her to discuss a plan if pregnancy does not occur.

We did protocols for diminished ovarian reserve (DOR), using estrogen pill or patch priming and then microdose lupron. She gave me the highest dose of Menopur and Follistim, but I only produced a few eggs at 2 retrievals. We tried for a third round of IVF, but I wasn't responding, so we converted to IUI. Dr. Feinberg made it clear that IVF/IUI are not necessarily the best treatment for DOR, and trying on our own was a fine option and that treatment may not be help. I appreciated this perspective.

In 2016, we did an IVF cycle out of pocket (roughly $18,000), In 2017 our round of IVF and a few IUIs were covered by insurance- thank god! It's ridiculously expensive.

For our first transfer, we only had one egg to transfer. For the second transfer, we had 2 and we transferred both. Looking back, I think we should have frozen them and transferred one at a time in following months after my body had calmed down a bit. I was ok with possibly having twins, but with the perspective I have now, transferring one at a time is best for the baby and the mother. Dr. Feinberg has written about this here: http://garnetnews.com/2017/03/12/twins-not-necessarily-double-blessing/

I went through two rounds of egg freezing (for "social reasons") and worked with Dr. Feinberg for both - the first was disappointing and the second a success. There is more below but I would heartily recommend Dr. Feinberg to others; she is a fine physician who is kind, thoughtful, and truly cares about her patients. The first round I felt like a cog in the wheel of the clinic (which has more to do with the clinic than Dr. Feinberg) and didn't feel I understood how things were progressing until the retrieval when I was informed that I only had a handful of possible eggs to retrieve (this conversation happened to be with the MD on rotation/doing procedures that day). While the nurse had been in touch with me after each of my morning blood draws/ultrasounds, I wasn't informed of the details of my progress (but also didn't know what I should be asking). I learned that I certainly needed to be far more well-informed, a stronger advocate for myself and, in response, brought these concerns to Dr. Feinberg in our follow-up meeting. She was kind, human, thoughtful, and generous in response. She heard me out and owned that things should not have transpired as they did - while they cannot guarantee any specific outcome, they can keep patients informed along the way so that patients can make informed decisions about their care. In response, Dr. Feinberg went to bat for me and the hospital subsidized a second round. I chose to work with Dr. Feinberg again and had a very good experience. Communication was fluid and consistent, the med regimen was tweaked, and the results were much improved. I was lucky to have Dr. Feinberg on rotation the day of my retrieval and we were able to celebrate a happy ending to a tough journey. She is lovely!

I think this may have more to do with the clinic set-up than Dr. Feinberg but do your homework and be the polite albeit squeaky wheel so that you get the grease. While Dr. Feinberg is excellent at explaining things in plain english, the clinic is set up in a way that directs your communication towards the nursing staff rather than the physician. I had Dr. Feinberg's email and knew I could get in touch with her as needed but didn't know enough about what information was important the first time around to do so.

Due to freezing eggs for "social reasons," this was fully out of pocket for me. The most useful people in terms of saving money were the Walgreens as well and in-house Northwestern pharmacists.

Dr. Bernardi is an excellent doctor. She has very strong communication skills and she is always giving you all your options. She does research and it is obvious she thinks of you as a patient and human being, rather than just another number that comes in. Dr. Bernardi is always patient with me as I ask her lots of questions and have plenty of anxiety around my situation. She is always upbeat and remains positive. She checks in on me when i'm not expecting it. When she says she will call or email, she always does. I don't have a negative thing to say about her. I can't express how happy I am that I switched to her after my 2nd miscarriage. She is very empathetic and caring.

Don't be afraid to ask her anything. She is so nice and professional at the same time. I don't think she has a shock feature. She is very responsive to all your questions and concerns.

When I first met Dr. Bernardi, I had recently gone through my 2nd miscarriage. My original doctor wanted me to start IVF treatment as soon as my period came back. I wasn't comfortable with this so we asked for a 2nd opinion. After looking at my history Dr. Bernardi offered to do a recurrent loss panel. She told us that it wasn't necessary but she was curious if there could be a potential reason for the 2nd loss. It was her that figured out that I have APS. With this new diagnosis she thought since I got pregnant 2x already with just IUI that it could happen again. We agreed that my tolerance for IUI would be a 3 cycle limit. We tried 3 more IUI's and I didn't get pregnant. She was willing to do as many more as I wanted but I said I was done and wanted to move onto IVF. I'm young, only 31 so we thought I'd have a good response. I also have PCOS, so our first round she was very cautious about my medicine. I was on the lowest dosage of everything. We retrieved 11 eggs, 7 fertilized and only 3 made it to blast. Before we had the genetic results back, we talked with her and decided to do 1 more retrieval to get some back up embryos incase it didn't work, and also for our future since we wanted more than 1 kid. Our 2nd retrieval went extremely well, and Dr. Bernardi upped my meds just a little bit from 75, to 150. (She was still cautious). The 2nd time around we got 25 eggs, 22 mature, and 19 fertilized. 11 of them made it to blastocyst! Today we did a "fresh" transfer, but used a frozen embryo from our first cycle. I can't tell you if it worked or not yet, but I feel great about our potential!

The monitoring appointments are like a well oiled machine. They are efficient and are conscious that the women have to get to work. They started opening their doors as early at 6:45am to accommodate the morning rush.

I don't really know everything. Our IUI's usually cost us about $30 because insurance covered it. Our first IVF cycle things were covered. Our IVF meds cost about $400 with insurance. PGS testing was done outside of our clinic so it cost 1795. There was also a $890 freezing fee. The 2nd round was 1/2 out of pocket since we maxed out our insurance. The egg retrieval was ~$5000. The transfer was ~$3500. The iVf meds were around ~$3000. Plus, the $890 freezing fee again.

We agreed that we would only do a single embryo transfer because of my age, and risk of doing multiple embryos. I already will have a high risk pregnancy due to having APS, so it didn't seem worth it put me at even more risk.

I felt like Dr. Robins was accessible, friendly, and extremely knowledgeable. he answered all our questions and never made us feel like they were stupid questions. he was genuinely excited for our success when it occurred and did all our post-implantation ultrasounds before we graduated to the regular OB. shared data in frank, accessible ways and made me feel confident that his goal was the same as ours. When asked about things like acupuncture, he said "look, we want you to get pregnant as soon as possible. if there was any evidence that anything improves those odds, we'd make (strongly advise, provide in the clinic) you do it - of course because we want you to be successful, but also because our success as a practice relies on our success rates, so we're going to do whatever it takes for our own self-interest as well." that made me feel really confident that he was being open and honest with us, as well as knowing that we were both invested in our success. It's great for a doctor to want you to be happy, but I liked knowing that he felt like he had a professional stake in it as well.

don't be afraid to ask all your questions - he'll give you the research behind why he's choosing a certain protocol

I was 34 at the time and we had male factor, with no indications/diagnosis that I should have any trouble. we did 5 total IUIs, 3 unmedicated and 2 on clomid. I wish he'd recommended just going to IVF earlier. none resulted in a positive pregnancy test. for the retrieval cycle, he used a long lupron protocol, which is his standard for a presumably healthy woman under 35. I used lupron, menopur, and follistim, at lower doses than a friend of mine who had diminished ovarian reserve but was also on the long lupron protocol. he did ICSI for the embryos, because of the low sperm count and motility. 13 eggs retrieved, 8 mature, 7 fertilized, 5 embryos (grade 1, which was the best) fresh transfer of a single embryo resulted in a negative pregnancy test frozen transfer of a single embryo (after sitting out a cycle to get my estrogen down) resulted in a live birth.

monitoring was between 7-8:30. you were given a timeslot, but then were called to phlebotomy and ultrasound probably in the order of arrival, but not everyone arrived at once. weekends were more of a cattle call

He strongly recommended a single transfer due to my age and the quality of our embryos, since multiple pregnancies are riskier for both mom and babies. he told me "statistically, the embryos you have are going to be the number of babies they are going to be. if you transfer them in multiples vs single, it just speeds up the answer, but doesn't change it"