Debra Minjarez

After 6 unsuccessful vaginal inseminations and 5 unsuccessful IUIs with fresh known donor sperm at home with a midwife, my partner and I went to Dr Minjarez because I'd heard that she was very experienced after having worked at CCRM for ~20 years. At our initial consult, she seemed warm and matter of fact, going through the usual statistics for someone my age, etc. She seemed very queer friendly. My partner and I made a point to tell her we did not want to do IVF (we were nervous she was going to push it on us so went in a little defensive) and she said "let's do 3 medicated/monitored IUIs and see..." At each monitoring appointment, she briskly relayed my follicle count in a neutral tone, without embellishing any details. I was never given a diagnosis although my understanding is that I have diminished ovarian reserve since at 39 years old, I only got 4-5 follicles per cycle and my AMH was around 1. I also have multiple autoimmune conditions, including Hashimoto's but she didn't seem concerned about that and said as long as my TSH was under 2 there wasn't anything to worry about. It felt like she was just going through the motions but that we weren't developing a relationship or a game plan. I guess I would have liked my doctor to be more responsive and engaged- telling me what they thought would be the best course of action and changing course as new information was revealed. I sensed that the doctors at Spring are very systematic and just assign people to their place in the rubric without concern for individual factors. The staff seemed pretty organized as far as email and phone follow ups, although I did have a concerning interaction regarding viability of fresh, washed sperm in IUI. The medical assistant told me over the phone it was viable for 3-5 days in the uterus which I disagreed with so she transferred me to someone in andrology, who backed her up. When I shared this with Dr Minjarez, she said that they were both wrong and she'd follow up. After my third unsuccessful medicated and monitored IUI, they emailed me to ask the result of my pregnancy test. I felt too demoralized (after 15 total unsuccessful tries) to reply and I never heard from them again- to discuss next steps or anything. I feel like they dropped the ball by not reaching out again, but it has only been 2 weeks since their last email so I'll see... I don't think I'll continue at Spring because it just doesn't seem personalized enough. It may be a great place for egg freezing or maybe male factor is where they really shine, but as a 40 year old queer woman with DOR and autoimmune issues, I didn't feel like they offered the individualized support that I need.

Write down your questions in advance of your appointments because they go by in a flash and it's hard to think when you're in stirrups. Also take notes during the appointment so you don't forget your follicle count, etc (again- hard to remember things you heard while you were in stirrups).

I was given 7.5mg letrozole day 2-6 and trigger shot (ovidrel) for 3 cycles. The monitoring appointments were on day 2 and then around day 14 (because I typically ovulate on day 17). I didn't sense that I had much response to the letrozole, but who's to say because I wasn't monitoring before I started taking it. I did vaginal inseminations at home and IUIs at home with a midwife, based on the timing recommended by Dr Minjarez. Although the timing seemed just right, I did not become pregnant.

The initial consult and each monitoring appointment cost $450. I don't believe they accept insurance.

Dr. Minjarez is great and caring. I never felt rushed whenever I asked a question. She made me feel very comfortable whenever I had my checkup with her and also the retrieval. I completely trusted her as my doctor and so grateful that she was able to do 4 out of 5 of my retrievals!

Ask as many questions as you need to! I never felt like I was bothering her when I asked questions no matter how small they may be.

Mid-lutheal - didn't retrieve as many eggs as I expected in the first round with this (only did 1 lupron trigger) Changed it to duo-trigger with Novarel and lupron and got a better result at my mature eggs

Efficient. Most of my monitoring appointments were early in the morning and it was a quick check up and bloodwork. I was always seen right away and never had to wait longer than 5 minutes to be seen.

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I like that she is honest and doesn’t sugar coat hard news. I wish that she gave more details, context, and reasons for protocol and/or tests, and what to expect next. It seems she has too many patients at once and speeds through appointments or conversations which makes it hard to ask my questions. There was one appointment where we were sitting in her office and I was asking questions and at one point she got up and stood with the door open, insinuating that our conversation was over, when I still had more questions to talk through.

Do your own research, ask lots of questions, always ask why.

My first protocol was seemingly very easy: menopur, gonal, and HGH. We got 4 eggs, 3 mature, 3 fertilized, 1 PGT normal. Because this was the first cycle we weren’t sure what we’d get and this was great news. The second cycle she kept the same protocol with one change: adding Lupron at the beginning. The Lupron increases the release of your own FSH in addition to the injections you are taking to try to get maybe one additional follicle to growth. The second cycle did not go well at all. We only had 1 follicle. The IVF was canceled and converted to an IUI that failed.

I have progyny benefits so fortunately I don’t see much cost.

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She was informative and very nice when I saw her. The day of retrieval she stopped and said hi, before the procedure. The day of transfer, she was very nice we even took a picture together. Let me know what is going on. Didn’t hear anything until the two week beta test. I had to be the one to ask for a meeting with her because of the no implantation situation. She was nice but quickly asked if I wanted to do my next one with egg donor. I thought that was inappropriate because it has only been one time since I did IVF. Too soon to ask. So that was insensitive and traumatic for me. Aside from that she was very nice.

Be aware that she may ask if you want to use donor eggs If first IVF cycle fails. Especially if you’re older. Also, it does take one magical egg, as she mentioned at the very beginning. But if it doesn’t work, she’ll ask about donor eggs.

Treatment strategy was doing a mini IVF cycle with letrozole, Gonal-F, Menopur, double trigger shots, priming with birth control. Rationale of mini cycle is that I don’t have a lot of eggs so slow and steady wins the race. I did start with 10 follicles and ended up having a lead and retrieving only three. So I think that something could I have been done to better those results.

10,295+ an additional $500 or $600 that was not mentioned but after the fact with assisted hatching.

I enjoyed everything about working with Dr Minjarez except that when we got pregnant (yay!) I never heard any congratulations from her. We only had interactions with the nursing staff and another doc who was on call the day we had our six week ultrasound. I would have felt better if she closed the loop with a quick “congrats on your pregnancy” communication after all the work we had done together.

I had 13 eggs stored from an egg freezing round at UCSF. We transferred those eggs to Spring San Francisco and then we did two additional egg retrieval and fertilization with my husband’s sperm to get a total of 5 high quality embryos (aiming to create two kids). We were successful with the first implantation. Most of my medications and test results were straightforward throughout, however before our embryo implantation I got a weird spike in progesterone. Dr Minjarez and the on call doc worked together to figure out whether to proceed with that implantation cycle or not, and thankfully they elected to continue testing and the transfer was successful. We were grateful that they took the time to work with us instead of just skipping that cycle.

$50k-$55k for the initial consultation. two egg retrievals, fertilization and genetic testing (PGS), freezing of embryos, medications, and one round of implantation plus the post implantation ultrasound and all monitoring appointments.

Spring only allows implantation of one high quality embryo. We were ok with that — at age 41 the risks for safely carrying twins indicate it’s not a good approach to use two embryos at once.

I came to Dr Minjarez after seeing another Dr at this practice, as well as treatment from another facility. Dr Minjarez provided much more information than previous Drs and laid out a long term plan of care given out desire for multiple children. I really appreciated that she was direct, but also very caring in a professional way. I'm very put off by excessive optimism and I found her to be realistic which I find more helpful and hopeful. After transfers that ended in chemical pregnancies, I ended up doing a second egg retrieval with Dr Minjarez with genetic testing. When a transfer did not work, she changed protocols, which led to a successful pregnancy.

Expect direct, professional, compassionate care.

We did two FET transfers with Dr Minjarez with genetically tested embryos. The first cycle was an antagonist cycle and the second was fully medicated Lupron regulated cycle. Because we'd had a failed cycle with genetically tested embryos, Dr Minjarez suggested a change of protocol to control the uterine environment. This led to success for me.

Costs included A second egg retrieval, meds and two FET. For my second transfer, the clinic included the majority of my meds within the cost for compassionate care.

Recommended eSet

Dr Minjarez is a great Dr, she is very understanding and friendly and you know she is rooting for you. She has an excellent bedside manner. Most of her feedback is data and statistically based, and sometimes I just wanted her gut are a heartfelt point of view. She has a wealth of knowledge and is willing to try new things and hear you out.

Make sure you have a list of all your questions beforehand, she is very busy so you never know the next time you will have a one on one opportunity again. After that, there is a lot of going through nurses.

Mini-stim due to diminished ovarian reserve. Hope to get high quality over quantity

Costs were withing the same amount as other clinics, slightly more than a hospitol

This is all based on your personal situation; your age, egg quality, egg reserve, your financial situation. She would never have a blanket approach to all patients

Dr. Minjarez treated me differently than the other fertility doctors I had seen. I was exhausted with misinformation and feeling like none of the doctors I met with were fully in control of a plan toward success. However, Dr. Minjarez was direct in her communication and let me know what challenges were ahead and she did it compassionately. Kaiser has sent over 450 pages of my medical records and I assumed it would be too much to read through so I came to the appointment with a timeline. When I met with Dr. Minjarez she knew everything I’d been through and already had a tailored plan. The major part of feeling confident and secure with Dr. Minjarez is that she was open to hearing my questions, thoroughly explained things, and if I had a specific request she was open to it. Many of the doctors I’d had before treated my journey as an experiment I.E. sure, I have no idea if that will work so let’s try it. That’s never comforting. As a queer female couple, every time we tried to get pregnant was costly financially and emotionally. Dr. Minjarez was the only doctor that understood that balance and knew that we didn’t have time or money to waste. Lastly, Dr. Minjarez treats you based on your cycle - the clinic didn’t make me take medications in order to fill their schedule. So when my body was ready they were able to always accommodate.

If you have any doubts or questions make sure to always ask them before you leave the appointment. She is busy but always has time to explain and answer things.

Because I’d already had an extensive journey with medication, Dr. Minjarez was able to tailor my injections and quantities based off my history. Surprisingly, she didn’t prescribe the highest amount of injections that I’d used before. Instead she explained to me that I didn’t need as much as I’d had before (that doctor had really amped up the meds) in order to produce. When I had my transfer she prescribed clomid. Previously I’d had a weird reaction to clomid (Rx from the same doctor that had rx’ed high amounts of injections) and Dr. Minjarez walked me through trying it again at a different dosage and taking them at night. She let me know that I could change the meds if I needed to. She was right and I didn’t have a negative reaction when I took them. After I had the embryo transfer I was able to just have progesterone suppositories instead of injecting. This is uncommon with the other doctors I’d met with and I was so thankful that Dr. Minjarez knew the up to date science and confirmed that my numbers were high enough for suppositories. Most other doctors just automatically prescribe progesterone injections no matter what.

We did ICSI, genetic testing and frozen transfer with one embryo. Overall with medications we paid between $25-30k. Our insurance didn’t cover anything.

We preferred single embryo transfer and Dr. Minjarez agreed. We did PGS testing and ICSI to have the best chances of only needing the eSET. This was recommended by Dr. Minjarez and we were happy with the results.

Dr. Minjarez clearly cares about her patients. She takes the time to hear about your fertility journey in your own words, but has also clearly taken the time to review the information you provide in your intake forms. I think she takes all steps necessary to achieve pregnancy.

Ask questions. And ask what she would ask if she were in your shoes. Know that the fertility journey is not linear.

I had a saline sonogram to look for scarring in the uterus. Then had a hysteroscopy to remove the scarring. And now am on estrogen, and then will the provera toward the end of the estrogen.

Saline sonogram was around $700. Hysteroscopy with anesthesia was around $3500. Initial office consult was around $350.

Dr. Minjarez has a strong preference on eSET, due to all of the risks for mom and babies if there are multiples.

Dr. Minjarez took time to thoroughly explain different parts of the process and answer any of our questions. We've had some delays getting started, and she's been helpful and responsive. She does a good job of balancing clear, direct communication with kindness and the feeling like she's rooting for us.

Make sure you think through your questions ahead of time -- it really benefit us to have done our research so we could make the most of our time with Dr. Minjarez. Appointments can be brief, but her team is always very responsive via email if things come up afterward.

We haven't started stimulation yet, because my follicles weren't ready. But the plan is to stimulate with FSH and Menopur.

saline sonogram: $950 ovarian stimulation and monitoring, retrieval of oocytes, embryology lab services (including ICSI, PGS/PGD): $18,375 medication package: $4,400 future frozen embryo transfer (monitoring + thawing, transfer): $5,250 embryo cryopreservation after 6 months: $650

This facility transfers only one embryo at a time.

Dr.Minjarez always communicates clearly and directly. She would send me current research on my condition and explain why she recommended particular tests. My case has been complicated, due to multiple miscarriages and a few set backs along the way. She has handled everything in stride and is confident in her decisions when it has been necessary to change the course of treatment. My one complaint is that because she is so direct, it sometimes feels like she is not the most empathetic with my feelings/journey. With that being said, my partner loves that she is very direct. I also had some issues with seeing different doctors (she is based in Oakland and I live in SF so elected to see some of the Drs in the SF office for routine sonograms). Due to some communication issues, I elected not to do that for this most recent transfer cycle and have been happy with Dr.Minjarez being my only provider.

She is brilliant and knows about all of the recent research. She is very direct and will not tell you something that she does not fully mean/believe. Because she is so direct, if you want someone who is more empathetic, it might not be the best fit.

For my most recent FET, I did 2.5 months of Lupron following a diagnosis of diffused adenomyosis. I then did a controlled cycle using estrogen patches and progesterone in oil injections. After my first transfer ended in an early loss, she had me tested for endometritis using a CD138 stain. (It was negative)

There was a window of time for monitoring appointments but I never had to wait for more than 10 mins and they were almost always right on time.

I think Egg Retrieval and PGS testing was around $25,000. Each FET has been between $3000-5500

We were not given the option for multiple embryo transfer. I am not sure if this is standard procedure for my clinic or if it is because of my uterine issues.

Dr. Minjarez is excellent in her thorough knowledge of infertility issues and related health issues. I was treated for endometrial cancer and had gone through 3 failed IVF cycles and had come to Dr. Minjarez as a last hope, after being referred to her by a friend and she treated me a lot of compassion, listened to my history (including cancer medications) and crafted a specific protocol (resting from medication, different medications once I started, mini-IVF letrozole stimulation) that miraculously resulted in 2 high quality embryos. I am currently going through the embryo transfer process, but she has been great all the way through. I even had a recurrence of pre-cancer during my IVF treatment with her, went back to hormone therapy, and she helped me navigate through that and I am back on course. I call her my "miracle worker."

Explain your medical history thoroughly so that Dr. Minjarez can understand how to best treat you with a specific protocol.

Resting from medication for 2 months due to over-stimulation of my ovaries from previous cancer hormone therapy and IVF treatments. Letrozole mini-IVF stimulation because of diminished ovarian reserve.

$7K (before insurance) for the 1 mini-IVF cycle, $5K for embryo transfer

None. I preferred single embryo transfer and she recommended the same.

For the most part, I was very happy with Debra Minjarez. She was nice, and really seemed to know what she was doing. The only downside, is I believe she errs on the side of caution. My egg freezing ended up going significantly better than we had initially anticipated, as some of my earlier test results were not great, and I think she stated my initial results conservatively so I would be prepared if things didn't go as well as they did.

Be pretty open about your concerns, even if they seem embarrassing or silly. She was very respectful about everything that I asked.

I had a Gonal-F with Menopur protocol, starting with 225 iu of Gonal-F and 150 iu of Menopur, which were tapered down as treatment progressed/in response to my estrogen levels and ultrasounds. I think my dose was lowered towards the end, so I could take them longer while waiting for my follicles to mature. Overall, the results were very good, and I think they picked a great time to do my egg retrieval - we got a good number of eggs, but I didn't get sick afterwards (though, I didn't feel great the week after.)

It was, like, 4500 for meds and 8500 for all procedures related to the egg retrieval. There was an additional 400 up front for fertility testing, then an extra 200 at the end because I had 2 extra eggs that got frozen (they cover up to 20)

I didn't have embryos transferred

This is for Dr Minjarez during her time at Kaiser Oakland, not Spring Ferility. She was exactly what I needed after a demoralizing experience at Kaiser SF. She was able to help me regroup and try again for my third and fourth IUI rounds, and clearly explained why we should move to IVF due to my husband’s male factor issues.

Run, don’t walk! She’s great.

Again, this is for treatment under her care at Kaiser Oakland. I had two IUI rounds with her - the first we used Menopur in combination with Clomid at my request to see if that would increase my egg count for the IUI. It had the complete opposite effect and was unsuccessful. My fourth - and final - IUI round was with letrozole. There was a better response but the round was still unsuccessful. However, Dr Minjarez made sure I had a saline solution and discovered that I had a fibroid in the uterine fundus and required a hysteroscopy. My care with Kaiser ended after my hysteroscopy and I began looking for a new clinic (because Dr Minjarez left for Spring!)

I don’t remember the exact costs but Kaiser insurance through my employer covered 50 percent of fertility costs and treatments.

Dr. M made us feel very comfortable. She was thorough in her explanations and really helped us understand the process (which ended up being very complicated). She was always available for questions and definitely put my mind at ease, which is really important in this type of situation where its easy to get stressed. I fully trusted her to take the lead and give us the best results.

Dr. M was very conservative in her approach and only recommended one embryo for transfer, but allowed us to make the final call which I really appreciated. We ultimately went with her recommendation.

She's great. Smart. Caring. Direct. She tells the truth, cares about her patients and has your best interest at heart. She was just too busy at CCRM to take good care of me so that I saw results. I felt mislead and that she misrepresented what I'd receive using donor eggs.

Make sure she has time to take you on and stay on top of your own health care. The nurses run the IVF process, not the doctors.

One IUI, that i wanted to do. She didn't recommend it. One egg retrieval using my own eggs. She told me I wasn't likely to see results. One donor egg round. I didn't get pregnant. She told me I likely needed to use donor eggs from the beginning. She was right. I just wasn't ready to do that when I met her.

25K for an IVF transfer. $1200 for an IUI transfer. 50K for donor eggs. 10K for donor embryos.

She'll make a recommendation and then do what you want to do. No issues here.

Although I was bummed not to see her again once I was pregnant (I only saw her 2 other times - my only less positive thing to say, you never see her), I never doubted her commitment to my fertility for a second. Even in a world of infertility and reoccurring bad news that is often delivered and managed by your nurse, she called me after certain less than positive result tests to make sure I was ok. I was young and had a pretty serious case and I will never forget her making me a promise that first day, she was dedicated and compassionate.. When I didn't respond to stims in the beginning of my cycle, she reassured me of my progress and made me feel comfortable with my medication switch mid-cycle. Again it would have been really nice just to a get a call or note from her after pregnancy or delivery, it was radio silent from her after my transfer, otherwise I couldn't speak more highly of Dr Deb!

Get a good nurse.

Retrieval - CCRM Protocol 3, estrogen priming, with added clomid day 4 after poor response. Stimmed 13 days and had double trigger. Transfer - 2 months depo lupron prior to CCRM standard frozen transfer. I have stage IV endometriosis, that caused both tubes to close as well as luteal phase defect and DOR (RFC 4-6, AMH .4) due to scarring on ovaries. I had to have my tubes removed prior to transfer but after retrieval. I had historically not responded to stims. I have never had a successful pregnancy and was Beta-3 negative. My retrieval was saved by clomid, I responded and had 14 eggs retrieved, 11 were mature, 9 fertilized and 4 made it to Day 6, 5 day 6. Depo Lupron successfully helped my body create the beta-3. I had a successful transfer of 2 day 5 (3AA and 5AA) untested embryos.

All said and done for one day workup, one retrieval, drugs for one retrieval, surgery to remove my tubes, transfer, drugs for one frozen transfer, blood work and associated tests we spent $40k. The package prices are not all inclusive, everything is upcharged that can be.

Due to the fact that my embryos were not tested and my numbers, two embryos were recommended.

Dr. Minjarez is very warm, and very smart. My only complaint is that when I look back over the 2.5 years I have been under her care, there are things I wish someone would have explained to me when I started the process, that I feel like I didn't learn until much later in the process.

Ask questions; don't assume she or her staff will tell you everything you need to know; and know that there are always more drugs, more procedures, and more options, and you need to know your limits.

None of my cycles have resulted in a pregnancy 2 IUIs with no drugs 4 IUIs with varying amounts of drugs. I know Clomid was used a couple times, I don't remember the others. 1 IVF retrieval: Luteal Oral Protocol 3 - Estrace, Cetrotide, Menopur, Gonal, Saizen, Dexamethasone. We CCS tested the 6 embryos and all were abnormal. I am now prepping for my first donor egg / donor sperm transfer. I will have taken: Novarel (birth control), Lupron, Vivelle, Endometrin, Progesterone in Oil, and Medrol.

Nice and knowledgeable. I didn't feel like the course of treatment was specific to me, but was instead a standard cookie cutter approach. Also, after all my testing, I was never handed an officially-named diagnosis, so I believed for months that it was 'unidentified infertility.' It wasn't until after I had been getting treatment for 1.5 years there and was discussing starting IVF with Dr Minjarez that I asked about its success rates with unidentified infertility. She casually looked at me and said, "it's not unidentified; you have 'diminished ovarian reserve'." I was shocked - those words had never been said to me. It didn't really change anything moving forward for IVF, but still felt.... wrong, after all the thousands of dollars and tests and hours spent with staff there. I also wouldn't have pursued 3 rounds of IUI had I known that.

Ask for specifics! Bring pen/paper or ask if you can record!

total spent ~$50,000 for 3 IUIs, 1 egg retrieval, 2 IVF cycles, medications

She is fantasist and warm. She makes the process very informative and less emotionally difficult. My nurse acts as the liaison though I wish I could talk to her more.

Don't wait, I wish I went earlier for emotional sanity. Go immediately, figure out what is and is not covered by your insurance and speak up to what you think is and is not working. I have a food allergy present in all of the pill medications and possibly responsible for my multiple losses so she completely customized my transfer after my last loss. She listens and, especially if you push, is open to trying anything that she thinks might help and poses little risk.

As I said, Dr. Minjarez was extremely compassionate and warm. She was also attuned to our problems and adjusted our course of treatment based on issues encountered along the way. Dr. Minjarez gave us all the information, but when asked, she gave us her best recommendation.

I would say that you can count on her to be informed and offer good advice, but of course you should do your own research and ask her all the questions you can.

We did the agonist/antagonist cycle with ICSI/IMSI and freeze-all. We ended up with 4 3-day embryos. Our first FET of 2 embryos failed. Our second was successful with a singleton boy being born healthy and full term. The rationale for our protocol was that my husband has severe male factor and I have PCOS. I was 31 at the time, so Dr. M did not recommend doing CCS/PGS testing.

I believe we paid between $30,000 and $35,000 total for 1 cancelled retrieval, 1 successful retrieval, 1 failed FET, and 1 successful FET, including medications.

Dr. Minjarez gave us great information on single versus multiple embryo transfer. However, because we had 3-day embryos, we decided to transfer two at time, which turned out to be the right choice. If we have another cycle, we will likely opt to grow the embryos to day 5 and only transfer one at a time.

We felt that Dr. Minjarez knew her stuff - seems to be a very intelligent person. As I had already been through several failed IUI attempts with a different clinic, we had some very frank conversations with Dr. Minjarez about 1) the probability that my egg quality was likely poor based on my age and hormone levels (since I had done no retrievals, there was no way to know for sure), and 2) our financial situation and how it would realistically direct my treatment to some degree. She did NOT push us to use donor eggs, but was also realistic and honest about the likelihood of my own eggs being viable. Dr. Minjares was always friendly and willing to go over our plan time and again with us as things changed. Personally, I liked her very much and felt very comfortable with her.

Don't be afraid to slow her down. She is obviously a very busy person, and sometimes we felt a bit rushed in our appointments with her (not the transfer), but we learned to ask our questions until we understood everything.

We went straight to using an egg donor since we knew sperm were healthy and were pretty confident that eggs were not. FET #1 Birth control, Lupron injections, estrogen patches, progesteron in oil injections, progesteron inserts, mild antibiotics prior to transfer and a few other drugs I don't remember. I did pre and post-transfer acupuncture for both transfers. Donor gave us 12 frozen eggs, 10 fertilized and we transfered one day-5 embryo and froze the remaining 9 embryos. Result was negative pregnancy test. FET #2 we thawed and transfered 2 embryos which resulted in twins! FET #2 was 2 day-5 embryos from same batch as

Around $50k which included donor eggs, donor medications, my medications and 2 separate transfers.

We did not see her that often. As a patient I would have appreciated more time and more compassion instead of being treated as a number. There were many times we waited for a call back and never got one and were supposed to have received information that came much later than expected.

Treat your patients as humans. Each person is going through this experience through their own lense and for many their first time. Spend more time listening and understanding instead of going through the motions

IVF was immediately reccomended due to unexplained fertility (which I later learned wasn’t unexplained). She explained the injection process, egg retrieval and transfer. She did not go through specific medications with me

$15,000

Strength- when I did see her for a consultation or an inspection (HSG, etc) she was patient and really gave attention. She was also smart and encouraging. She has a lovely demeanor with patients and really seems to genuinely care whether the process works or not. To this day- my twins are nearly five- I send her annual cards at her new clinic in California to keep her apprised of the children's doings. She also made the effort to carve out time to meet the twins when they were several months old.

It's a very, very long process and you might have other practitioners doing things like retrievals on her behalf. I didn't mind but I know some people do.

I don't have vivid recollections except that she clearly changed the dosing on the retrieval drugs between my first and second tries. She was very helpful in urging me to do another retrieval as, at the time, I only had one remaining healthy embryo. She explained that with my condition- PCOS- she now could see how I react to the medicines and she increased dosages. Having said that, the number of eggs I produced was doubled from 11 to 22 and it was an extremely painful recuperation after the retrieval so it was probably an aggressive treatment in terms of hyperstimulation risk. But the clinic was top notch and, compared to what I've heard from peers who used others, they were on touch of the medicine and blood testing constantly so I felt it was all very controlled and managed.

It was expensive. I think that the least costly was the embryo transfer and those ran $5000 each. The retrieval was the huge figure obviously and it was around $15,000 plus some ancillary medicines as well. Obviously some of that depends on one's health coverage. My company at that time did not cover IVF at all. As I was completing my process in fall 2011 they were bringing in some type of buy one get one free insurance thing but I was too late to participate in those.

Dr Minjarez did recommend a single embryo transfer which I did and then miscarried shortly after it was a chemical pregnancy. Due to that fact, and to the fact that I had previously had a miscarriage naturally she opted for a two embryo transfer which successfully resulted in twins. She was careful not to go 'overboard' and ever recommend more than 2 embryos notwithstanding her knowledge that I was stressed and almost urging her to throw in more. She's cautious and medically very, very competent and good at what she does!

She was the absolute best. A true professional, compassionate doctor. She cared for my wife as is she was family and was so caring the entire process. As the husband, I left each appointment with an understanding of what was happening and going on. She made it simple to understand. I could not have been happier with her and our overall experience.

Listen to her. She honestly cares about each patient and what you're going through. Take every step as she says and things will work out!

My wife had 3 cycles of Clomid and injections in order to prepare her body for the IUI process. We wanted to start with IUI vs IVF , so this was the best option for us. The first 2 cycles produced chemical pregnancies for my wife. On the 3rd try, the pregnancy held and she gave birth to our son 3 months ago.

Out of pocket cost was a total of $1,200