Emre Seli

I covered most of this in the "number vs human" questions. Dr. Seli is extremely knowledgeable, but he does not always explain things in a way I understand clearly so I rely on the nurses to take the time to clarify. He is also dismissive of the emotional/physical costs of fertility treatment - I do not expect him to hold my hand, or even to listen to emotional concerns, but any concern I have brought up about struggles with the process has usually felt like he just brushes it off. He is also dismissive of any supportive or holistic modalities to improve fertility - he told me acupuncture would have no benefit unless "I was just feeling really stressed out" maybe it would help me relax - again always this response that made me feel an implication I was weaker than other women or struggling more than I should! I finally consulted a nutritionist and acupuncturist on my own, without telling my doctor, and that was the cycle when I finally conceived!

I did 4 cycles of IUI - the first was canceled due to hyperstimulation with Clomid. I used Letrozole all of the other cycles, and used Ovidrel for the trigger shot. All were negative. I did one IVF cycle during which, due to elevated progesterone levels, we could not do a fresh transfer after so froze all embryos. I used Follistim, Menopur, Cetrotide, Crinone, and hcg for the trigger shot. I used birth control to time my cycle. During my frozen cycles, I have used progesterone in oil injections, Crinone vaginal progesterone inserts, and Estrace pills. Typically a few weeks of estrogen supplementation prior to starting injections and vaginal progesterone supplementation for 6 nights prior to the transfer, then continuing all meds until the pregnancy test. My first FET was negative, the second was chemical pregnancy, and I am now 6 weeks pregnant after completing my third transfer. All were single embryo transfers.

Morning monitoring is done between 7 am and 8 am on weekdays, and 7:15 to 8:15 on weekends. Some days there are only a few of us, on others there are over 20. It's on a first come, first served basis, so many are waiting by 6:30 am so they can get in and out and to work on time. I always found the actual process quick and efficient once they started and I was typically out within 10-15 min of signing in. I have heard others in line complain about delays but after 7 different cycles here, I always found it incredibly efficient!

Not sure, as I was lucky to have insurance cover most of my costs. I had a high deductible plan when I started and I hit our $6000 deductible just from the testing procedures they required! I changed jobs/insurance and since then have paid nothing out of pocket but I have used up all my benefits now so if we have to continue, we'll find out how much everything will really cost....

Dr. Seli supported my decision to transfer single embryos each time. I was on the fence after two failed cycles, but he told me the chances of conceiving with multiple embryos is only marginally higher, but for those who do conceive, the chance of have multiples (which I REALLY do not want) was at least 30%. I initially opted to transfer two embryos for my final cycle, but after considering the risks of a multiple pregnancy, I changed my mind and went back to SET. Dr. Seli allowed me to make the choice of what I felt most comfortable doing.

I only saw him once for an initial appointment. He was very clear in explaining the reproductive process and how fertility treatments work. It was very science based, and I found it helpful. He discussed different options and identified potential areas that may impact the fertility journey.

I couldn’t more more happier that he was my doctor. He took the time to explain everything fully and in detail to make sure we understood him. He always made us feel like we were making the right decisions and calmed our fears at every visit

Be honest with him. Always express your concerns.

Because of my insurance I have to do three failed IUI before they would cover my IVF cycles. We had to be careful with the IUI because I had a lot of eggs so since we didn’t want multiples, Dr. Seli took every precaution to make that happen. I had an egg retrieval which produced a lot of eggs. Then onto IVF which resulted in a pregnancy but then a miscarriage. He made sure I was mentally ready and that my body was ready for another chance.

between the IUI, medication, egg l, embryo storage and IVF cycles, it costed around $10,000. My insurance covered a lot more of it but we did have to take out a loan for $5400 for the retrieval, storage fees and medication.

Because I have PCOS and my ovaries are easily stimulated, he chose for one embryo because it was the most healthiest for my body

Dr Seli is honest, real and empathetic. He takes the time to listen and accepts feedback. He will spend as much time as needed to talk to us and thoroughly answer all of our questions and concerns and tells us the truth about our ability to conceive with the various treatments.

Feel free to ask Dr Seli ALL the questions you want. Come to appointments prepared and don’t leave until you are satisfied with the answers. He will listen and answer all questions and concerns you may have.

So far, we have completed three cycles of clomid, using a trigger shot with the third. Dr Seli was very clear with his expectations (or lack thereof) in that we were only doing this as it was cheap and so that the insurance company would allow us to move onto IVF. (We have an $11k lifetime maximum of fertility benefits) We then moved onto an IVF cycle, which only produced two decent sized follicles, so we turned that into an (unsuccessful) IUI. It should be noted that Dr Seli was out of the country when we had the two follicles result and Dr Mak called me and spent nearly a half hour on the phone empathizing with our situation and helping me work through the decision as to how to proceed (we literally had just two hours to decide) with the cycle. She even provided me with her mobile phone number and invited me to share it with my fiancé so that he could call her with questions/concerns. We chose to not “waste” those two follicles and turn the cycle into an IUI. Again, Dr Mak was extremely honest in that our chances of conceiving with the IUI were not that great, especially because I had done an additional three days of stims to even get those follicles large enough. We still wanted to try. When we returned to the office to discuss next steps/cost of IVF with Dr Seli (completely out-of-pocket) he was honest that at my age and with our unexplained infertility in addition to the limited success with our previous cycle in getting follicles to grow, our expectation should be to only get one healthy embryo (max). We then brought up the possibility of using known donor eggs (from someone in her early twenties, married, with two beautiful children) for the next cycle. Well, Dr Seli’s eyes lit up! We then very bluntly asked him what our chances were with my eggs vs a very healthy donor’s eggs and he honestly told us less than 10% vs greater than 60%. Well all my fiancé and I did was look at each other, look back at Dr Seli and say, okay, what do we have to do to use our donor? We have just started the donor testing and hope to get this party started in the next month or two. To be continued...

So far, we have only used our insurance benefits. To be continued...

Dr Seli was thorough in his process. He would review my chat every time with me, ask if there were changes at all too. He talked about his own personal things and ask about my own. He was fairly prompt and always completed what I needed done in a timely manner.

Ask questions no matter what!

We used just estrogen and progesterone for our cycle. It gradually increased each week until transfer date. Then we continued with progesterone until 12 weeks where I weaned off.

Initial donor egg cycle cost us around 29k. Frozen cycle was mostly covered and cost around 2k for meds and procedure.

We transferred two the first time and they both took. The second time we only transferred one and it took. He made sure to put in the best embryos each time and their process in doing so is well done.