Lia Bernardi

Dr. Bernardi made us feel instantly at ease. She explained things thoroughly and answered our millions of questions with kindness and expertise. She was happy to try new things and was willing to work with my Reproductive Immunologist.

Do your research and be your own advocate. If you have multiple losses, seek out a reputable Reproductive Immunologist to work with Dr. Bernardi. If you have unexplained infertility, insist upon the ReceptivaDX to test for the biomarker for endometriosis.

Dr. Bernardi did every test (except for ones related to immunology). Based on my AMH, it was determined that have diminished ovarian reserve. Therefore she did not want to over suppress my ovaries. My standard treatment for medicated cycles was: 350 Gonal F Trigger: 250 Ovidrel When that didn't produce more than 2 follicles, we tried Menopur and Estrogen priming but got poorer results.

Thankfully, our insurance covered everything except the ReceptivaDX test. NW does have an onsite financial advisor who is extremely helpful when dealing with insurance and payment.

She is kind, considerate and caring. She has always taken my opinions and requests into consideration while forming my treatment. I have a lot of worries, and every time I speak to her I feel much better! I’ve seen 2 other RE’s and she is by far the best RE I’ve ever seen by a long shot!

I love Northwestern because it runs in a “team” patient care model — meaning, you have an entire team, not just one doctor. However, that also means you may not see your doctor all the time or very often. My advice is to simply ASK for an appointment with your RE whenever you want one — either in person or TeleHealth appointments — and you can get one! Don’t expect to see your doctor during all of your MANY ultrasound and lab appointments.

I am lucky to live in Illinois, which has a fertility insurance mandate, so I have very good insurance coverage for fertility / IVF. I paid $8200 a year max for everything with my insurance — up to 6 retrieval’s a year and unlimited transfers. My insurance covered all medications after that $8200 max out of pocket. Northwestern has been GREAT about coming up with a payment plan to pay that $8200 a year where we pay monthly.

Dr. Bernardi is excellent when it comes to evaluating transfer determinations based on the individual patient. I was very turned off by RE’s I’ve consulted with who had one protocol (ie, usually transferring only 1 or 2 max, even if low quality embryos) that they used for EVERY patient. Dr. Bernardi and my entire Northwestern team doesn’t do this at all. They are flexible and decide on how many transfers depending on the individual patient and their specific circumstances. This is a HUGE plus in an RE!

She seemed very intelligent and professional. I liked her personality and bedside manner. She was very nice. However, they definitely don't prioritize IUI patients which I get. But the whole experience with 2 IUI cycles, I just felt like I was ushered through. I thought I wouldn't be someone who needed my hand held through the process, but left feeling like their process was cold and impersonal.

The clinic is busy, you probably won't talk to her more than once or twice. She is smart and I am sure she's a great doctor. It didn't work out for me. I decided I needed a smaller clinic with a more personal experience.

I had 2 IUI cycles with Letrozole.

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 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

Lia Bernardi was always great in person and on the phone. I spoke with her a total of two times in two years. Once at the initial meeting, once on the phone after miscarriage. She was kind and caring when I interacted with her. Interaction was so little. I felt like I was in charge of my own treatment. I would suggest something via portal and a nurse would respond. Also I had to point out that my thyroid was high and only then did they put on meds for that. Nice person, not a great doctor/patient experience.

Look carefully at all tests and each patients results/past. Interact more with patient.

Went for FET with an embryo from an embryo retrieved at another clinic out of state. Wanted to transfer in state so found them. They transferred and it was not a success. I requested Dr. Bernardi be the one to transfer- she agreed. The dr. that showed up at the transfer was NOT Dr. Bernardi and at that point I had no choice but to do the transfer as the embryo was thawed. It failed. Then we went to IUI as I had previously gotten pregnant with iui. First stimmed iui I became pregnant. I then was shuffled between two dr.'s as Dr. Bernardi went on maternity. The pregnancy was ectopic. Given methotrexate (3x) to dissolve pregnancy. Also had an empty sac. This was expelled and I ended up being admitted to ER for excessive bleeding. Horrible times. A few months pass. We decide to do iui again. First iui failed. Second they stimmed me too hard and I feel the cycle should have been cancelled as I triggered on day 6. It failed, not surprised. This current cycle I am doing a natural cycle (I asked for this). We'll see. I am planning on going elsewhere after this cycle.

a lot for the fet. Each iui ends up being about 1700$

Not applicable

Dr Bernardi is very warm, welcoming, comforting! I always felt comfortable picking her brain and discussing treatment plan. During my ivf treatment she was expecting. She asked if I was ok with her treating me while she was pregnant. That was very considerate of her. It didn't bother me at all, and of course I wanted her to continue treating me!

Ask all the questions you like! She will answer them all without making you feel uncomfortable!

We started with clomid, but that had an adverse effect on me. We stopped immediately! It had my vision like I was in the Matrix! We then moved on to Menopur, Gonal F, Ovidrel, and maybe another med(I forget). I can't recall the doses. We did weekly blood work, and Ultrasound.

Ultrasound typically was done right after or before bloodwork. They put you on the schedule and you do it then. Never a long line/lengthy wait!

The cost was for procedures, clinic, were covered under the insurance had at that time. The meds were covered up to a percentage for the first cycle. All cycles after are out of pocket.

N/A

She is a warm, compassionate doctor. She does a good job balancing my own wishes/priorities with her medical judgement. She patiently answered all of my questions (and I had A LOT of questions!) She made a point to involve my husband in discussions as well, whereas a different doctor that we saw first nearly ignored him. She advocated on my behalf with my insurance company when they didn't want to cover IVF after 3 IUI cycles.

Do your reading in advance and come prepared with a list of questions.

25 mg Clomid x 5 days for 1st and 2nd IUIs. I produced 2 mature follicles the 1st time and 1 the second time. 50 mg Clomid x 5 days for 3rd IUI-- still only produced 1 mature follicle, pregnancy results pending (too soon to test). She decided that it I am not pregnant, next time I should come in sooner for baseline testing (day 3 instead of day 5) so I can start Clomid earlier in hopes of producing 2 follicles. She had recommended 50 mg Clomid from the start but I wanted to start with 25 mg and she was OK with that.

With my insurance, office visits had a $50 copay. IUI was covered by my insurance.

When we first went for our consultation with Dr. Bernardi, she seemed incredibly friendly and knowledgable and like she would be a good doctor to work with. When it was time to start our cycle though I didn't hear from her at all, working only with nurses. When I requested for her to call, she elected instead to send me a message a day later informing me she was going on maternity leave and good luck. So essentially, she did not tell me she was going on maternity leave until the last moment, when she certainly could have told me sooner and made alternative arrangements for my care. In addition, she could not take the time to speak with me over the phone and discuss certain procedures and answer my questions. It was very disappointing.

Ask a lot of questions and be persistent if you actually want to speak on the phone with her. Although ultimately I would recommend a different doctor at Northwestern.

We used oral estrogen tablets, injectable progesterone, and progesterone suppositories.

$5,000 for an embryo transfer, plus the cost of medication, plus copay expenses for workup appointments.

When we had our initial consultation and I told her in our last cycle we had only done a single embryo, she asked why and thought we could do two embryos. That was the extent of her comments or explanation about the subject.

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.

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. Bernardi was recommended to me while I was under the care of one of her colleagues and had some concerns about my care. I met with her and immediately felt at ease. She asked about my reasons for leaving the other physician in attempts to get to know me better as a patient. She trial-ed a different protocol that allowed me to get a cycle in before the end of the year lab closing. We both went in with low expectations due to my lower reserve and were pleased with the outcome, making it to retrieval and freezing embryos.

If you are looking for empathetic, creative, and warm, Dr. Bernardi is a wonderful fit.

We did a fresh start (no priming) and higher doses of FSH (300) and LH (150). Ganirelix was added on day 5. I triggered on day 8.