Pei-Li Huang

As a patient I wasn't sure what to expect as this was my first time doing IVF. We chose Fertility Solutions as there were 3 main doctors, were some facilities you could be seeing a number of them. Our consultation was with Dr. Huang, and we saw her the most throughout the process. I really liked her positivity, warmth and I thought should was very straight-forward. She answered all of the questions we had and really wanted to see us succeed.

I think as with any Fertility Doctor, do your research about the processes, and come prepared with questions. She was happy to answer all and any questions, but she and the clinic are very busy and I noticed that if I did not come prepared with questions she assumed I didn't have any and went on her way.

I started out on birth control to suppress my ovulation. Once the treatment started, due to my good AMH response, we started on an average dose of Gonal F 225u for 8days and due to response turned it down to 150u, 100u and then 75u. I also took 7 doses of Ganirelix 250mcg. For the trigger, I only needed 5000u for Novarel. After Retrieval I took Crinone only as I developed a mild case of OHSS.

Most of my costs were covered by insurance - although I have a limited number of "cycles" (2). I have a $50 copay and most of the bloodwork, etc was covered at 100%. Surprisingly my Retrieval and Transfer were covered 100% as well. The only thing I paid a lot of money for was the medication. One thing the facility mentioned is that if the medication is charged through insurance, it's much more than paying out of pocket sometimes. I found that was the case and as I had a limit of $10,000 on medication, that soon ran out for 1 cycle. So for some of the medication I paid out of pocket so it wouldn't get whacked against my limit, if that makes sense.

Dr. Huang prefers eSET if possible, although I only had 1 embryo to transfer so I did not have to face that decision.

We had the unfortunate experience of attempting to work with Fertility Solutions to help begin our family and it was one of the worst experiences we've ever had with a Doctor. Dr. Huang had an extremely negative attitude towards us from the beginning, making it clear to us that we were ultimately not going to work with her. It all started with her telling us that the chances of us obtaining a viable embryo were extremely unlikely due to my age, and the age of our egg donor. She encouraged us to choose a different donor instead, which we declined. She continued to raise this point at least three times during the meeting even though we told her we weren’t interested. We went on to discuss the medical history of my family, and she then told me that I will likely end up with prostate cancer because a family member had it, and because I am taking a medication that promotes it. All completely inaccurate. The conversation continued to fall apart when she told us that they would not even attempt to bill our medical insurance, because we're a gay couple, and she didn’t think that insurance for fertility was intended to cover same sex couples. She said we would need to pay in cash, and that she wouldn’t feel right even trying to have insurance cover the cost of any portion of the fertility treatments. The nail in the coffin was when she informed us that if we moved forward with them, and did obtain a viable embryo, we would not be allowed to know the sex of the embryo or be allowed to choose which embryo we wanted to use. She stated that they did not believe in "discarding embryos" that were not the gender we wanted to start our family with. Not once did we ever tell her we would ever discard an embryo. Who the hell do these people think they are? She was so insulting and offensive to us and we left the appointment feeling completely defeated. I walked away from that saying that I was done, and that I gave up because I was so upset. My spouse on the other hand was talking with another clinic in Boston and we ended up having a consultation that was a complete 180 from our awful experience with Dr. Huang. Not only did our new doctor tell us that everything she said was bogus, he said that with current medical technology the chances we could obtain viable embryos were much much higher than what Fertility Solutions told us. They also said that they would absolutely try to get our treatments covered through insurance and would help us as much as possible through that process. Months later, both us and our donor are ready to go, insurance IS covering the treatments, saving us $50,000, and we have a very high likelihood of viable embryos based off of the tests we've all had done to prepare for retrieval. I can see based on reviews that Fertility Solutions has done a lot of great things for a lot of families, but for us it was nothing short of a nightmare from the beginning. For some reason they treated us very differently. I am so thankful we found a fertility clinic that has treated us respectfully, and with optimism.

Avoid her at all costs.

Horrible! She had no compassion for our needs and seemed to discourage us from trying to start a family.

Dr. Huang is very thorough and while at time I get frustrated because I want an immediate solution I know that ultimately she is doing the right thing. After my last miscarriage she made sure to perform a hysteroscopy herself as the D&C was performed by another doctor's office since I had "graduated" from the fertility clinic where we found pregnancy tissue left behind. She then performed an additional D&C herself where shes corrected the issue of leftover tissue and performed a second hysteroscopy to ensure the tissue was gone. Although I expressed frustrations with all the set-backs she comforted me by saying that we didn't want to place a good embryo in an uterus that was not ready/the most optimal conditions.

For 1st FET cycle: Antagonist Protocol - Stimulated using Gonal-F, HCG & Lupron Trigger Shot. We had 19 eggs retrieved, 16 were mature, 11 fertilized and 7 embryos were sent for PGS testing (since I had a history of recurrent pregnancy loss). 5 Embryos came back PGS normal and we transferred 1 5AA PGS Normal embryo which ended in a miscarriage at 8 weeks.

Our costs were primarily covered by insurance but we had to pay about $1,000 out of pocket for the FET cycle and about $4,000 for the PGS testing.

Dr. Huang preferred I only transferred one embryo because although I have a history of pregnancy loss I have had pregnancies last for several weeks+ so we know implantation occurs and she felt that the risks of a multiples pregnancy was greater for me.

Dr Huang showed a great deal of compassion towards our struggle from the beginning, and the moment I met her I knew she would do everything she could to help us. She is devoted to ensuring her patients receive individual and personal care. It’s Dr Huang’s mission to make everyone feel safe and comfortable and she certainly succeeds in this. If you’re looking for a clinic where you’re not a number and your hand is held every step of the way, this is the place to go. However, as more information about my condition was uncovered, I felt as though next steps and the “right thing to do” was a guess. I know fertility doctors do not know it all by any means, but I wasn’t sure the complexity of my case was within her realm (and by the way, my case was very complicated and somewhat a mystery!). Often times I craved upfront and candid direction but was instead given a range of choices that could work, or could not work, it would all totally depend. Again, infertility is frustrating and unclear for many, but at a certain point, I needed a more experienced doctor/surgeon to take over my case so I moved on to another clinic for another opinion.

Smaller clinics like Fertility Solutions certainly have their benefits (more individualized attention, personal experiences, safe and comfortable environments), but because they see a smaller number of patients, they tend to not “see it all” in terms of cases and conditions. If you have a complicated diagnosis, go with a larger hospital or clinic with more doctors.

I started with IUI as most fertility clinics do. This was when I didn’t have a diagnosis of endometriosis yet. All 3 cycles failed. I moved to IVF and I was put on 225 units of Gonal F and cetrotide. I remember thinking my Gonal F needed to be increased more after a certain stage of egg development but they kept it about the same. I had 23 eggs retrieved. No hyper-stimulation. Did a fresh transfer which resulted in an ovarian ectopic. I sadly lost my ovary in the surgery I received to remove the pregnancy. But I bounced back fairly quickly and transferred the remaining 6 embryos I had left, month after month. All failed. I did one more egg retrieval with Dr Huang with my one ovary and they retrieved 9 eggs. 3 became embryos and we did PGS. Only 1 was normal and sadly, I had another ectopic. This was when we decided to switch clinics

I could go in between 7-9am and I actually enjoyed my monitoring visits! The reason is because I loved the staff at the Woburn office. Jaime, the woman who draws blood there (she’s the only one!) is warm, sweet and nurturing. It was a pleasure talking to her - she distracted me from the pain and stress and made me smile every single time I was in. I am so grateful for her and for Deb, an admin at the Woburn office as well. What a wonderful team they were.

I was lucky to have insurance cover the majority of my treatments, so I did not pay much out of pocket.

We did eSET which I thought was the right choice

I had a great experience with Dr. Huang and all the doctors at Fertility Solitions. They are informative, transparent, and easily accessible for questions. Dr. Huang always makes herself available when I need to call her, and she personally delivers the news about how our embryos are developing after retrieval. I have had a great experience with Dr. Huang.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Dr. Huang is always happy to explain things.

Round 1: Birth control followed by gonal-f and ganarelex, then trigger shot and PIO. 5 eggs retrieved, 5 fertilized, 1 blast transferred on day 5, 0 frozen Round 2: Estrace followed by lupron and gonal-f, then trigger shot and PIO. 13 eggs retrieved, 10 fertilized, 0 made to blast/0 transferred/0 frozen Round 3 (in progress): Estrace followed by menopur and gonal-f, then ganarelex, trigger shot, PIO and endometrim inserts.

The intake process for routine monitoring was very smooth. I never had to wait more than 10 minutes, even without an appointment

Deductibles and co-pays for appointments and medications

Dr. Huang prefers single embryo transfer

She is very communicative and kind. She can be blunt, but I appreciated her practical approach. She is also kind and responsive to anxiety and the stress of the process. I did find her to be a little bit clinical at times but most doctors are.

Advocate for yourself. She is great about answering questions so don’t be afraid to be annoying by reaching out so you feel comfortable.

For medicated IUI cycles she recommended letrozole rather than clomid due to lining issues and also a reduced chance of multiples. They do blood work and ultrasound monitoring with all medicated cycles.

Unmonitored/unmedicated IUI was $475 out of pocket. Medicated/monitored IUI was $1,000 out of pocket, which included all monitoring appointments. Medication was billed separately through the pharmacy. They are very transparent about pricing.

Dr. Huang took great care in connecting with me as a human. She understood my goals and respected my wishes for treatment. Even when I later moved out of state, I was able to rely on her for medical counsel and compassion. She’s a really special medical provider.

Dr. Huang explains why she recommends each treatment and procedure so even if you don’t think of all your questions she will be super helpful. You can rest assured you will be in great hands.

With Dr. Huang I did unmedicated IUIs at my request and she respected my wishes on that. It felt like a very collaborative approach.

Almost nothing. My insurance covered over 95% of treatment and meds (other than donor sperm).

I haven’t done any embryo transfers.

We are still in the middle of treatment between our 1st and 2nd IVF cycles with Dr. Huang. I appreciate that she takes the time to make personal phone calls, whereas I know other doctors at other clinics do not call their patients directly. She is patient with questions and explains everything in a way that we can understand. She is hopeful, empathetic and also realistic in setting expectations.

Try to get an appointment with her!

Two medicated IUI cycles- we tried this before moving onto IVF due to lack of insurance coverage. If we had coverage at the time, I would have rather gone directly to IVF, but Dr. Huang was honest that it was reasonable to give IUI a chance before moving on directly to IVF.

Still in progress

Pei-Li was the first doctor we interviewed when we started fertility treatment. She spoke to us both in detail and was able to asses how each of us received information. At each visit when my husband was there, she made sure to give him the information first in a way that he clearly understood and processed. She answered every single question I ever had, hugged me when I needed it and held my hand through every test, procedure, and ultrasound.

Don't be afraid to ask questions and bring any information you may have collected outside of what she has told you for review.

We started with chlomid. It's protocol and insurance makes you go through steps: Chlomid, a certain amount of rounds of IUI and then you can do IVF. That was our protocol.

We were almost 100% covered by insurance.

Dr. Huang is a kind and compassionate doctor. Several days following my miscarriage, she called me personally to make sure that I was okay. My first retrieval yielded less eggs than anticipated, and I am curious to see what changes in medications, etc. that she will recommend for my upcoming retrieval. I'm hoping for a better outcome.

Advocate for yourself. Ask lots of questions if you are unsure of anything.

Baseline AFC showed 12-16 follicles. Antagonist protocol was used; started with 250 follistim; was dropped to 150 after a few days because of increased estrogen. Stimmed for approx. 8 days. Protocol yielded 6 eggs, all of which were mature. I was told at the beginning to expect around 12 eggs, so I was disappointed with these numbers.

IVF fresh with included frozen transfer, around $9000.

As stated I saw her through the VA. Initially to inquire on a vasectomy reversal. She examined me on first appt and said I was a good canidate. It had been 28 years since my vasectomy and she explained the procedures and the possibility that it may not be succesfull

Be honest with her and trust her medical experience

She scheduled my reversal surgery after initial exam. Surgery was intense procedure due to the time time since vasectomy. Surgery was 50% successful as one side had too much scar tissue

Fortunately being a vet, my costs were minimle.

I do not

I found her to be very knowledgeable regarding what may work best for me and had backup plans if we needed to go a different route. If I had hesitations about something she listened to what I had to say and then thought about what would be best for a good outcome

Ask questions if you don't understand something

We chose her because a friend highly recommended her. We liked her and felt confident having her for a doctor. It was a little strange when she apologized when we found out we were pregnant with twins because we were thrilled and somehow she thought we'd be disappointed.

She wasn't the warmest doctor I've ever had, but she is really good.

It was a long time ago. Sorry.

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My husband and myself both really liked huang she was very personable and very easy to talk with. She made the environment very relaxed and answered all questions we had. She doesn’t treat you like a number and is very informative of what she sees while doing a follicular ultrasound

Ask questions and be aggressive

When I first met with her we decided we would try times intercourse with letrozole. We did that and only had one follicle grow from there we tried clomid and saw no results and lastly we combined letrozole and clomid and saw no results again. Waiting to start our next plan of action

Every time I have in ultrasound I have a 40$ copay. Also have had a few small bills for bloodwork