Sheena Rippentrop

Dr. Rippentrop is excellent. She is thorough and seems to also understand that when you’re in her office, you have all of the mental, emotional, and physical “baggage” to go with it ☺️. She is patient, respects your perspectives, and I truly believed she wanted the very best for me and my family. I wasn’t a statistic or a “success rate” at all. I am a woman who just wanted to be a mom and she made that a reality for us. Her knowledge of how quickly science advances and encouragement to ask questions has now led us to transfer one last embryo which, in 2019, was aneuploid but is now mosaic. She helped us get access to and sort through the data surrounding this little embryo and she talked with us about all the risks and benefits. We appreciate this continuous learning so much, when others just encouraged us to discard it.

It’s okay to be vulnerable with her. Ask questions and take your time. You can trust her. Dr. Rippentrop really cares about her craft and wants what’s best for you.

I did a frozen embryo transfer with about three weeks of birth control, then estrace patches for five days (2 patches every other day) before adding in estrogen pills as well. I did this until my follow-up appointment five days before transfer, at which point I added progesterone in oil injections. On the day of transfer, I did acupuncture beforehand and afterwards. I declined Valium, which was a non-issue for her. I continued with the pio injections and go a positive pregnancy test. This happened twice, during both transfers we did with her.

My insurance benefits ran out pretty quickly so most of our frozen embryo transfers have been out of pocket. Before you schedule a transfer, you meet with a financial representative who goes over the estimated cost post-insurance coverage and you must pre-pay that amount before you can schedule. That money goes into a pre-paid account that covers appointments, Ultrasounds , etc. once they are billed. Our current transfer is costing us approximately $3500-$5000 depending on what insurance will cover as “routine” and not fertility related. My meds cost me $450 out of pocket this time. However, in 2019 when we did egg retrieval the cost was closer to $20k.

We initially had a plan to transfer two embryos during a frozen transfer cycle - one euploid and one aneuploid. However, after my husband and I met with a genetic counselor and learned that with the advancement of scientific knowledge, that aneuploid embryo is now considered mosaic, she changed her recommendation/willingness away from transferring two embryos. The risk was too high. We really appreciated her candidness.

Dr. Rippentrop was extremely thorough in providing all the necessary information and answering all of our questions that arose during the process. Dr. Rippentrop was one where I wasn't sure if I would like her as my provider before my initial visit but ended up loving her by the end of it. She made sure that we were fully aware of what we were doing, why we were doing it, how it works, and everything in between. She never made me feel like I was asking dumb questions, but instead encouraged every question that I could possibly think of no matter how silly they were. She was fun to joke around with, which helped create a more welcoming and relaxing environment. I was happy to show up to my appointments with her and would recommend her to anyone looking to grow their family.

Just trust that she knows what she's doing and is extremely good at it. At the end of the day, she's here to help you and she knows her stuff, so let her help.

The total cost for IVF at this clinic was about $18k plus $3500 for medications, which was partially covered by my insurance plan.

She does single embryo transfers unless you have multiple failed transfers, which is the safer option unless data points to needing multiple embryos transferred.