I need to make an appt for a consult for doing a DE cycle with a possible known donor (relative).
Can you please share your opinions, likes and dislikes and also which doctor you prefer at the place? I live in Virginia, so am open to anywhere in DC, Virginia, Maryland, and can even go to NJ to Cooper or elsewhere.
Denise asked another poster below how much money is a consideration, and yeah, it really does help to know. I started at GIVF, and would have happily continued there if my marriage hadn't gone on the rocks and the stock market crashed in short succession. Most patients adore Dr. Lincoln there; he was mostly pleasant enough, but he had a kind of prickliness toward me that I couldn't fathom, except that maybe he was picking up on the tension between DH and me. Really, it was his DE coordinator who kept me coming back; she has moved on to the Cryobank side of the operation, though. Anyway, when I had the saline hysterosonogram to make sure I was OK to cycle, he found I had banding in my uterus. He successfully performed a surgery to correct it, but then everything fell apart.
It's a very nice facility in Fairfax: I used to call it the "Gleaming Palace of Fertility." If you're in NoVa, you know how bad the traffic is here, and especially if you work, there would be value to a clinic on your side of the Beltway in terms of stress.
Unless you're in their guarantee program or doing a frozen egg cycle, it has been considered one of the pricier clinics, but I see they have put affordability on the front page at their Web site. Ummm, they needed to with Shady Grove just down the road and the economy so bad. Anyway, I never got to a cycle with them for the reasons stated above, and my main criticism would be that my DE coordinator, for as nice as she was, was not always a great communicator.
I have had great success at Cooper and would recommend Dr. Brasile too. I have a 17 month old DD from my first fresh DE transfer and am now pregnant with twins from a the frosties from that cycle.
I and my potential donor live in Virginia, and I used to be a patient of Dr. Check's so I know what a pain the out of town monitoring can be. I did it for 2 years, all the missed faxes, coordinating labs and ultrasounds etc. How did you do out of town monitoring with Cooper?
I assume donor lived in NJ?
Cooper said they are around 8.5K for one fresh cycle. I forgot to ask them about any other packages they have like GIVF or SG has. Cooper is cheaper but it is a lot of coordination too.
I'm torn.
...was through Shady Grove on days I needed an u/s, otherwise just bloodwork at the local hospital worked fine. There are fewer appointments needed than with OE so it is much easier, maybe 2 ultrasounds total prior to transfer, and the DE department has its own fax line for monitoring results (they are in a separate building next to the main Cooper office, much less hectic). They have separate phone lines to DE too, you can bypass the front desk.
I was an OE patient at Cooper, got pg with single egg IVF despite a whopping FSH of 25, but had a m/c due to chromosome trisomy. I moved to DE, didn't care for the local clinics here.