RE recommendation

kelliott · June 2010

I'm hoping someone might have a rec for an RE in the houston area. I live in east houston, but would be willing to travel somewhat. I am currently seeing Dr. Roach (from a rec on here). I am currently on my second cycle of clomid (I do ovulate, but this is supposed to help my chances) but I'm not being monitored. I called about being monitored and the PA said they don't do it and its unnecessary. From everything I've read on the TTC boards, that's a big no no and I just want to call around and see what other opinions are. I'd love to hear about any thoughts/ experiences about Dr. Roach if you have them as well! TIA!

Quizzle · June 2010

I'm of the opinion that you should be monitored on clomid, as well. I wasn't, but I was with my OB at the time. I was fortunate that I never had any cysts or anything, but we made the mistake of skipping the SA (I'd just had a m/c and stopped ovulating afterwards so we assumed that the problem was mine since I'd gotten pregnant so quickly the first time).

I saw Dr Gill at HOuston Fertility Institute. They're more expensive than Dr Roach, but I was pretty happy there. I'm under the impression that they're not big fans of clomid, at least from something Dr Gill said to me in passing once. We ended up straight to IVF, but our primary issue turned out to be (surprise!) severe MFI. My ovulation issues were trivial in the grand scheme, since I responded to drugs.

Dr Roach does have some fans here, though.

MMS2007 · June 2010

i highly recommend houston ivf. i loved both dr. hickman and dr. mckenzie. the nurse diane and the lady who draws blood are so awesome. everyone there is extremely compassionate. i don't know what the monitoring of clomid is there, i had moved past clomid by the time i got to them. i can tell you when it came to my monitoring there, it was awesome. i truly felt like they were on top of their game and good at what they did. good luck

kelliott · June 2010

Thanks girls. I really liked Dr. Roach when we met with her, but I'm just worried about the monitoring and maybe I'm feeling a little helpless. I just feel kinda left in the wind the last couple months as I have been on Clomid. The only contact I've had was with the PA to find out the results of my progesterone tests after each ovulation. Which I don't understand since I thought we had already established that I ovulate just fine....

jen5-03 · June 2010

Dr Gill got me pg 2x. I did clomid with my gyno, unmonitored and it was a total waste of time in my case.

duchessII81 · June 2010

I used Dr. Roach and loved her - see siggy. My OB did a Day 10 or 12 (can't remember) follicle scan, Dr. Roach didn't, I didn't think it was a big deal - still don't. But I had TONS of faith in her since she was in the business of making babies.

Good luck to you!

E&RMommy · June 2010

Houston IVF - hands down

somethingchangd · June 2010

Wow. I used Dr. Roach and have nothing but wonderful things to say about her, after seeing 3 other REs. That said, I cannot believe she doesn't do any monitoring on clomid! Have you talked to Dr. Roach herself about it? Scary stuff.

Out of the other 3 I saw, I felt like Houston IVF was on the ball. Their success rates (for IVF) are really good too.

I hate that Dr. Roach isn't working for you, since I had such a great experience with her. But meds w/o monitoring isn't an option for me.

Cajun_gal · June 2010

somethingchangd:
Wow. I used Dr. Roach and have nothing but wonderful things to say about her, after seeing 3 other REs. That said, I cannot believe she doesn't do any monitoring on clomid! Have you talked to Dr. Roach herself about it? Scary stuff.

Out of the other 3 I saw, I felt like Houston IVF was on the ball. Their success rates (for IVF) are really good too.

I hate that Dr. Roach isn't working for you, since I had such a great experience with her. But meds w/o monitoring isn't an option for me.

Ditto everything bolded. I was thrilled with her, but I didn't do straight Clomid ever (either IUIs or IVF). I'm disappointed that she's not monitoring you. That would be a deal-breaker for me, and I'd definitely switch if they're refusing to monitor. Have heard great things about Houston IVF and Houston Fertility Institute.

erica_kaspar · June 2010

I went to Houston Fertility Institute and saw Dr. Hadaad. I was on clomid and was monitored. My story is a little strange because of how my cycle started a couple of weeks before I received fertility insurance.

So my regular OB prescribed the clomid and then 5 days later I moved to Dr. Hadaad (they are friends so this was all worked out) to be monitored so I didn't 'waste' a cycle because of my insurance.We had all the other tests run before going to clomid (SA, HSG, bloodwork etc)

ala_1220 · June 2010

I am seeing Dr. Heard at the Women's Specialist of Houston at Texas Children's Hospital. He has been great so far!!! But, I am also seeing him for other issues. I have a friend who is seeing him for fertility issues and she loves him, sees him pretty much as much as she wants and needs. She loves him too!!!

I also like that he is in the same group as my OB so my chart just goes from one office to the other, without having to worry about information being released, and both doctors are in communication with each other.

https://www.womenspecialists.com/Services/Infertility/tabid/106/Default.aspx

SigmundsGirl · June 2010

duchessII81:

I used Dr. Roach and loved her - see siggy. My OB did a Day 10 or 12 (can't remember) follicle scan, Dr. Roach didn't, I didn't think it was a big deal - still don't. But I had TONS of faith in her since she was in the business of making babies.

Good luck to you!

Ditto. What I also found out with Dr. Roach is that my charting showed that I was ovulating, but an egg wasn't actually being released due to PCOS. I could have been on Clomid for 6 months (and was) and never actually ovulated. I got pregnant on my 3rd cycle with Dr. Roach.

kj07 · June 2010

Houston IVF!

The staff there are soooo amazing. I met with Dr McKenzie (turns out she did her residency with my now-OB) for the initial consult and then met with the nurses and u/s techs the rest of the time. I agree with the pp who said that the phlebotomist is amazing - I barely felt the needle go in when she did my blood draws (and I was getting blood pulled about every 2 days for a while).

DH and I had unexplained infertility which was already diagnosed by the time I was referred over. So the plan was to start with Clomid and slowly work our way up to IVF, if we needed to go that far.

For the Clomid cycles, I would just get an u/s at CD3 to be sure I had no cysts and then I was on my one (with phone consults if needed) unless I was doing an IUI with the cycle. After 4 unsuccessful rounds of Clomid, we moved onto a cycle of Gonal-F injectables and I was in there if not every day, then every other day. The staff did a really good job of trying to squeeze my visits into the early morning so I wouldn't be too late getting to work. Luckily for us, our first round of injectables was successful

Tracey the u/s tech was one of my favorites. DH came to several of my u/s appts and she she took the time to go through all my anatomy with him and show him the ovaries and the veins and explain a bunch of stuff to him which he thought was super interesting.

Anyway, this is super long now, but I just can't say enough good things about my experience with Houston IVF.

kelliott · June 2010

Thanks ladies! I am going to try to call Dr. Roach next week before I do anymore clomid. I don't know if I will actually be able to get her on the phone, but I will try. If not, I'll move on. The PA didn't seem to have much patience for my monitoring questions, so I'm not going to try again with her. I have unexplained IF and I'm supposedly ovulating, but without monitoring, how does she knows its doing anything for me? I also had a lot of pressure in the area of my ovaries this month until I ovulated, so I'm not comfortable not being monitored anymore. Thanks for the recommendations and hopefully, just maybe this will be the cycle for me and all this will be a mute issue!

greyt00 · June 2010

Dr. Dunn at Fertility Specialists of Houston is wonderful. He diagnosed my primary issue after another RE missed it and I will always be grateful. I also like Dr. McKenzie at Houston IVF. I do not recommend Dr. Allon. He missed a major issue in my work-up, although he might have actually fixed something else in my laparoscopy. I wish I knew but it's hard to say. The nurses at Allon are NOT good.

For what it's worth -- maybe not much -- Dr. Roach always had the fewest # of follies/eggs on the egg donor profiles I looked at. The same donors had 1.5-2x that number of eggs in cycles with Dunn/McKenzie. To be fair, though, the recipients always got pregnant.

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