IVF in Seattle

ddvj79 · June 2014

Hi Everyone,

We've tried SRM & PNWF - a total of 4 IUIs & all a bust. IVF is probably our next step, we have a consult with Dr.Shahine at PNWF this week.

I was wondering if folks who have had IVF in the Seattle area would be open to sharing what the costs look like ? I heard its close to $20,000 but thought I would check.

If folks can share their IVF experience/ pointers or any questions we should be asking Dr.Shahine or the finance person during the consult, I'd be really grateful!

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Deleted User] · June 2014

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ddvj79 · June 2014

Thanks very much @GrailSeeker14 !

I got another recommendation for Poma Fertility (https://www.pomafertility.com/) in Kirkland. We are thinking we should talk to them as well because their self pay covers a lot more & is only $9200 without accounting for the cost of meds ofcourse.

PNWF is slightly more expensive compared to SRM but I did try SRM (Bellevue) for IUIs are wasn't happy with them so I am very hesitant to move back to SRM for IVF

I will update the thread once I've had my consult on Wednesday...

Funny, (not really) we're both on the same dose of Levothroxine except I have to take 150mcg on Sundays :-)
Good luck to you, I really really hope you get your full term healthy baby with your first IVF cycle ! Fx & baby dust to you!

[Deleted User] · June 2014

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ddvj79 · July 2014

jrtmom !!!! That's terrific! I personally think IVF is pretty scary...:-(

We started with SRM Bellevue & to be honest in my case they were terrible, almost (possibly they did) screwed up my 2nd IUI. They're more like a factory. They don't customize your IUI per your issues, I checked with 2-3 other ladies who pretty much had the same issue at SRM. They also used the most expensive pharmacy out there without the discounts we can get for fertility meds (even on insurance). I have a fixed lifetime coverage for fertility through my company & 4 IUIs used up quite a bit!

Few folks at MSFT recommended me to PNWF. With PNWF, they made a plan for me based on my test results so felt like they made an effort. I am curious what vials did they leave out too long ? I will keep an eye out for that especially with the IVF. In my case for IUI I was on Femara, Bravelle (I self administered) & Novarel trigger (which I took with me & they immediately administered it after my CD12 ultrasound). So nothing they could leave out with my IUIs.

[Deleted User] · July 2014

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[Deleted User] · July 2014

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BAKERMOMHDS · July 2014

I went to SRM Kirkland, Bellevue and Seattle. We did 3 IVF cycles between each site and rotated thru Dr Dudley and Dr Kennedy. We never had success. My personal opinion, SRM is too much like a factory.

I did a consult at PNWF, I wasn't impressed. My acupuncturist suggested Dr. Bankowski at ORM in Portland, OR. The best decision we ever made. We did two bank IVF cycles in Portland with genetic testing. Our son was born March 2014. I'll be going back to OR for our last FET next year.

Best of luck to you!

ddvj79 · August 2014

GrailSeeker14 jrtmom BAKERMOMHDS

I havent checked out Poma yet...Sticking with PNWF for now & moving on to IVF ER this September. I am of Indian origin & they dont recommend fresh transfers for women of South East Asia. I will be on a break for Oct & Nov to prepare for the ET & the ET itself is scheduled to be in December.

To be honest, after our IVF consult - I still trust Dr.Shahine but I can't say the same for her Medical Assistant (MA) in PNWF.

I had stabbing breast pain after one of the IUIs and when I emailed Desirea the MA for Dr.Shahine, she replies to me saying if I wanted they could cancel the IUI (which was already done). I mean really ? when a patient asks you a question, you dont even look up their chart before you answer ? Then I tell I already had the IUI & then she goes "ok", not even slightly embarrassed about her sloppy work. That gives me a very bad impression of what they are doing. We unfortunately lost our IVF packet with the entire bag it was in & requested another copy again with Desirea (who was the only one available at the time) & its been 2 weeks- nothing!

Thankfully the IVF coordinator is different from the IUI person.

Call me jaded, but I honestly dont think much of any of these fertility clinics anymore. To them its a business where patients are emotional enough to keep coming so they dont have to up their standards. Its all about the money for most of them & we are desperate enough to keep going. If this IVF doesnt work then we will be checking out Poma & ORM I guess. I also heard there is one in Spokane thats really good & one in Colorado (I might just take the time off work and check that place out as well if this doesnt pan out).

[Deleted User] · September 2014

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ddvj79 · September 2014

GrailSeeker14 !!!

laurajakers · September 2014

I had a TERRIBLE experience with Shahine, and more specifically, her nurse. Shahine made it clear almost from the beginning that my weight was a huge issue (but I was 46 and rapidly running out of time--did she expect me to lose 50 pounds suddenly when I'm disabled and haven't been able to lose it since the accident?). The weight was a far bigger issue for her than my age (mid forties). She also sent me out to a bunch of specialists to get approval for getting pregnant in the first place. This led to a lost year of humiliating visits to a variety of doctors as I tried to repeatedly explain to everyone involved that I had white-coat hypertension (blood-pressure that skyrockets in a medical environment but is normal elsewhere), not normal high blood pressure and if they wanted my blood pressure to go down, the best thing they could do is STOP making me go to more doctors. Instead they all but forced me onto BP medicines that kept my usual blood pressure so low, I fainted in the shower.

Then after I finally got all those other doctors to sign off on me getting pregnant, suddenly something that had been our choice (whether to have one or two embryos implanted) was taken away from us without any discussion or contact from the doctor. It was just this bomb that was an off-handed comment in an email from her nurse. Instead of recommending only one embryo at a time for implantation (something the hubby and I hadn't yet made a decision on, and which we were told was up to us), suddenly they were refusing to do more than one, and when I expressed frustration that the doctor had not included us in any discussion nor even given us this potentially life-changing information herself, there was no concern about how we felt. In fact, we were never able to speak to the doctor again.

On top of all of this, the nurse herself was one of the worst medical professionals I have ever had to deal with. I'm fairly well educated and able to ask solid questions about my treatment. However, even something as straightforward as, "What's the next step after this test?" went unanswered. She simply refused to answer anything we asked beyond the reporting of the latest test results. IVF is difficult enough when you have the best information, but when you are being seemingly deliberately kept in the dark, it's frightening.

When I went above her to ask if I might transfer to a different doctor in the practice to get away from Shahine's fat-shaming and the nurse's obstructionism, suddenly I was treated like I was doctor-shopping for one who would do two embryos--which I repeatedly expressed was not the case. I just wanted someone who treated me with some borderline respect. The phone call ended with them telling me they would not work with me. It has since been suggested to me that they more likely believed I would never get pregnant and didn't want me included in their success/failure ratio and simply made things unbearable in the hope I would leave.

So we did. Dr. Klein at SRM in Seattle was a much better fit. We had tried the Kirkland SRM, but they were terrible. Dr. Klein and most of the Seattle staff treated us like we were educated and motivated. We were not made to prove that I was worthy of being pregnant, and had to do a few more tests and then were ready to go. I am now almost halfway through what seems like a normal pregnancy, and far from being in the high-risk category that Shahine's people insisted, I am actually giving birth in a non-hospital setting with midwives.

A few weeks after I became pregnant, I had some bleeding, and Dr. Klein addressed it immediately, assured me that it was unlikely an indication of a serious problem and got us back in the headspace for a healthy pregnancy. And when a month ago, we got terrible news that a test said our baby had severe genetic issues and would not likely live even though the pregnancy, let alone his first year, it was not the geneticist at Eastside Maternal Fetal Medicine (where the test was done) who took the time to carefully explain things and make sure that we did not fall to pieces, it was the geneticist at SRM who reached out to us, gave us a lot of information and comfort, and who followed through on everything she promised. It turned out that the first test was flawed, and our baby is fine.

Our only complaint has been with one of their finance people who cannot seem to remember what order our insurance is in or what is covered. We've had to get some of their other finance people to step in to fix the many problems. But in the end, it got resolved and they even managed to bill us in such a way as to take the smallest chunk out of both our fertility benefit AND our wallets. Which is almost as big a miracle as the baby himself.

I hope things go well for you. And you find a situation in which you are comfortable and as stress-free as possible.

ddvj79 · September 2014

laurajakers

I am so sorry you had such a horrible experience. Just reading it stressed me out so much, I cannot imagine what you have been through... (Hugs)

To be honest my BMI is pretty high @ 37 & I have thyroid issues, PCOS & am to be a kidney donor in a year or so. In my case Dr.Shahine definitely suggested that I try & lose some weight but because of my husband's Kidney condition & my AMH values she recommended that I focus on low impact exercise & eat healthy but get my Egg retrieval done after 2 months' break. That what we are working on now...then I am supposed to take a couple months break & get my first FET done.

I feel her IVF people now are definitely better than her IUI people...her nurse actually reminded me today that I hadn't ordered my stim meds yet - which I appreciate. That said, I'm not in a place yet to form an opinion about their IVF till the ER & FET are done.

We infact told them & SRM up front that we want to aim for multiples given our situation & if that doesn't work for them then we'd go elsewhere. They put that in my chart as well saying we preferred multiples. Now, words are cheap...I will have to see how the whole thing pans out. I gave SRM a bad review on yelp based on my experience & these people are aware of that too. If this doesn't work out, we are seriously considering either Poma or Oregon Reproductive Medicine.

Hope your baby is super healthy & all the negative experiences you have had are it & only fun & good things are ahead for all of you! :-)

shauna78 · October 2014

Hi there,

I'm currently a patient at POMA fertility in Kirkland. We ended up choosing this clinic ultimately because of the reduced cost (we are self-pay) and how quickly they could get us in. Some of the other clinics have a wait list to even see an IVF doctor. POMA is fairly new so you don't feel like just another number. We are just starting our first IVF cycle this month so I don't have much more to say but I can say that we are very optimistic.

- Shauna

DueMay2015 · October 2014

We went to SRM in Seattle after being recommended by my OB. Dr. Letterie was our main RE, but Dr. Kennedy did our egg retrieval and Dr. Dudley did our embryo transfer. I was very happy with all of them and felt they were very invested in us.

We had 3 unsuccessful IUIs before moving onto IVF. If I had to do it over again, I would skip the IUIs altogether as I felt they were a waste of time - and at 39, I don't have a lot of time! However, we weren't sure we wanted to do IVF when we started all the fertility treatments, so I guess we needed this progression slowly.

Our first round of IVF was successful and I'm 10w5d along! We also did the Attain Program which was $22k (not including meds), which were probably another $4k. I would absolutely recommend doing a finance program like Attain because it put my mind at ease and I didn't feel like I only had one shot at this. I really assumed it would take us a couple rounds, so I still can't believe I'm pregnant!

Good luck, ladies! I know how difficult and stressful this process is, but know that you can be successful and that money is only money...

bukah · November 2014

When we first we're looking at treatments for fertility issues (due to husbands sperm) we went to poma. Price wise they were hands down the best. The only reason we didn't go with them because they wanted to push us to ivf instead of figuring out/fixing our infertility issues. We then went to overlake reproductive and the dr there really worked to find out the possible causes of our infertility (husband with lower testerone and me with slightly high thyroid), and put us on the appropriate medication, this was back in May/June. We were going to go back early next year to talk more about our options but were completely shocked to find out we were pregnant naturally. If you have already done all the tests about figuring out that IVF is the only option then Poma is the cheapest but we liked the feel of Overlake Reproductive better. Hope that helps! Good luck!

ddvj79 · February 2015

DueMay2015bukah

Based on first IVF cycle last October, I was very disheartened & really didn't want to continue with TTC. I am now again open to thinking about another cycle which will be self- pay. I am going to set up consults with both ORH and Poma and see how it goes.

LSchrader87 · March 2015

I just wanted to share my experience with SRM. We absolutely hated them. Their staff was beyond rude and the front desk lady was a B! The Seattle clinic was a bit better, but the Tacoma office is AWFUL. We spent thousands of dollars with them and ultimately learned they never tested us for some pretty big issues. I was just done with them. We were referred to Poma Fertility in Kirkland by a friend and cannot say enough good things about them. Every time I go, i see my doctor, not just a nurse. They are so friendly and seriously treat you as if you are their all time favorite patient. I am currently in the TWW of my first IVF and even if this doesn't work for us, we will continue to go back to them.

uwodahikamama15 · April 2015

I'm a little late to this discussion but I'm really sad to hear of bad experiences at PNWF.

I donated there several times and they were wonderful.... I realize it's a different side of things but I assumed they were great all around :-??

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