How do you do your research and decide on your clinic and treatment plan

[Kristin0105]

I think the title says it all. I have come to the conclusion that after 2.5+ years of trying to get pregnant we need intervention because at my age I have little time left.

How do you do your research and decide on a clinic to use? As I do my internet searches I become overwhelmed reading the clinic sites. They all present themselves as being great and their sites are all shiny and pretty (you know what I mean) but how do you decide? Because when it comes down to it many are basically the same. What makes a particular clinic stand out to you? Do you read online reviews if they are available? I had found a clinic in NY that did the mini IVF I was considering and then read many reviews and it just turned me off that clinic. I wonder if that's even useful information but still it made an impact.

Are there particular sites you use to compare clinics, get additional information etc...

And finally has anyone gone the Natural IVF route? Would you recommend your clinic? Why or Why not?

[poppan]

IME all fertility treatment seems to progress like this:
- initial evaluation: bloodwork, sperm analysis, HSG (to see if your tubes are open), etc.
- if there's nothing "wrong" (i.e. you have unexplained infertility), they start with clomid and timed intercourse
- after 3 or so cycles, they move on to clomid and IUI (insemination)

They might learn something from how you respond to these initial cycles to inform the next steps of your treatment. But usually after this would be some injectible hormones + IUI cycles, then depending on how you're feeling patience-wise and finance-wise, move on to IVF sooner or later.

So as you can see -- the first couple stages of treatment are really diagnostic tests and then fairly standard stuff that they all do the same way anyway. So my initial pick of which clinic or RE would mostly have to do with whether my insurance covers any of it. Oftentimes they will cover the preliminary testing and labs. Plus, some of the clinics--particularly the very good ones--only do IVF, so if you aren't at that stage yet, it may be premature to go to certain clinics.

I think personally I would start with:
- what does insurance cover/what's in-network
- then narrow down to a shortlist using their reported IVF statistics (http://www.sart.org/find_frm.html#)
- then look for information about the shortlisted clinics--forums (branch out from MDC), some of them hold seminars so you can meet the RE, but mostly I'd seek out info from others who have been to that clinic. Were the staff good, did they like the doc, does that clinic cherry pick clients so their stats look good, is it a clinic of last resort so they get the harder cases and their stats look worse because of that, etc.

Hope this helps and good luck on your journey, I hope you don't have to wait much longer for your child to come into your life.

[MrsD08]

I wish we had a choice!

There is 1 really new clinic in southern Maine (which we're looking into) and the rest are in Massachusettes.

Right now we're just seeing an urologist who specializes in male infertility (and there are only 2 in the state of Maine who do, besides the clinic).