Picking a location for fertility clinic

[Anonymous]

I am heading to the fertility clinic after three failed rounds of clomid, but have a question regarding picking a location. My dr has referred me to Shady Grove, so I can go to the Rockville location which is 12 miles from my house and closer to my husband's office than the DC location. Or I can pick the DC location which is closer to my office but far from home and my husband's office. Based upon your experience -- how often are you going to the clinic, what time of day and which scenario do you think is better - closer to work or home? Do your husbands go with you often or should I not even factor that in? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

You will be going to the clinic much more often than your husband will (he will go to an initial appointment, for his sperm test, to discuss results with RE and to provide sperm for IUI/IVF if you choose to). You, on the other hand, after an initial consultation and doing bunch of tests, will be going there on a daily basis for monitoring starting on day 3 of your cycle, so pick a location convenient to you.

[Anonymous]

And one more thing to add - you will be going to the clinic early for monitoring between 7 am-9 am. So factor that in as well.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Another option is to do your initial consult with one of the doctors in Rockville, as the doctors in that office do the IVF procedures (retrieval and transfer) for their patients vs. having the doctor of the day doing the procedures for all of the patients at the other offices. You can do monitoring at any office, so you could do weekday monitoring closer to work and weekend monitoring closer to home.

[Anonymous]

Also, you may want your DH at some of the monitoring sessions. My DH came to most of them for moral support (my first cycle was almost cancelled so we were always both very nervous about how many follicles we were going to see at the morning monitoring ultrasound). But as the other PPs noted, you can always go to DC for monitoring on some days and R'ville on others.

Also, I think R'ville has a less personal feel than the DC office because there are so many more patients and doctors at R'ville.