Donor Egg with Shady Grove

[Anonymous]

Donor Egg Pool at Shady Grove? Need advice.

Currently a patient with shady grove (2 years) no known issues on my side or my husband. Had all kinda tests done to make sure all is ok.
But after 4 failed IUI and 3 failed IVF and lots of money spent on Acupuncture, herbs, etc with no results we are both exhausted and ready to move to DE.
We like our current Doctor there but find her to be lacking in creativity as she mainly follows protocols without really taking our stats and results into consideration. Its a very Robot-y experience. Our nurse is also ok-ish but nothing to write home about.
We are about to speak to our RE about DE since we got yet another negative result.
Here is my question?

Any of you decided to move to DE with Shady grove? How was your experience? did you find that the number of egg donors to be ok? Was your Doctor there ok with you going to another place but still doing monitoring with them?

We are considering Cuny and the place in Atlanta that has much better rates with frozen DE.

Much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

We are also fed up with them and considering moving to another place.
The number of their DE was way too limited for us.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't feel like you need to stay with SG for DE. Their guarantee program is pretty good, but I would really widen your search. There are many other places in the country that have MUCH better success rates, not to mention places overseas. I didn't go there, but I think RBA in Atlanta is hard to beat pricewise and successratewise.

[Anonymous]

Was just a patient doing OE IVF. When donor egg was brought up, I met with the donor team. Horrible! Donor pool even worse - not only very limited but many have lots of health issues. Have decided to leave and go to RBA. Their refund program is not as good as Shady Grove's but you can get most of your money back.

[Anonymous]

We followed a similar path as you - after 3 years we moved on the DE. We thought the SG DE pool was very limited and, based on the suggestion of a friend, used Loving Donations for locating a donor. There was no problem. SG and LD coordinated everything that involved the donor. Our first two tries with those eggs didn't work and we decided to use a gestation surrogate. We also decided to move from SG at that point. Everyone was very professional and SG helped coordinate the transfer of our remaining frozen embryos.

Be prepared for delay. The donor has to be tested, you and your husband have to meet with a social worker, contracts have to be signed, schedules need to be coordinated, and medicine protocols followed.

We also didn't like the robot like experience of SG. It seemed as of they had a set play book: if protocol a doesn't work we always try b, then c, etc. I never got the sense that our doctor ever thought, "well protocol a didn't work, and after considering everything, I recommend we skip protocol b & c and go straight to d." I could not shake the feeling that they were not open to considering something different from what they ordinarily do. The attitude seemed to be, this is what we do and it works 90% of the time (within 3 cycles) so we are sticking to it.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

To the OP - they definitely use the same protocols on everyone depending on their issues. It is like they pull them out of a file - they start with A; if A fails, then they move to B; and so on. No out of the box thinking or creativity.

[Anonymous]

We used donor eggs with Columbia Fertility. Dr. Sacks is great. We just had twins. We first went to Shady Grove, they were horrible, said I was too old, even though they knew my age prior to the appointment. My OB referred us to Dr. Sacks. I'd switch to Columbia.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I used RBA in Atlanta and loved them.

[Anonymous]

22:13 here, we also switched to Columbia and wish we had started there.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I think we just got a bit comfortable with Shady- just could not handle starting the process elsewhere with all the negative news after every cycle.

I agree with the responses. When my estrogen was high in cycle one, RE would tell me " you know its your age" and when it was extremely low in the second IVF cycle again RE response " you know its your age". Come on! everything was my age (38) or we don't know.

I should have moved on-lessons learned: its so hard to focus on everything that is going on as well as constantly question rather than accept whatever the RE says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I used RBA in Atlanta and loved them.

Can I ask how was your experience with RBA and who did your monitoring locally?

Would appreciate if you can share in particular your interaction with your RE?

Many thanks

[Anonymous]

I am also with them (SG) and had 4 IVF cycles with negative results. I agree with robotic plans, its almost as if they do not respond to patients but follow protocols with zero creativity. My RE never knew my stuff I always had to remind him what worked and what didn't in every cycle.
They are good Doctors there but sometimes I wish they would take less patients and really focus on them to give them best treatment instead of the whole robot stuff.

With me we are unexplained case so they have so far not offered anything other than lets do the usual protocol. Another friend that used CCRM had all kinds of tests that were personalized to her situation and got pregnant first try.

[Anonymous]

this is an old post, but ... I really don't understand the suggestions on here that the doctors should be "creative". The doctors are scientists, and they choose protocols that have been proven scientifically. They have statistics on every single protocol, and they would obviously go first with protocols that work 75% of time, then with ones that work 50% of the time, and so on. And, developing a new protocol isn't a matter of just trying something and seeing if it works. It takes research. I mean, who wants to be the guinea pig for a new, "creative" protocol? We pay them for their expertise and understanding of the statistics that are generated from their practice. Why would we pay them to practice on us?

[Anonymous]

Another RBA success here after 3 yrs with SG. LOVED my RE at RBA and had more personal interaction with him in 1 week than I did 3 yrs at SG. It is such a better clinic and I found them much more comprehensive. It was easy to switch - just sent my medical records over from SG (simple form to fill out) and had Alexandria Radiology do all my US and labcorp the blood work so it was all covered by insurance even though donor egg isn't. I made one trip to Atlanta and now have an 8 week old son on first try with 5 frosties. Their donor pool is much better and you can't beat their guarantee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another RBA success here after 3 yrs with SG. LOVED my RE at RBA and had more personal interaction with him in 1 week than I did 3 yrs at SG. It is such a better clinic and I found them much more comprehensive. It was easy to switch - just sent my medical records over from SG (simple form to fill out) and had Alexandria Radiology do all my US and labcorp the blood work so it was all covered by insurance even though donor egg isn't. I made one trip to Atlanta and now have an 8 week old son on first try with 5 frosties. Their donor pool is much better and you can't beat their guarantee.

Which guarantee is that? The one for two HQEs? Their refund option is not that great.