Anonymous wrote:The marketing machine there IS something--I HATE having to hear their radio ads when I'm driving--seriously, how many people choose their fertility clinic through advertising?
Shady Grove's advertisement is its sheer size. I can't tell you how many people have told me "You have to go to my friend's clinic, it worked for her"--and it will be Shady Grove. With their volume, of course they have successes, and everyone (including me) seems to know someone, but they've made costly mistakes with me, and with friends. Before I knew better, they went forward with a costly IUI while I had a lead follicle at baseline. I have heard of horror stories with FET--one woman caught that they were about to transfer the wrong embryo--no apology while she was understandably crying in shock while they thawed the one that was supposed to be tranferred. Another had frozen eggs there, scheduled an FET, took the meds, AFTER she had started the progesterone, the lab called her and told her they "made a mistake" and didn't thaw her eggs--the whole cycle had to be cancelled because she was now out of sync with any embryos created. Both cases the doctor didn't transfer instructions to the lab--I REALLY think the doctors need to be on these meds and then see what we go through when cycles are cancelled. A friend got no eggs one retrieval because the doctor was too late. She couldn't leave because it was too late to qualify for shared risk anywhere else.
I would no longer even recommend SG is if your case is straightforward.
It is sad that in the Washington DC area, given the demand, there are not better fertility clinics.
Wait, they almost transferred the wrong embryo??? WTF. Did they almost transfer someone else's embryo or one of hers that was the wrong one? How did your friend know? Did they just say oh, wait, we thawed the wrong one? This is insanely disturbing to me as I'm about to start doing FETs. This administrative mistake does make you wonder.