t's taken me some time to write this review- I needed to take time and make sure I wasn't writing…read moreout of heartbreak, & that I could write fairly.
I will start by saying I was not, in the end, successful in getting pregnant after one years worth of procedures with Dr. Sibler and his team. I do not blame this on Dr. Sibler- what I have come to understand from infertility is that as absolutely gut wrenching as it can be, sometimes, it just doesn't happen, and no one can tell you why. However, there were some things that I do believe could have been avoided, or handled better considering circumstances, and out of kindness to anyone else on an infertility journey I feel they should be pointed out so that someone else doesn't find themselves in the painful, & lonely, situation my husband and I found ourselves in.
We had our initial consult with Dr. Sibler in Nov. 2014. Three hours after our scheduled appt. time we saw the Dr. for approx 5 minutes. He had already seen chart, & said Mini IVF would be the best course of action. He also pointed out that I had a small cyst that they would be removing the next morning in order to get it out of the way before I started IVF meds. When I say all of this happened in 5 minutes, I am being generous. Whirlwind! Before we knew it I had had surgery to remove the cyst and was prescribed the stimulation meds. I would have to be back in St. Louis (we flew in from Milwaukee) the following month for retrieval. Looking back, my husband and I never had the opportunity to even discuss moving forward (although we would have)- it was as if we stepped onto the rollercoaster not realizing it was already moving.
Back in St. Louis in December for monitoring and retrieval. While there, I asked my nurse coordinator on which day after the retrieval they would be transferring the embryos into my uterus- it was then that she explained to me that it would be three months or more before they would be transferring the embryos, as the Dr. wanted to be sure I was "clear of all the stimulation" meds before they put them in me. I point this out because it should have been my first red flag- why was I this far along into this procedure and no one had thought to mention this to us?
The retrieval didn't go as well as hoped. 4 eggs were retrieved, 2 became strong enough embryos and survived freezing. My nurse coordinator explained the the Dr. highly recommended we do another stimulation/retrieval cycle, so we did. This time we had 5 embryos successfully frozen, for a total of 7- we were ready to transfer.
Scheduling the transfer was difficult- apparently the Dr. had gone on an 6-8 week vacay & the list of couples trying to schedule transfers was backed up. End of April we transferred 2 embryos, and failed. In July, we transferred two more embryos, and failed. For our third go, the Dr. recommended I come in prior for a Uterine scratch. Two weeks later, we flew back to St. Louis for our 3rd and final transfer. This is where things really took a turn for the worst. You have to understand we had a lot riding on this transfer, $40,000 we had spent between medical fees, prescriptions, and travel back and forth to St. Louis from Milwaukee. Emotionally we were an absolute wreak- we've at this point lost 4 embryos and still no one knows why, no answers as to why it's not working (our embryos have always looked great) and here we are, about to transfer our last 3- the nurse comes in literally moments before they took us back and mentions something about Dr. Sibler not being there that day. I asked, "I'm sorry- did you say Dr. Sibler isn't here?" to which she replied "Yes, he has a speech he's giving on the east coast this weekend and he's nervous, so he took the day off to prepare." I lost it. Tears galore. After all of this, to have to come so far, & our Dr. called in that day to prepare for a speech. Now of course there was another Dr. there to handle the procedure, but that's not the point. We had spent ridiculous amounts of energy, emotion, and money, to have Dr. Sibler, the supposed IVF genius, to get us pregnant. And on our last chance, he doesn't show up.
Our 3rd transfer failed. Neither my nurse coordinator nor the Dr. were in the day they received my blood results, so they had someone I had never spoken to before call and let us know. Before hanging up and having an absolute meltdown, I asked if it were possible to schedule a time to speak to Dr. Sibler- we needed something, anything, some kind of answer or advice- at this point we just wanted something. The nurse explained to me that Dr. Sibler does not take phone calls with patients, but if we'd like to schedule to come into the office for a consult she would see what she could do. I explained to her that we lived in Milwaukee & had spent the past year flying back and forth and jumping through hoops trying everything he had suggested, and didn't that earn us at least a 5 minute phone call? She explained unfortunately not, but she'd have our nurse coo