Our IVF Success
Michigan Reproductive’s In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) program has enjoyed a high level of success since it’s inception in 1992. We feel it is important to evaluate a program’s success by looking at the official figures that all Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) approved programs must provide to SART. These figures are published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and SART and are available to everyone. On our web site, we also provide the most up to date success rates for the IVF program at Michigan Reproductive. Most agree that evaluation of the patient delivery rate per embryo transfer or per cycle are good measures of a program’s success. Below we provide our pregnancy success rates for the past several years to help you in your evaluation of our program.
| Fresh Embryo Pregnancy Rate 2006 Data(2007 Delivery Data Pending) | |
|---|---|
| Age | Delivery Rate |
| <35 | 53% |
| 35-37 | 44% |
| 38-40 | 27% |
| 41-42 | 27% |
It is also important to note the number of embryos transferred by a program. At Michigan Reproductive, we feel it is important to provide high pregnancy success while minimizing multiple pregnancy risk. To that end, Michigan Reproductive transfers a low average number of embryos back to patients. The excellence of the IVF lab at Michigan Reproductive allows us to achieve high pregnancy success while still transferring a low number of embryos. When programs transfer higher number of embryos to achieve pregnancy success, this exposes patients to greater multiple pregnancy risk. At Michigan Reproductive, we follow SART guidlines and carefully consult with patients to keep the number of embryos transferred to the low level seen in our SART/CDC report.When discussing IVF success, it is also important to evaluate a program’s cryopreserved embryo transfer success. For patients who do not achieve pregnancy success with their fresh embryo transfer, but did have extra embryos cryopreserved, these frozen embryos provide an additional chance for pregnancy. As can be seen below frozen embryo transfer (FET) is not as successful as fresh embryo transfer, but it is still very successful. In addition, a FET cycle is done with minimal medication and only an office visit. The cost of FET is also much less than a fresh cycle, at $1,600 (2008 cost).Another way to look at IVF success is to look at the success of having a baby from one egg retrieval procedure, including both the fresh embryo transfer and one frozen embryo transfer. Below you can see that in 2006, the combined success of having a child was 88% for patients 35 and under and 67% for patients 35-37.
|
Pregnancy Success from Single IVF Retrieval 2006 Data |
||
|---|---|---|
| Fresh Embryo Transfer Success | Frozen Embryo Transfer Success | Combined |
| <35 | 36% | 88% |
| 35-37 | 22% | 67% |
This shows the success a patient can expect from a single group of eggs that are retrieved and fertilized. This data is not collated and presented by SART and the CDC in its annual report. We provide it to patients simply as a way to see that frozen embryos can provide a significant contribution to a patient’s total chance for pregnancy. Of course, when determining if you desire to freeze embryos, there are many factors to consider. Our doctors and nurses will address these factors with you.
May 10th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Today we heard the heartbeat of a little life growing. To think such a little thing can be such a big thing. Thank you for your help in the making of a new life the first time around. Also thank you to the staff and the equipment and lab that Dr. Dodds is so proud of. He has all the reason to be. A big Thank you. These two words will not cover what has been done for us.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
It is very easy to take for granted the ability to conceive. I did. It was easy the first couple times. Advance in age many years and the idea of conceiving again always seemed an arms length away. As an OB nurse, I would always see the joy of so many others and longed to feel it again myself. Then I understood. Not everyone could have it so “easy”.
Being in the medical field myself, I did hours and hours of research into infertility clinics and SART scores. I talked to some of my patients that had gone through assisted reproduction in one way or another. Coworkers of mine were also going through the same issues. You realize only after you enter the “world of infertility”, how many others are actually out there.
Finding and then meeting with Dr. Dodds and his staff was the best thing we ever did. We were greeted and treated like individuals that needed the care, support and treatment only physicians well-experienced in infertility could give. The staff was totally respectful of our needs and our privacy. Everyone was very supportive and led us through the process in a dignified manner. After our first failure and then the second, we felt like we couldn’t deal with it again. But there they were, the doctors, nurses and staff, leading us along. Never giving us false hope but giving us hope nonetheless. With our last attempt, the frozen embryos, we were optimistic but also skeptical. Maybe God had other plans for us…or maybe not…
As I sit here in front of my computer, I can feel my little miracle moving and kicking inside of me. I am 27 + weeks. I feel so blessed! I will be 41 in Sept., have a very loving and patient husband, two teenage daughters, 17 & 19, and this wonderful little man that will be the perfect addition to our family this August. Life is good!
Thank you to Dr. Dodds, Dr. Young, Dr. Plante and the entire staff for EVERYTHING that you did to help us achieve our dream! Keep up the great work and hoping for many more success stories to follow!
May 21st, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I was referred to Dr. Dodds after struggling to conceive. After 6 months of trying to pin-point exactly what wasn’t working for us, I was diagnosed with a unicorneate unterus. (This means that my uterus was roughly 1/2 the size of a normal uterus and I had only 1 fallopian tube.) Both of my ovaries are healthly; however, one of them is not attached to my uterus. I was devastated, positive that I would not be able to have a child of my own. I did some online “research” on this condition which only painted an even more bleak picture.
Thankfully, I was a patient of Dr. Dodds! He helped me through the diagnosis and gave me reassurance that pregnancy could be a possibility for me.
We turned to IVF and after 2 failed attempts decided that the 3rd attempt (with frozen embryos) would be our final try. I am so very grateful to report that I gave birth to a healthy, 8 lb. baby girl in December of 2006. My OB was amazed that given my condition I carried such a good size baby to 38 weeks…..not bad for 1/2 of a uterus!
She is the light of our life - and I could not imagine it without her. To say thank you hardly seems adequate. We are so grateful for you and your wonderful staff!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
My husband and I tried to conceive for several months. After some testing, we found out it wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought. Only to find out two weeks later I was pregnant!! Wow, we were so excited to FINALLY have the family we so desperately wanted. Sadly, though we miscarried our baby boy at nine weeks gestation. We were completely devastated and under a cloud of tremendous grief. And because of our previous test results we were referred to Dr. Young. The compassion the staff exhibited was outstanding, they understood our needs and feelings. Dr. Young talked us through our next steps which again resulted in a pregnancy which sadly ended in another loss. After several months of tests, procedures, and medications Dr. Young thought IVF was our best bet. Our first cycle with IVF resulted in another pregnancy and loss. We were starting to think this was not going to happen but Dr. Young’s positive words made us go on to a frozen embryo cycle. We got pregnant again and Samantha called me personally to say my hcg numbers looked good. I will never forget that call (hcg 187!! 187!! 187!! she said) After 38 nail biting weeks we gave birth to our daughter, Nora, January 24, 2006. She is everything we dreamed she would be and now I can finally smile on Mothers Day.
When Nora was 13 months old I found out I was pregnant again. We were shocked, happy, and scared out of our minds.. Again, Dr. Young to the rescue, with his encourging words and positive comments it got us though the first ten weeks. Now I am happy to report we also have our son, David, born November 20, 2007!
And we aren’t done with you yet, we have two frozen embryos you are keeping for us. So we will see you in the not so distant future..
My family is my light and we cannot thank Dr. Young and his staff enough. You gave us hope when we thought there was none. Thank you so much for all you have done for our family. You are truly angels here on earth.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:57 am
I have been an egg donor for Dr.s Dodds and Young three times. Even though I am not the one getting pregnant it is a roller coaster for me too. It is so rewarding to help a family conceive even if I don’t know them. Of course, the donation is anonymous, and I don’t ever know if a successful pregnancy happened, but I still feel great about what I have tried to do. My 1st donation was on Father’s Day, and I couldn’t think of a better father’s day gift than that call from the Dr. that morning telling the recipient family that 23 eggs had been retrieved. Finally after the long wait to see what would happen, they knew they had many chances now to conceive. I wish all egg donor recipients the best of luck and success. Those eggs were not my babies, they were simply cells within my body which carry my DNA. They become the babies of the recipient family, and I know that they will be loved and be so lucky to be wanted so badly.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:45 am
We were very blessed to change our residence from Monterrey Nuevo Leon, MEXICO to Saugatuck and then Holland Michigan in the US in January 2004.
Once we were there we realized how lucky we got. God blessed us so much by guiding my husband to reach that job opportuity there, meeting this awesome boss he still has and live so close to Dr. Dodds´ medical center.
Once I found him in the medical booklet and we had our first appointment I felt relieved.!!!!!
Sherry at front desk, Robin, Lisa, Angie and Lisa were comprehensive , so nice and had patience with my endless questions or misunderstandings of the language. They helped me break that barrier and filled me with confidence, that helped me tons through this process.
How can we forget what a joy we felt the day Amy phoned Apr 11, 2005 to let us know we were expecting!!!
All the information provided was very clear and accurate. All those baby pics on the hall just inspired me every time I had to walk in.
It is never easy for me to feel confident to an outsider’s care, but your calming reassurance and soothing manner helped us ease the difficult time of realizing we only had 3 embryos by the day of the transfer. I can remember…no more to freeze! I was in shock…did not know what to think. Dr. told me: “It´s all in God’s hands”.
How certain and true that was. The next year after my boys were born we moved back to Mexico. If we had frozen embryos, then we would not be able to move to our roots, our country, another course had taken our lives.
My husband and I are so thankful to all the personnel that one or another way helped us to deal not only with the situation of the process but the language barrier. It was very important to us the warmth of the environment we experienced.
The fact that I gave birth twins on Nov 28, 2005 in Holland Hospital to Patrick and Nicolas gave us complete happiness as human beings.
Luis and I will forever carry gratitude in our hearts for you giving us the gift of parenthood. Since they were born, inner peace and happiness resides in our hearts.
You have given us every reason to keep the faith, stay together, and encourage more marriages like us to fight against infertility.
We can never thank you enough for such double miracle.
Receive warm greeting from us… over here in Monterrey, N.L. MEXICO
Paty
June 8th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m very excited to report that FET WORKS! My husband and I are currently 12w3d pregnant after trying to conceive for 4 years. Initially, we were nervous that the FET procedure wouldn’t work but I couldn’t get over how easy the whole process was. Less medications, less shots (Yes!) and less stress on your overall body. It really was a breeze.
We have nothing but wonderful things to report on our experience at MI Reproductive. Dr Dodds is a compassionate and caring Doctor, we cannot give him enough praise and heartfelt thanks (We also met with Dr Young and he is equally as wonderful). Their staff from the receptionists all share the same characteristics of the doctors, they are so kind and helpful. Julie our IVF Nurse was the best - I cannot thank her enough. I hated to leave when I graduated to my OBGYN. My last appointment was bittersweet, I hated to leave their care but was also excited that I had actually made it to graduation day. We were so afraid that day would never happen.
I understand that many couples are afraid FET will not be as effective as a Fresh IVF cycle. We were one of those couples who had concerns. FET does work and from what I understand our clinic has better statistics than most. Don’t give up hope if your first Fresh cycle doesn’t work!! You are in the best of hands.
Best of luck to everyone in their quest to become parents! We feel so blessed and happy that our dream is finally coming true..
Never, never, never, never give up!!!
June 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
We just wanted to let everyone know how thankful we are that we turned to Dr. Dodds. We went through the first IVF cycle on May 2, 2008 and I had two embryos out of the six harvested implanted. On May 27, 2008 we were able to see two beating hearts, which is what we really wanted. We returned on June 10, 2008 and were so happy to see both heartbeats were still going strong.
I have a 10 year old son. I did not realize until about 2 years ago what a blessing my getting pregnant with him was. About 8.5 years after my son’s birth my husband and I started trying to conceive. Conceiving was not an issue with us. We struggled through 3 tubal pregnancies and three miscarriages before we turned to Dr. Dodds.
I was so apprehensive about going through a fertility specialist. I kept thinking how much can I put myself through before I have to be committed, but I would not be able to forgive myself for not trying.
We are so happy that we did go through Dr. Dodds. We eagerly await the arrival of our newest family members. To anyone considering this as an option, I have to let you know it was the best decision we ever made.
Thanks Again.
June 14th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
After trying for a baby for three and half years and so many tests with “great” results we were surprised to find out after a simple test, what the problem was and that we had less than one percent chance to conceive on our own. Dr. Dodds gave us the straight facts, answered all our questions and a few months later we started on IVF. Through it all we got lots of encouragement, even with some weird reactions we finally got that answer that we nervously waited for. We were pregnant and with good hcg numbers!
At our first ultrasound we got our second surprise - out of two embryos implanted we were having triplets! As we walked out of the office in total shock all the staff stopped to give us a hug and tell us congratulations.
Unfortunately the identical twins did not make it, but our little singleton girl, Haley, did and she was born on April 18, 2008. We now have our own beautiful little baby girl and she is absolutely perfect! Thank you everyone for all your hard work, sincerity and honesty. We will be back soon for those other nine frozen embryos and hopefully will have the same or better success this time around. Thank you again!
July 4th, 2008 at 10:38 am
On March 29th, the best thing in the world happened, are twins were made. It is now July 4th and it has been an up and down roller coaster for us. We started the process in November and the first go around failed before we could even put the babies inisde. Maria’s estrogen level sky rocketed due to the fact that she only weights 89lbs and is 4′ 10″. Well, things were adjusted and the babies were inserted to only have more problems. She was diagonosed with a disorder that makes you bed ridden. That was a fun time, believe me. Now everything is good to go and the babies are growing big and our love for them and us is higher than ever. God has granted us the best joy in the world and he put his power in Dr. Dodds and Young’s hands with the support of their staff to grant us the best wishes in the world. I tell everyone that we bought one and got one free, but truly nothing is free. We had to go through alot and deal with alot of ups and downs to get the joys of our lives but it will all be worth it the day they are born. Our due date is December 20th, but the doctor’s are hoping we just make it through Thanksgiving time. With the size of my wife and having twins, we are not sure what is going to happen but we do know that God will guide us through and make everything all right. So Thanks be to God and also the staff at Michigan Reproductive. Maybe we will be back in 2 years and get to experience the joy all again.
Richard & Maria
July 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Our words cannot express how thankful we are to the WHOLE office staff. In 2005, our first IVF attempt, we conceived and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He is the light of our lives and I couldn’t imagine our lives without him. Dr Dodds and the entire staff are wonderful. I believe we have received the best care that is out there. After 2 years we have decided to try and expand our family and I am so overjoyed to report on our first FET we are now expecting TWINS due in March 2009. What an amazing site to see their little hearts beating already at 6 weeks. Thanks again as this was not possible with out the love and support of everyone at this office.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Once an ambitious college student and career oriented woman, I always thought that waiting for Mr. Right and finacial stability was the correct path to parenthood. However, at 36 years old when I finally slowed down enough to find my wonderful husband I never dreamed that starting a family would be next to impossible for us. Dr. Dodds was recommended to us after two failed IVF procedures and we had decided that the third try would be our last. I was so emotionally numb and wanted a family so bad I was almost afraid to try the third time. However, we went for it with Doctors Dodds and Young and I gave birth to my incredibly beautiful twins, Jackson and Isabella, in October, 2007. My life has never been the same and I thank everyone at the clinic for their awesome patience, caring souls, and positive spirits.
September 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
First of all I have to say that I am so embarrassed that it has taken me this long to say THANK YOU to Dr. Dodds, Dr. Young, and everyone at MI reproductive, even now I feel bad because this should be in formal letter form. However, with the help of Dr. Dodds, and Dr. Young my husband and I who tried for 5 years to have children now have beautiful, healthy, almost 2 year old TRIPLETS!! Audrey, Andrew, and Ava are a tremendous joy to us, and no words could express how thankful we are to our doctors. Dr. Dodds settled my fears when we had some complications at the beginning of the pregnancy and even called after the birth of our babies to make sure they were doing okay in the NICU. Dr. Young explained thoroughly the IVF procedure (we only had to go through 1 cycle) so well. All we can say is THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, and we will get you pictures, we promise!!
September 9th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
My husband and I are expecting twins. THis is our first round doing IVF. We have been so blessed throughout this experience. Dr. Young and Dr. Dodds along with the staff have been wonderful and very helpful. We are very excited to start our journey and to come back and try with our other frozen embryos.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Do not give up hope! We tried to concieve for a long time and then found out I had endometriosis which was making it difficult. I had a laparoscopy and tried 3 cycles of Clomid after that. With no luck we were referred to Dr Dodds. We then did 3 cycles of clomid with IUI and one cycle of injectables with IUI. We felt it was time to move on to IVF. After my first IVF I am now pregnant and everything is looking good. Dr Dodds and Dr Young will NOT give up if you don’t. After years of trying I was pregnant within 6 months of walking through their doors. That is a true success story. Both Doctors tried so hard to make us comfortable and keep our hope alive. We could never thank them enough. We are expecting one child and are very excited. Although we have “graduated” we will be back for our frozen embyos when we are ready to add to our family again!
September 28th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
We struggled for years, had practically every problem in the book! Then we had two cancelled IVF cycles with another RE who told us the only option left was egg donation, but he didn’t have a program. We were just about ready to quit but saw Dr. Dodds because we’d heard great things about his practice. Dr. Dodds said he still had ideas and thought it was too early for us to give up on IVF. Sure enough, we got pregnant on our first cycle with him. From the moment he looked us in the eye and said I still believe you can do this, we knew we were in the right place! The whole office gives a feeling of relaxed confidence and hope. More than one person in that office spontaneously told us how happy they are to work for Drs. Dodds and Young, and believe me it makes a difference in your experience as a patient!! Every single person in that practice is just as kind and caring as you could ever hope. We never had a phone call or question that went unanswered. They can explain any part of the process, no matter how complex, in terms you can understand. They could not have been more supportive and committed to our success if we’d been their own family members. We owe our eternal gratitude to everybody there (Sandy, you too especially!!), and we’ll see you for our remaining two embryos as soon as we can!
October 10th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Tommorrow I will start my shots for our 2nd FET! We are very excited about this because of our extremely great success in the past!
We had tried several IUIs without success and then decided to take a break. But we kept thinking about the possibility of IVF and after much prayer and consideration we decided to try it. After some complications in the beginning, we found out that I was pregnant with twins on our first attempt. Wow! it was truly amazing. I went full term for twins and gave birth to healthy baby girls, 6lbs. 1oz. & 7lbs. 14oz.
Three years later we deciced to try again with our remaining 6 frozen embryos. The FET went very smoothly. We used two of our remaining embryos and gave birth to one healthy 9lb. 1oz. baby girl!
Which leads us to our 3rd attempt (2nd FET), which we pray will also be a success!
We are truly thankful to Dr. Dodds and Dr. Young for their expertise and knowledge of infertlity and for their great kindness and compassion in every step of the process. We were truly blessed in our experience at this place and we thank God every day for our three beautiful girls!
October 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Thank you to Dr. Dodds and their staff for all they did to help us try to conceive. For us it didnt work but it ultimately led to us forming our family through the miracle of adoption. Now I see that our journey through infertility, as painful as it was, led us to our son. We were at his birth and have an open adoption. Now we wouldnt have it any other way. We can honestly say we’re grateful for the inability to conceive because we wouldnt have our precious son. He is the light of our lives.