Who has used Dr. Potter and had good results? I would be travelling from BC so am wondering how many time you have to travel there? What are the steps essentially?

Hi there, just wanting some info if you ladies have any on Dr Potter and how your experience was with him? How much was it in total for you? How long does the whole process take? Thanks

I too traveled from Canada to cycle with Dr. Potter.  We had a good outcome.

The total cost was 26k, for everything including cycle, meds and travel.

All details are in my blog, link is below in sig.

GZ

Mac,

I am not sure if you are aware of this, but the primary reason Dr Potter's clinic was so special and people travelled from all over the world just to cycle there is because HRC was one of only two clinics in the United States that offered Microsort sperm sorting. Using Microsort enabled patients to have the vast majority of their embryos to be the right sex.

Check with most of the success stories about Dr Potter on Ingender and you will see they used the Microsort technology in their cycles.

Now Dr Potter is NO LONGER OFFERING the Microsort service - only ordinary IVF/PGD using your husbands unsorted sperm.  This means your embryos will be 50% boys and girls or even worse and you can end up with no transfer. There are hundreds of clinics that offer IVF/PGD so your choices are no longer limited to just two in the United States.

Having just completed my first IVF/PGD the pain after egg retrival was excruciating. I was not prepared for the severe bloating and was pretty much bedridden for a couple days. My husband had to take care of me bringing me drinks & helping me to the bathroom. I can not imagine doing this in a hotel room by myself or while travelling. I would look into clinics as close to home as possible. 

Without the advantage of Microsort, I just don't see the justified expense in travelling all the way to California for a service you can get just a short trip away in Washington State. Have you enquired there?

Hi Jackie. First of all, I'm sorry for your bad experience. Do you know the reason why Microsort is no longer offered in the US? Is it due to medical reasons not recommending it? It's a surprise for me that PGD is offer in US for family balance. Is it for all the clinics? Or is it an "unofficial" practise (like in Cyprus or Greece here in Europe). I'm interested in any clinic performing gender selection in Atlanta US. Thanks!

I agree, that without MS, you can get IVF/PGD in a drive-able distance in Washington. The cost of travelling to the US for us was a large part of our expenses.
Having said that, I loved California and would take a vacation there anytime! Cali was beautiful, and there was so much to do! If you bring the kids, you can do Disney and Legoland, and the beach! Many people across the US that had local access to IVF/PGD still travelled to one of the gender selection gurus in California. Dr. Potter, as well as Dr.Lin and others have made GS something they do well.

I spent close to $50k by the time you factor in flights, hotels, car rental, shuttlebus, two cycles of MS/IVF plus one cycle of PGD, meds *I used a VERY high dose*, and local monitoring costs. It matches well with what GreenZelda spent--as she posted, she did $26k for one cycle.

I would advise anybody to plan for two cycles at the minimum.

I had an easy go after my Egg retrievals. I went shopping after the first one, and went to Warner Bros studios after the 2nd one. My dh left immediately post ER, so I was always on my own. The physcial part of high tech is a snap compared to the mental part:)

 

 I have done three cycles with Dr P (traveling from Australia) with negative outcomes.  We did Microsort with all three.  I still have six boy embryos frozen there (we were trying for a girl) but have been cycling back in AU for a while now.

Overall I found HRC to be generally good.  Lori is an excellent co-ordinator, if she's still there. In saying that,  I don't know that I'd spend the extra money or add the additional stress to travel back to HRC again.  (Other than doing FET's at some stage). 

I can't recall what we've spent, it would easily be over 50k with the HRC cycles.

Best of luck, where-ever you choose!

xo

Hi, I used Dr.Potter in 2008 and had fabulous results!!!!! My cost was a little under 20k with a 2 cycle pkg, MS, PGD, meds. I'm local so I didn't incur any travel expense. In the end though I would say our cost worked out to be lower because I was able to combine all our medical expenses that year for a much needed tax deduction! Now, would I travel to use Dr.Potter again if needed? Absolutely! We had success on our first cycle despite all odds due to him. I was young and fertile and thought oh this is going to a breeze. Well, nothing went as planned. I was off cycle.... 4 days late starting my period, had a poor response to meds, and was a cyst nightmare. Turns out that I had two dermoid cysts ( mixed mass of who knows what) a large blood cyst, and a growing cyst. This required me to make an emergency visit to a radiologist in order to save my cycle and have Dr. potter drain my blood cyst. To reach my blood cyst Dr. potter needed to go through my dermoid cyst, which takes skill because it comes with an emergency surgery risk. Dr.Potter reviewed the radiologist's finding and actually didn't agree with him! He made a phone call to him and after that they both in agreement of my cyst mess. He managed to save my cycle despite my cysts and med response and make it work even though doing so would require him to come in the office on a weekend just to retrieve my eggs. I have never held a mindset that all doctors are equal in skill. I prefer doctors who think outside the box. He is one of those rare gems of doctors!

So far I've noticed everyone having success with Dr Potter has used Microsort,  IVF and PGD together.

There seems to be little to no positive results ever since Microsort shut down...

Is there anyone who has success just using the IVF/PGD?  Anyone?

 I think saying that there's no point in going to HRC if there's no MS is a bit of an oversimplification. Yes, MS was a great reason to go there, and I miss the option sorely. But all those other clinics closer to home might either 

a) be against (or at least wary of) GS, (which is why all Canadians like the OP have to at least go out of country, so there's no quick trip for monitoring or easy trip going right homeafter egg retrieval), or

b) if not against it, it does not mean they have experience, let alone expertise, is doing such cycles for couples without a history of infertility, or even in using PGD regularly.

I strongly prefer a clinic where I don't have to hedge or use careful language about why I'm there. I want one where everyone is accepting and understanding about family balancing and where I'm like plenty of other people they see. I feel so blessed to have my local OB-GYN be accepting like that (who is from Nigeria, for the curious), and I want that same warmth when I cycle.

On the technical side, I would recommend looking for a place that uses a top-notch PGD lab as well as doing lots of PGD cycles.

In general, it seems like there have been many fewer IG people cycling at all at the previous MS locations, so there is little success OR failure to note.

 

@WWP To be sure, Dr Potter is well known on some message boards due to the Microsort technology (sadly not offered anymore). However it is an oversimplification to imply that HRC is the ONLY clinic around that has the knowledge and expertise to offer gender selection. I can easily list off names of over a dozen clinics in California that offer the exact same service with equal to and even superior results. Gender selection is not taboo in California and most other states except for perhaps the southern most states located on the bible belt. As present, there simply isnt anything special that HRC offers by way of gender selection that would justify the extra expense of travelling such a long distance. There really are closer and more reasonable options if one is willing to do the research. Good luck wherever you decide to go.

 I used Dr. P back in 2007 and conceived my twin girls.  It's been ages since I've been on IG so I really don't know the landscape of IVF clinics anymore but back then it was hard to find a local clinic that would do PGD for GS openly. I was turned away at a consult in Portland, OR and I did try with a clinic in Bellevue, WA that was a collaborator with Microsort back then using frozen shipped sperm.  I felt that they wanted to charge me for a lot of precycle testing I didn't need as a proven fertile woman. I didn't need to be tested for lupus or check my fallopian tubes for blockage etc. So you definitely want to use a clinic that has experience with GS patients.  I think we need to be handled differently in terms of risks, testing (we don't need as much for first cycles) and advice on embryo transfer (we need to be mindful that we already have a number of children) and that a multiple pregnancy will carry different risks/benefits for us than someone who just wants to have a child and this may be their only shot.