Many factors go into choosing the right fertility clinic for you and your family. Cost is certainly always one of them but be aware of what’s included and not included in the price. And pay attention to the clinic’s success rates. At Overlake Reproductive Health, we stand by our live birth success rates as being among the highest in the state of Washington.
Our Peace of Mind® 100% IVF program comes with a money back guarantee to take home a live baby, or all your money back. Not every clinic is confident enough to offer that!
Plus, it is important to note that our IVF programs include everything you might need to become pregnant including assisted hatching, ICSI, Preimplantation Genetic Screening, biopsy on day 5, 6 or 7, and vitrification (freezing) and thawing of your embryos by the best embryologists in the country.
We believe if you’re going to go through the trouble and expense of IVF, you might as well get the best treatment and care available. That’s why, at our clinic, we biopsy your embryos on day 5, 6, or 7, when your embryos tell us they are ready for the most accurate results. Our flash-freeze, or vitrification process, has a 99.9% successful thaw rate. Other fertility clinics may biopsy for PGS screening on day 3, which takes less skill and gives much less accurate information. Many clinics offer PGS testing for some patients, but we strongly believe all patients going through IVF benefit from PGS screening.
When we biopsy on Day 5, 6 or 7 the embryo has matured to the blastocyst stage, and its cells have multiplied to over 100. Inside the egg’s protective shell (zona pellucida), two different types of cells serve two different purposes:
- The inner cell mass (ICM) will form the fetus.
- Trophectoderm cells become the placenta.
ORH’s skilled embryologists tap through the egg’s outer shell so that a small proportion of trophectoderm cells begin to push through the microscopic opening. They remove about 6 to 9 of these cells and send them off to a lab for genetic testing. Then all of your tested embryos are flash-frozen, or vitrified, for safekeeping until it’s time to plan the embryo transfer in a future month.
The trophectoderm biopsy performed in PGS will not harm your embryos. The cells that are removed make up the placenta, not the baby, and their removal does not affect implantation of the embryo or development.
Why do we wait a month between retrieval and implantation?
The short answer is so we have the results of your PGS test in hand and can choose the healthiest embryo. But it’s worth noting, that IVF requires over stimulating the ovaries with prescription drugs to produce multiple mature eggs at the same time. By producing multiple eggs, we hope to gain one (hopefully more) perfect egg that will fertilize successfully and go on to mature into your healthy baby. A fresh IVF cycle will farm your eggs, not test for chromosomal abnormalities and genetic defects that typically cause miscarriages, and place a fertilized egg into your uterus to implant during the same cycle.
We now know that the medicines used to make multiple eggs can impair the lining of the uterus, leading to lower success rates for fresh embryo transfer cycles. Knowing that, other clinics will often place two of more embryos at the same time hoping that one will be genetically normal and grow. Implanting multiple embryos helps increase fertility clinics’ success rates but can also result in twins or triplets. While multiples may seem like a great idea initially, they often cause complications that can be harmful or even fatal to the mother or fetuses or both. The best clinics, like Overlake Reproductive Health, perform PGS on day 5 and only transfer one embryo at a time for a safe, healthy pregnancy.
Reasons why Day 5, 6 or 7 Trophectoderm Biopsy is preferential.
- Significantly more accurate
- Less False Positives
- Less damage to the embryo
In addition to PGS, we also use a MitoScore to choose the healthiest embryo to implant. Overlake Reproductive Health has the most experienced embryologists in the country, fertility doctors, IVF lab capabilities, and advanced technologies to perform these intricate processes.
RFID Tags for Security
ORH is the first fertility clinic in the NW to add an extra layer of security through our RI Witness program which labels all patient samples with a digital ID tag that is continuously monitored throughout the process. Thanks to self-adhesive RFID tags attached to all the laboratory plasticware, it is possible to ensure only compatible samples are worked on at any one time. We implemented this secure process for total confidence. While this system is required in Europe, you’ll find very few clinics with it here in the US.
Getting it Right the First time Saves You Money
Our goal is to compete on being the best and stand behind our success rates (82% Implantation Rate and 66% Live Birth Rate). And, because we often achieve a healthy pregnancy right out of the gate, we do wind up being the least expensive option. Especially because many of our package programs offer money back with early success!
We are confident that no matter what your individual challenge with infertility is, we have the right expertise and skillset to help you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.