I would highly recommend the doctor overseeing our treatment -- the clinic director, Marcelle Cedars. She is up on all the latest research, she is both realistic and positive, she was available to us for key treatment decisions even when out of town. What I really liked was that after our first unsuccessful try, she was able to tell us precisely and clearly which aspects she believed ''worked'', which ones didn't, whether a second try was warranted, and what could be changed in the second treatment to give us the best shot. The second treatment was successful.

It is a clinic so you would see different doctors, but one oversees your overall treatment. They can schedule early morning appointments for the monitoring part -- I live and work in the East Bay, but was able to get back and forth across the bridge pretty easily without missing much work. We liked all of the doctors and nurses we saw, though I see looking at the web site just now that there has been some staff turnover since we were there in 2003.

They have a free orientation once a month that is very informative, and it might be worth it to go whether or not you decide to go to that clinic. Information is on their website: http://www.ucsfivf.org/ Melissa

I was able to arrange for some of the tests to be done in the Bay area. Specifically, I had several of the sonograms done at Marin Fertility Medical Group in Greenbrae. I can not recall the name of the doctor (Saen?) but he was very nice, and had I not already gone to Dr. Foulk, I would have considered him. I think he is part of the UCSF group, but I had never run in to him there.

I think the theme here is, if you want to feel like that the Dr. and staff know you and care about you, I would consicer a smaller clinic. But I can not argue with UCSF's expertise. -- And it is VERY important to be sure you are working with a good practitioner. You can check out a fertility clinic's statistics on-line. I think it is through the CDC's website??

A friend of mine had a good experience with Dr. Zouves. I think he is willing to be more aggressive than some other local clinics. anon

We have a beautiful 2 year old daughter from IVF/ICSI and would recommend UCSF Infertility Clinic. Specifically Dr. Victor Fujimoto. Dr. Fujimoto has a great bedside manner and he and his wife have two daughters through IVF. I believe this makes him a better doctor because of his personal experience with infertility. He also has one of the best embryologist working for him. We conceived on our first IVF cycle and failed on a recent FET trying for #2. Interview various doctors and ask your own personal ob/gyn doctor for their recommendation. UCSF Infertilty Phone #:415-353-7475 Best of luck! IVF Mom

I would appreciate any good or bad recommendations that anyone can give me on Dr. Victor Fujimoto, Dr. Marcelle Cedars or Dr. Tracey Telles at UCSF for fertility issues. They are the only doctors with this specialty that I can find that are covered by my insurance and accepting new patients. I have checked the website and only see one older recommendation for Robert Taylor, who is another physician in their practice (not accepting new patients). Frustrated by Insurance Limitations

We didn't have much contact with Dr. Cedars, she did my transfer one morning. Dr. Telles was very nice, she took her time explaining the procedure, and was extremely helpful, we felt like she was one of our college buddy. Dr. Fujimoto was very comforting, I got pregnant then transfered to a regular OBGYN Dr. (who was recomended by Dr. Fujimoto) We still keep in contact with Dr. Fujimoto today. You won't have that personal feeling one on one at first.

To make a long story short, in the end it was worth it. UCSF was the best, the care was thourough, Drs were extremely confident and professional. As a result, we now have a beautiful baby boy who is 6 months old, we are forever grateful of the care we recieved from Dr. fujimoto, Dr. Cedars, Dr. Telles. good luck to you. julie

regarding recurrent miscarriages ... You might want to skip the OB/GYN route and go straight to an infertility specialist about miscarriages just to be safe. I saw Dr. Robert Taylor at UCSF Infertility after my second (non-consecutive) miscarriage (at the age of 37). I really liked his approach. He seemed willing to be aggressive about investigating causes because that's what I wanted. I took a really active role in figuring out what was going on and he seemed to appreciate that. He's a bit hard to reach because he is out of town a lot but be persistent and when you actually see him in person or get him on the phone he will spend a lot of time with you explaining things. I found him very compassionate as well. Their office did an ultrasound for me at 6 and 8 weeks.

We went to UCSF for IVF and had excellent care and a great experience (as far as these things go). The doctors were knowledgeable, kind, _not_ pushy about things like the number of embryos to use (very very important to us), and all around good people. Our primary doctor was Carolyn Givens, but we also saw Eldon Schriock and someone else whose name I can't remember at the moment. The nurses were fantastic. One in particular, Denise, really explained everything to us and genuinely cared about us and our situation. We were lucky and I got pregnant the first round and we now have a 20 month old son, plus several frozen embryos waiting for the next time. We wouldn't consider going anywhere else to do this procedure.

I highly recommend their program. We had great success there. But it is a large facility and may not offer the softer touches of a smaller program. Also, I would recommend Dr. Eldon Scriock at UCSF. There are two other women in the practice who don't have the same bedside manners as Dr. Schriock. However, your decision of clinics may also depend on your infertility situation. If you have an uncomplicated situation, all three clinics may meet your needs and the East bay ones may be easier in terms of proximity. What we like about UCSF is that it is a research facility and sets the standard (along with Stanford). They have a wonderful lab and embryologists which are very important. Good luck with everything. It is an emotional process.

After a truly disastrous final appt. I left the practice and began seeing Susan Wilman in Orinda. It was a completely different experience from the very beginning, she is very straight forward and thorough. Her staff is very professional and knowledgeable. After evaluating my records (after 2+ years of trying to get pregnant) she ordered some basic tests that had never been done, told me that she thought my chances were slim, but that we had several options. To make a long story short, I was put on a new drug, reacted beautifully and got pregnant the first cycle doing IUI not IVF. We now have a wonderful 8 mos old son. I might mention that she is the on call Dr. at San Franciso Center for reproductive medicine once a month so she is very familiar with that practice. I had all of might genetic testing and counseling done at Stanford/UCSF by James Goldberg who was wonderful.

I went through several years (5 IUI's and 4 IVF's) @ USF. Dr. Mary Martin was my primary Dr. (she has since moved to WA), however I saw Dr. Carolyn Givens many times and she took care of me through several procedures. She was wonderful; smart, warm, caring and efficient. I would highly recommend her. The one drawback @ USF was that there was a constant stream of interns, sometimes in groups, who would do the transvaginal sonograms....I was not always comfortable with this. You can let them know if you don't want the interns in the room with you. There are times when you're feeling pretty emotional about the progress of your egg development...and when it's not going as planned, well, it's painful (emotionally) and something that I would have rather not had to share with a group of strangers.

BOTTOM LINE: None of the treatments were successful. My husband and I are now the extremely happy and proud parents of a little boy named Patrick that we adopted at birth. I wish I had moved forward with adoption sooner and not spent so much time, money and heartache going through infertility treatments.