From Mark & David

February 5, 2005

We first embarked on the process of having a child through the help of a gestational surrogate mother mid-2001, and we initially worked with an agency and a fertility doctor in the Bay Area. Our first attempt resulted in a twin pregnancy, but this quickly ended in a miscarriage at around 11 weeks. This was devastating for a variety of reasons, including a lack of support from the agency, and the absence of the fertility doctor whose practice had gone bankrupt without any warning or notice. We regrouped, investigated our options, and signed up with a different agency in Los Angeles, where we learned about Pacific Fertility Center and the expertise of Dr. Vicken Sahakian. From our first encounter with Dr. Sahakian, we felt confident that we would eventually succeed in our effort to build a family through surrogacy and IVF. One of us is a physician and especially appreciated the time and care that Dr. Sahakian took in explaining to us what he thought might have happened in the future, and what should be our plan. His thoroughness in evaluating our egg donor, and our surrogate once we matched with one from the new agency, was evident. He always exhibited the greatest the greatest care and sensitivity when dealing with us as a couple, and with these two women who helped us so much. Of particular note was his ready availability when we needed immediate consultation or answers to questions. In our previous attempt with surrogacy, as in our experience in general with doctors, it is rare to enjoy this level of responsiveness. These qualities of bedside manner, sensitivity, thoroughness, and caring, combined with his great technical expertise and medical judgment, are what make Dr. Sahakian an outstanding practitioner of his specialty. So we embarked on a second attempt with our new surrogate, and again achieved a twin pregnancy, but on the second confirmatory ultrasound, at just 9 weeks, Dr. Sahakian sensed a problem with twin B. I took another two weeks for us, and another specialist brought in to help us by Dr. Sahakian, to come to the same conclusion. We followed their expert advice, and after losing twin B, continued on with a normal pregnancy and were rewarded with the birth of our son, Evan, in August 2003. Words cannot express what his birth meant to us then, or now, 18 months later. We knew at the point of losing twin B that we would be doing surrogacy again to complete our family of two children. There was never any doubt in our mind that we would be depending on the medical expertise of Dr. Sahakian the next time around. He has continued to help us immeasurably throughout the process of additional egg retrievals from our egg donor, reevaluating our surrogate, counseling during several subsequent complicating events, achieving another pregnancy, and, sadly, experiencing another miscarriage. It was during this (for us) second miscarriage that we come to appreciate Dr. Sahakian the most. At the first ultrasound at 6 weeks gestation, he again sensed something was wrong in spit of the ultrasonographer’s optimism. Through 2 subsequent weekly sonograms, he kept urging great caution in contrast to the ultra-onographer’s continuing optimism. Thus, we were prepared for the inevitable miscarriage once it began. During the miscarriage itself, while the local doctors in our surrogate’s home area were failing miserable in the important duty of continuity of care, it was Dr. Sahakian who saved the day, bringing our surrogate to a healthy outcome and restoring our confidence in the process. We are now continuing in our quest with an additional frozen embryo cycle in the coming weeks, confident of our eventual success. Our story may seem difficult, and certainly we assumed when we started surrogacy that WE would be the couple who achieved a health twin pregnancy on the first attempt and never had to visit an IVF clinic again. But that is not the most common fate of couples who seek multiple children through the help of a fertility clinic for whatever reason. It is when things do not work out exactly as planned, and complications arise, or pregnancy test are negative, that the true value of a caring technically expert IVF physician is realized. Outstanding judgment. Genuine caring and concern. Responsiveness when questions and complications arise. Expert colleagues in fetal medicine and embryology. An experienced office staff that assists the patients and clients in an efficient manner. These are the important attributes of Dr. Sahakian’s practice of assisted reproduction that have made our continuing experience with him so rewarding.
Mark and David and Evan