AS from USA write...

It gives us great pleasure to share our experiences at
the Malpani Infertility Clinic in India. We also take
this opportunity to convey our sincere regards and
thanks to the entire Dr. Malpani's team.

My husband and I got married when we were in the
middle of our career. We were both career oriented and
our educated families never gave us any "real
pressure" to have children in our early years of
marriage. We took all the possible opportunities to
travel to different parts of the world to get better
placement in our career. But we knew time is running
out to plan for a family. When we decided to get
pregnant, it was not too difficult and I conceived in
summer of 2001 after six years of our married life. We
were quite excited as it all happened at the right age
and were hopeful for risk-free pregnancy.
Unfortunately I had a spontaneous miscarriage at 6wk
of pregnancy. My doctor consoled me that such
spontaneous abortion is a nature's way to eliminate
damaged or abnormal embryos.

Our worries began after a year or so of the
miscarriage, when we were unable to get pregnant
again. Age of 32 years was still not an issue
according to the US doctors and they wanted to give us
more time to conceive natural ways. We tried one more
year using ovulation kit and predicting most fertile
period and failed. The frustration was building up and
then came series of tests: Hysterosalpingogram (to
check Fallopian tube's patency), Laparoscopy (to check
the endometrial fibroids and ovarian cysts), complete
hormonal account (LH, FSH, estradiol, TSH etc) and of
course my husbands complete sperm analysis. All the
tests were normal and we were put in the category of
"Unexplained Infertility". Although we felt very
fortunate that everything was normal to have a baby
but at the same time it was unclear to us that how
much the assisted reproductive technology (ART) can
really help us in achieving fertility without a
specific problem in the system. Anyway, we didn't have
much choice so it started with simple IUI
(intrauterine sperm insemination) to taking fertility
drugs (clomid tablets to FSH injections) to improve my
ovulation status and every cycle, every month ended in
a big disappointment. Then the doctors suggested that
IVF may be my last chance which I was never convinced
as generally IVF is suggested when tubes are blocked
and one needs to rescue the fertilization event in a
petri-plate. I finally decided to go for it. Again
there was an unwanted surprise. My day 3rd FSH level
was high and according to a recent study that is
indicative of poor ovarian response. However, doctors
asked us to wait till a cycle when FSH is normal and
may be then I will have better chance in IVF. So we
did wait for another cycle when my FSH was normal and
underwent IVF. Unfortunately my poor ovarian response
produced few immature eggs and those were also
unevenly fertilized.

At that point I had given up of having a baby. My
strong religious and ethical believes were playing a
major role in my decision as I am a strong believer
that one can always assist reproduction with new
technology but can not play GOD or ALMIGHTY NATURE. In
our final follow up meeting with the doctor suggested
me for another IVF with ICSI (and deep inside me, I
knew these are all false hopes-if egg quality is not
good, performing ICSI-intra-cytoplasmic sperm
injection is not the choice!) or go for a donor eggs
and IVF with my husband's sperm. Then there came a
rescuer in our family who willing accepted to be my
egg-donor.

When most of the difficult choices were already made,
choosing a doctor in India was not at all a difficult
task for us, because if you type infertility and
India, first 10 most important sites come up in
"Google" is Dr. Malpani's site or his discussion in
the news. It was also easy to get in touch with him
via email. He gave us a very prompt reply when we
filled the free-second opinion form on the net. Since
then I am amazed by Dr. Aniruddha Maplani's
networking. All the treatment plan, synchronization of
mine and donor's cycle, getting convenient dates to
visit India, everything was kind of a click away. Dr.
Aniruddha is so particular in replying the mails that
any medical emergency one might have during the
pre-treatment plan, one can reassure that it will be
taken care of by his timely advice given from
thousands of miles away. At times we were skeptical as
we have never met the Doctor and his team and even
never visited the clinic before. For such dilemma,
again Dr. Malpani's web site has solutions and has a
series of email buddies whom if you contact you are
sure to get an elaborate answer.

Finally we met Dr. Aniruddha Malpani in 2004 and I
must say I was impressed by his professionalism. He
discussed all our doubts and gave his very
straightforward opinion. Dr. Aniruddha is less
talkative but he takes his job very seriously. I
valued his opinion as at all steps he clearly
discussed the limitations of the treatment and never
gave us false hopes. Dr. Anjali on the other hand very
friendly and always making the tough moments light
enough to smile. The clinic is impressively clean and
very homely. The staff is very cooperative and
friendly. We started our treatment plan, everything
was working out as per the plan, the donor had ample
number of eggs, sperm quality of my husband was good
enough and then came another unwanted surprise-none of
the eggs were fertilized. I could not explain how
disappointed we were when we got this news. Dr.
Aniruddha explained in detail that "emergency ICSI"
can be still performed on a day old eggs where the
chances of having successful pregnancy will drop from
initial 50% to 5-15%. I had my reservations with ICSI
that there are more chances of getting genetic
abnormalities with such a procedure and I was not
ready to go for it. We discussed again with Dr.
Malpani and he cleared all my fears and doubts and
strongly suggested that ICSI is perfectly ethical and
risk-free treatment. He also emphasized that with
emergency ICSI performed chances are only 15% but
definitely better than 0%. We believed in him and said
yes and then the miracle happen. Today we have hope, I
am 8weeks pregnant and it takes your breath away to
listen to your baby's first heartbeat.

Today, I am very grateful to Dr. Malpani and his
entire clinic and wish them all the very best in their
noble work. My special thanks and gratitude to all the
nurses and staff, especially Miss Muttu, Sonia, Bindu
and others.

AS from USA