If I only had one shot at having a baby and I could pick any doctor in the world, I would pick Dr. Sher.
What was once a frantic google search has turned into the biggest blessing I’ve ever received. I found Dr. Sher almost a decade ago when scouring the internet for answers as to why I couldn’t get pregnant. I went to an OBGYN who told me I would never have biological children and that I needed to use donor eggs if I ever wanted to give birth to a baby because my FSH was elevated to 11.2, which according to that doctor meant I had diminished ovarian reserve or premature ovarian failure. I was only 25 years old at the time and could not accept this answer. I went back to the internet and found Dr. Sher’s blog. Without expecting a response, I wrote my story. To my surprise I received an answer back the same day. I had never met a doctor in my life that responded to inquiries that quickly, especially from someone who wasn’t their patient.
Dr. Sher told me that my FSH meant nothing without other blood work to see the full picture, so I went and got the tests he suggested only to discover that my AMH was 4.4 and I had no signs of diminished ovarian reserve or premature ovarian failure whatsoever, as was previously suggested. After these tests, I moved from the OB/GYN to a local reproductive endocrinologist who told me to just ignore the FSH and undergo an IVF cycle. This didn’t sit well with me. I just knew there was a reason my FSH was elevated, so I contacted Dr. Sher again with these results and he told me to have a laparoscopic surgery to check for endometriosis. Sure enough he was right. I had stage 2 endometriosis. The local RE told me surgery and IVF would overcome any issues from the endometriosis but Dr. Sher was not convinced at all, and suggested I get tested for immune implantation dysfunction. Low and behold Sher was right again. I had high natural killer cells and cytokines which would explain why after five years of trying to get pregnant, starting at the age of 20, I had no success despite my age and good ovarian reserve. My immune system was attacking pregnancies at the earliest stage- implantation.
With these results and an immune protocol, I moved on to IVF only to discover my fertility problems were not at an end. I did 3 cycles of IVF and in all of those cycles, I ovulated some or all eggs before retrieval and had used 3 different stimulation protocols in each cycle. The few embryos I got did not produce a pregnancy. I contacted numerous big league fertility specialists across the USA and even some overseas, none of which could give me an answer as to why this was happening, so I once again turned to Dr. Sher. He thoroughly reviewed my medical records, but he already knew what the problem was. “premature lutienization”. He then came up with a protocol just for me and the first transfer with that and immune treatment worked and I now have a six year old daughter…..my first Sher baby.
Five years later, I used his same protocol with Dr. Sher doing a little tweaking on the immune end, and now I have three month old twins. Three Sher babies.
Not only has Dr. Sher given me the recipe to create my family, he stood by me and held my hand throughout all of my IVF cycles, answering questions even on Christmas Day. He talked the treating fertility specialists through the protocols and was even there to answer questions while I was pregnant. He was always right about everything.
Dr. Sher is the king of IVF in my opinion. He is a wealth of information and a sweetheart. Fertility is his calling and everyone in my care that has ever spoken to him has been amazed at what a kind soul he is. He genuinely cares and just wants to see people succeeded and graciously shares his knowledge with the world often receiving nothing in return from what I see on his blog. I feel like to him, knowing he helped another person get the baby of their dreams is priceless. He has a real passion. This field of medicine comes as easy as breathing to him.
I look back and think of all the money I could have flushed down the toilet if I had continued on the IVF journey without him. You see without the immune protocol, no transfer would have worked. Most RE’s ignore the role the immune system plays in promoting a healthy pregnancy, and would have been happy to ignore the main issue that was preventing me from succeeding . This was prevented because of Dr.Sher. I was clearly a complex case to every doctor I had seen….except for him.
Bless your heart Dr. Sher. You mean the world to me, and I would not have my beautiful children without you. I never thought I would even have one child, and now because of you I have three.