Kindbody Chicago – West Loop

I was a happy Kindbody patient for years and am incredibly grateful for the medical team that helped create our daughter after 12 IVF retrievals and a long infertility journey. However, my experience regarding embryo storage and communication has been deeply concerning. I learned that my embryos were being transferred to a different storage facility in a different state ONLY after I began asking questions. Throughout this process, I received conflicting information from different representatives about whether embryos were being moved, who was affected, and what options were available to patients. Communication has been frustrating. Portal conversations were marked as resolved, making it difficult to continue asking questions, and obtaining clear answers about the location and future storage of my embryos has been challenging. These embryos represent years of treatment, significant financial investment, surgeries, emotional hardship, and our future family plans. Patients deserve timely communication, consistent information, and transparency when decisions are being made about where their embryos will be stored. If you are considering Kindbody, I strongly recommend keeping copies of all agreements, saving every email and portal message, and asking detailed questions about long-term embryo storage policies and procedures.

I hate to give anything other than 5 stars because we really appreciated the kind and attentive staff! They definitely deserve 5 stars! But the billing dept should get 1 star. We prepaid the estimated amount that insurance wasn't going to cover (which is mandatory) and then AFTER the procedure they billed us AGAIN. They actually held our embryos hostage until that bill was taken care of. The problem was that they were pretending like we didn't pre-pay them already. When I reminded them we had prepaid (which should be no surpise, given its required), they finally removed the new bill (which never should have existed in the first place). After they did that, I realized we had over-paid when we pre-paid (because their initial estimate was higher than what actually ended up being being charged). "Somehow" they didnt catch this when they were applying those pre-paid funds to the actual bill. I had to initiate a request to get a reimbursement for the amount that we overpaid.. so if I had not caught any of that, they would have kept our initial overpayment AND took our money a second time for the same service!! They had multiple opportunities to catch these errors and they never did (or at least they pretended like they didn't). They never even apologized for the huge error. This is truly alarming!! The scariest part is that they have a section in the chart where you can see previous payments you've made and the copies of bills and what payments went to what bills.. but one day things just started disappearing out of that section. So it's almost impossible to know how much you actually gave them and what it was applied to, unless you are keeping your own meticulous records. There is a $1300 charge/payment missing from that entire section (like it never existed). I had to go back and review my credit card statements to make sure all the numbers and payments all made sense. SO YOU BETTER KEEP YOUR RECORDS STRAIGHT AND TRIPLE CHECK EVERYTHING OR YOU WILL BE SWINDLED OUT OF MONEY!! I honestly wonder how many people haven't double checked these charges and got totally screwed over. If you recieved/paid a bill AFTER your treatment (that you already pre-paid for), you likely got double charged. BEWARE!

I am so thankful for everyone at kindbody-Chicago. You have made having children possible for my husband and I. You all have treated us with kindness, and respect while supporting us during an emotional and stressful time and being as informative as possible. I really appreciate all the teams I have worked with throughout our first stimulation/egg retrieval cycle! Thank you all so much!!! We are hopeful and excited for the next steps and we look forward to the future and to continue to work with you all at the Chicago locations!!

Fertility clinics are a gamble. For some, it works. For us, it didn't. Of course one cannot solely blame the clinic but they aren't entirely blameless either. KindBody's approach to fertility is to throw a lot of medication and needles against the wall, hoping that some of it sticks. Unfortunately nothing stuck for us, so after several IVF cycles we were told that we have "unexplained infertility" but not once did anyone inquire about our diet, exercise, sleep, or other lifestyle factors. "Unexplained" is an easy (and lazy!) verdict if you show little curiosity about your patients. Besides their overall philosophy, I was displeased with how few patient outcomes KindBody tracks. For IUI procedures, we were told that they don't track outcomes at all! For all we know, they may never have had a single successful procedure. Next, some of their health advice is irresponsible. We were told that Tylenol is both "safe and effective" during pregnancy. While this topic is indeed debatable (cf. Nat Rev Endocrinology by Bauer et al.), it is reckless to ignore existing evidence. In the presence of conflicting evidence, always err on the side of caution.

My wife and I moved to Chicago in March 2023 for IVF and were patients of Dr. Amber Cooper at Kindbody. We had an uneven but illuminating experience. Kindbody was professional in egg retrieval, fertilization, and genetic testing. Dr. Cooper is a gifted physician—attentive, accessible, and responsive. She helped us obtain four genetically healthy (PGT-tested euploid) embryos. Then came the transfers. This is where our experience turned. During the transfers, a technician repeatedly joked about my wife's uterine lining as "peanut butter" and said things like, "This is where we squirt in the cookie dough." Fetal transfers are serious business. The comments were inappropriate and tasteless given what we had at stake. The first transfer failed. We requested additional testing (ERA, Emma, Alice). Kindbody agreed, but only after we pushed and fought for it—which was like pulling teeth. The techs performed the second transfer. Same jokes. Same result. Strike two. Statistically, it's highly unlikely for multiple euploid embryos to fail unless there's a biological issue with the mother. Dr. Cooper wanted to try the exact same procedure a third time—with no changes, no additional testing. She told us she'd seen 3, 4, or 5 euploid transfers fail in the same patient, and that this was "just the way it goes"—a product of "imperfect genetic testing." We didn't buy it. When we told her we were considering leaving, she looked at us with pity—as if we were wrong, and a baby probably wouldn't happen for us. We left. We found a Chicago area fertility specialist who took his time—many months—to thoroughly evaluate my wife. He found and treated hyperthyroidism, surgically repaired uterine lining irregularities, and discovered endometriosis—none of which Kindbody had taken the time to detect. He guided us through the process and showed us we mattered. Today, we have a beautiful, perfectly healthy 5-month-old baby boy—the joy of our lives. Would he be here if we'd stayed with Kindbody? My gut tells me no. Their haste would have cost us our son. Do I believe Kindbody doctors are capable? Yes. Do I believe their resources are solid? Yes. But our conclusion is that they have become bloated and bureaucratic, too focused on rushing patients through to maximize outcomes—which may have cost other families their babies. We're grateful for the role they played in getting us to embryos, but we're profoundly glad we left. If you're a Kindbody patient: trust your gut. Ask the hard questions. Push for testing. And if they won't dig deeper, find someone who will. We did—and it made all the difference.