How Alto Pharmacy provided support and peace of mind during my embryo freezing process

I’m 33 years old and have been married for three years. I don’t have any children yet, but have always known I wanted a family. I have spent much of my career working in healthcare and have most recently worked at an education startup. I’m passionate about doing work that empowers women.

Many of my friends have gone through the egg freezing process, and my husband and I visited a clinic last year to learn more about our own fertility health and to explore the option of egg freezing as a future backup plan. The clinic we chose uses Alto for their fertility pharmacy services and referred me once we decided to go through a round of embryo freezing.

I had a great experience with Alto. The entire journey of learning about fertility preservation, deciding whether or not to go through with a procedure, and then starting the process is really stressful and often left me feeling like I needed a lot more information and guidance than was readily available. With Alto, everything about getting my prescriptions filled and finding answers to my questions was straightforward and dependable.

At my very first appointment, the clinical team decided to start me on medications that same night. I signed up with Alto, and they delivered my medications same-day within the span of a few hours. The customer service reps at Alto were really helpful and worked with an urgency that I appreciated given how out of control I felt in that initial phase of the treatment plan.

What I liked most about Alto was how dependable they were. When you’re going through a fertility preservation process, your prescription and medication needs change every few days for the duration of the treatment. There were several times where I got a prescription in the morning from my physician and needed to get the delivery that same day. Each time, Alto did a great job of making sure the medication was processed, scheduled for delivery and delivered on time. I didn’t have to stress that something would go wrong and the whole process would be messed up.

I also found that I could rely on Alto to help fill knowledge gaps about what was happening with my care. Each delivery included documents to explain exactly what the medications were for, something that wasn’t always clear when I got a prescription from the doctor. I appreciated Alto’s focus on customer service. They proactively reached out to give me updates about what to expect next, ensure my questions were answered, and even did small gestures like including a few caramels in each delivery that, while small, were appreciated.

I used to have a chronic disease, chronic idiopathic urticaria (hives), that required a specialty medication, and I had a really difficult time dealing with pharmacies and ensuring I got my medication correctly. I had to see one doctor to prescribe the medication, go in person to pick up the medication at a specialty pharmacy and then drive it in a cooler to a second, different doctor to administer it. With Alto, it was so much easier and straightforward to make sure I received my medications when I needed them, without having to leave home.

Alto was easy to work with and dependable which is so important and helpful. While the outcomes of my procedure were not what I had hoped for, I have no complaints at all with my experience with Alto. I would definitely recommend Alto to a friend considering egg freezing or IVF treatments.

Alto is the West Coast’s leading fertility pharmacy with more than 50,000 patients served. We’re open evenings and weekends, offer free delivery seven days a week, and will always work to help you find the best price. Interested in using Alto’s services for your fertility medications? Ask your doctor to send your prescriptions to Alto or give us a call at 1 (800) 874–5881.

This post was written by Rebecca G., a San Francisco Bay area operations and community builder, and Alto fertility patient.