Posts Tagged ‘infertility’
More “Octomom” Fall-Out, should her doctor lose his license?
October 16, 2010 | By: Liz
According to a report in a Los Angeles newspaper today, the Octomom’s doctor is facing a hearing on Monday where he may lose his license. Personally, I think what he did was malpractice and showed tremendous lack of forethought regarding the impact on this woman’s life and her family. I don’t know that he could have predicted the societal impact and the repercussion in the reproductive medical industry. But I wanted to know what you think!
With all the recent emphasis on single embryo transfer, and avoidance of multiple pregnancy (a twin pregnancy is now considered a management failure at some IVF Clinics), should patients in consultation with their doctors be the ones to choose to how many embryos to transfer or should doctors face regulation or possible loss of their medical license for listening to their patient when she asks to have multiple embryos transferred when it might be advisable to limit the number transferred?
Here’s the link to the article for more info:#mce_temp_url#
(in case the link doesn’t work, cut and paste this URL http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_16351124)
Filed under: Check This Out, Current Affairs, In the News, Infertility on Television, Personal Musings, Thinking Out Loud
Tags: Economy, hollywood, infertility, IVF, Success rates
Why does Jennifer Aniston’s quest to be a mother inspire me so?
August 19, 2010 | By: Liz
Everyone knows that I am fan of Jennifer’s. I actually probably wouldn’t be married to my DH if it wasn’t for some advice her mom gave me a long time ago. But seriously, Jennifer is an extraordinary woman in all respects, and from my perspective even more so for the way she is approaching her quest to be a mom.
At 41, most of know that Jennifer is likely to be facing some fertility issues (although with her health conscious lifestyle and yoga-bod maybe she’s found the way to turn back time, she sure looks it anyway!). While most of us would be doing a little freak-out dance now, and panicking about the ticking time bomb that are our ovaries, Ms. Aniston seems anything but panicked. In fact, she seems rather Zen about it all. And that is exactly my point and what inspires me.
First, the woman KNOWS she is going to be a mom. One way or another the woman has total and complete faith that she will become a mom. Rather than spiraling into depression (as I did and many of us do), Jennifer has seemed to have found a way to let go and TRUST. This is, I think, the gateway to success.
I really truly believe that it is when you completely accept and embrace the concept that you will be a mother, no matter what and no matter how (IUI, IVF, IVF donor egg, gestational surrogacy, adoption, whatever is your path), that fertility treatments have the highest success rates. Study after study shows that the mind-body connection cannot and should not be ignored. Women who are able to be in the place that Jennifer Aniston seems to be in, are the women who are more likely to succeed with fertility treatments. It’s fact not fiction. I know — as does JA — that she’s got an edge on success that I wish more of my friends and clients had: The inner-knowingness of the inevitability of their impending state of motherhood.
Another thing that I think sets her apart from many of us (and I include myself in this group when I was in the first 4 or 5 years of treatment), is that by all media accounts, she seems fairly open to many different paths to parenthood. I am not privy to her conversations with her BFF’s but I am guessing that there isn’t much she isn’t considering about how she’s going to become a mom. That too puts her on the fast track to “mommydom”. Not all of us can be as enlightened and confident as she is, and I am not saying that she doesn’t have her moments of . . . doubt . . . but I really think that the confidence and openness that Jennifer Aniston is talking about whenever she is interviewed about becoming a mom is something that tells me it ain’t gonna be long before she’s announcing the arrival or the impending arrival of a little baby Aniston.
And for what its worth, I think she’s a fantastic role model for every woman, single or married, over the age of 35 who’s trying to become a mom.
ASSUME IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN, AND IT WILL.
p.s. and when you can’t totally assume it will happen, fake it, fake it until you make-it . . . because that’s another sure fire way to get your mommy-Zen fire burning.
Filed under: Current Affairs, Egg Donation, Faith and Infertility, In the News, Infertility In The Movies etc., Peace to Parenthood, Personal Musings, The Journey to Parenthood, Thinking Out Loud, Uncategorized, visualization
Tags: actresses, adoption, biological clock, Egg Donation, hollywood, hope, infertility, Inspiration, intent, movies, Peace to Parenthood, visualization
Some thoughts on making egg donation work
May 13, 2010 | By: Liz
As I get closer to finishing my E-Book on egg donation, I seem to have more and more clients asking me some of the essential nuts and bolts questions about egg donation. It is urging me to write faster and get the first of the three book series finished. In the meantime, I have taken an old article I wrote for the then Hartford Chapter of RESOLVE on egg donation, and modified it for this blog post.
Here’s How One Woman Made Egg Donation Work:
Through the gift(s) provided by an egg donor, many infertile women are now able to experience pregnancy; sharing their thoughts, feelings, blood supply and the sound of their voice with their baby; and to deliver their child into the world. The success rates offered by many egg donation programs are staggering (nearing the 70% mark at most clinics), making this one of the more popular options in modern family building for women with diminished ovarian reserve or other issues of egg quality.
Egg donation is often so successful that you can potentially build your entire family from one egg donation cycle. Of course not every egg donation results in a pregnancy; but more often than not a carefully selected donor not only gets the recipient mother pregnant but there are extra embryos frozen for future family building.
Let us consider Janet[1], and her experience with egg donation. Janet is in her late thirties and after several failed IVF cycles, Janet’s doctors told her that her best chances for becoming a mother were through egg donation or adoption. Janet wanted to experience pregnancy, and so chose to pursue egg donation.
After doing research, Janet decided to work with an egg donation agency, rather than using her clinic’s in-house program. While some clinics are very flexible, Janet found she had more options when using an egg donation agency. By working with an agency Janet had greater flexibility in choosing her donor, didn’t have to share eggs with another infertile family, and would have greater control over her finances. Because she was on a tight budget, most of the agencies she spoke with encouraged Janet to select a donor who lived near the clinic she would be using, thus avoiding substantial travel expenses. Using an agency, Janet also had a greater selection of donors with compensation rates to fit her budget, compared with the fixed rates offered by most clinics.
One donor Janet considered (we’ll call her Leslie[2]), was twenty-six years old, single, had near perfect SAT scores, attended an Ivy League college, graduated at the top of her class and was attending medical school. Despite Leslie’s outstanding academic credentials (which sometimes result in higher compensation rates) Leslie’s requested compensation was within the middle range of both ASRM’s and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies’ (SART)[3] guidelines for egg donor compensation: $3,000-$7,000 per donation. Leslie also visibly resembled Janet and lived near their fertility clinic thus helping to make the cycle more affordable for Janet and her partner. Leslie seemed like the perfect donor.
Leslie, however, had no “track record” donating eggs. She had never been an egg donor before and didn’t have any children of her own. Although statistically, carefully screened first-time (or “unproven”) donors have the same success rates in helping infertile women/couples achieve pregnancy, Janet was concerned that she would spend money to have Leslie donor undergo the first part of the necessary screening process, only to find out that Leslie was not sufficiently fertile and had been disqualified from being an egg donor.
Janet and her partner were also considering matching with a donor named “Julie”. Julie also was twenty-six, had high SAT scores, had attended college, and had never been an egg donor before. Julie was requesting the same compensation as had Leslie ($5,000) and lived near Janet’s clinic. However, Julie was married, and had two-and-half-year old twins and a one-year old baby. Julie was clearly fertile (she had children) and thus would be more likely to produce healthy eggs, which to Janet and her partner meant she presented a lower risk of being “screened out” by their fertility clinic.
Once Janet and her partner selected Julie as their donor, Janet’s egg donation agency presented them with a list of attorneys to help prepare their egg donation agreement, and it arranged for Julie to be represented by separate counsel in connection with the negotiation and drafting of their agreement. The egg donation agreement is a critical aspect of the egg donation process and all parties should be represented by independent counsel. The egg donation agreement will protect your rights as parents and govern your relationship with your donor for years to come. You should have the right to select your own attorney, one who is an experienced reproductive lawyer.
Each egg donation agreement is unique; some agreements provide for complete disclosure of names and addresses and others are completely anonymous. Whatever your comfort level or that of your donor may be regarding future contact, please consider that your agreement should ensure that you can contact your donor in case of a future medical emergency. Among other things, your egg donation agreement should specify your rights to utilize and/or dispose of the eggs/embryos created from the cycle, require that your donor follow medical directions, address what happens if your donor breaches your agreement or if the cycle needs to be rescheduled for some reason (like a death in the donor’s family), and/or how medical bills are handled if she experiences a complication like ovarian hyper-stimulation.
Within four months of the time Janet initially contacted their egg donation agency, Janet, Julie and their respective partners had negotiated their agreement and their cycle got underway. Julie produced seventeen eggs of which fifteen fertilized. Janet conceived a beautiful baby girl on the first embryo transfer and when Janet’s daughter was about a year-old, Janet and her partner went back and did a frozen embryo transfer; this time conceiving twin girls (it is admittedly rare for a frozen cycle to result in a twin pregnancy but in this case it did)!
[1] Janet is a combination of several of my clients, a fictitious character created for purposes of this blog to help demonstrate a typical egg donation process from a more “real life” perspective.
[2] Names have been changed to protect people’s privacy.
[3] ASRM (The American Society for Reproductive Medicine) and SART are related organizations which, among other things, establish ethical and regulatory guidelines that many clinics and agencies agree to comply with. For more information, visit their websites: #www.ASRM.org# and #www.sart.org#
Filed under: Egg Donation, Thoughts on Choosing an Egg Donor
Tags: biological clock, choosing an egg donor, Donor Compensation, Egg Donation, egg donation agreement, egg donation cycle, Finances, infertility, IVF, Parentage, reproductive attorney, reproductive lawyer
