Our Blog
Common Concerns About Embryo Donation
Donating your remaining embryos after you’ve completed your family is a deeply personal choice. For some couples, it is the obvious choice for any embryos that remain. For other couples, they may have questions or concerns that need answers before they feel...
How Embryos are Frozen and Thawed
There are more than 600,000 frozen embryos in storage in the United States and the number is growing every day. Some of those embryos will be taken out of frozen storage and thawed to be used by either the genetic parents or by adoptive families through embryo...
How Excess Weight Affects Fertility & If It Can Be Reversed
Weight can have a negative effect on many aspects of your health, but did you know that it can affect your fertility as well? Excess weight has been shown to decrease your chances of conception, most commonly by causing a condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome,...
The Cost of Infertility: Surrogacy
In this blog series, we’re looking at where your money goes when it comes to alternative family building methods. We’ve talked about the cost of sperm donation and where your money goes when you use donor eggs. This time, we’ll discuss the expenses involved with...
What to Do With Your Remaining Embryos
As more couples turn to in vitro fertilization as an alternative family building method, there are an ever increasing number of remaining embryos in frozen storage in the United States. Some estimates put the number of frozen embryos at 600,000 and the number grows...
What One Study Has to Say About Frozen Embryo Transfers
When it comes to frozen embryo transfers, the prevailing belief among both patients and doctors used to be that more was better. Because not every transfer is going to be a success in IVF or embryo adoption and couples were often putting all of their hopes into one...
What Happened to the Hawkins Family After They Were Chosen for Embryo Adoption
When a couple decides that they would like to go through the frozen embryo adoption process, they’ll go through a process that’s similar to adopting an already-born child through an open adoption. They will create a profile and wait to be picked by a donating family....
Why Male Infertility Isn’t a Matter of Masculinity
As many as 1 in 8 couples in the United States suffer from infertility. When it comes to the cause, about 40% can be traced to the woman and another 40% traced to the man (the remaining number are either undiagnosed or a combination of causes). Both men and women can...
Embryo Grades (& Why They May Not Matter)
When it comes to IVF, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the quality of the embryos. Because doctors and patients want to have the best chance possible for success during an embryo transfer, clinics attempt to choose the “best” embryos of the bunch. To do this, an...
Things You and Your Partner Can Do to Increase Your Chances of Getting Pregnant
If you are trying for a baby and want to increase your chances of conceiving, there are things that you and your partner can do together to help boost your chances. Check out some of these fertility-boosting ideas: Change your diet. Not only is it a good idea to go...
5 Advantages of Embryo Adoption
1. Embryo Adoption allows the mother to experience pregnancy and childbirth. Many families who cannot conceive mourn the fact they have never experienced pregnancy and childbirth. Other types of adoption cannot alleviate this grief. When the woman has received a...
12 Questions Embryo Adoptees Want Answered
Even if you decided to adopt your child as an embryo, they will have questions. We recommend you begin gathering answers to these questions now, to make answering them later a bit easier. What are my genetic parents’ first and middle names? Do I have any genetic...
10 Things to Never Say to an Infertility Patient
1. Are they yours? Well, um since I’m the one diapering, carrying, burping, and worrying over them, I sure hope they are mine! Oh, wait, surely you are not fishing to find out if we used donor eggs to help us conceive them since clearly that would be rude, and clearly...
10 Tips for Using Health Insurance to Cover Fertility Treatments
1. Understand your insurance coverage BEFORE you see a specialist. 2. Make sure you have the latest copy of the Evidence of Coverage document detailing the coverage benefits offered by your policy. This document changes frequently. 3. Get your infertility coverage in...
Top 10 Tips for Telling Children about Donor Egg, Sperm and Embryo
1. Telling a process, not a one- or even two-time event. You start laying the groundwork and add detail as your child ages. 2. Don’t over tell. The temptation is to put it all out there, tell everything you know and be done with the darn thing. Start simple and build...