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Success Story
An RHS Giveaway Success
For six years, Jayme and Dave tried to conceive. And for six years, they were unsuccessful. They eventually sought medical help, underwent treatment and surgeries, but still couldn't overcome infertility. They were told IVF might help them, but it seemed financially out of reach.
Then Jayme learned about the RHS IVF Giveaway in 2008. She applied and the couple was drawn as the winner from several hundred entrants.
"When they said that we won, we were just so ecstatic," Jayme said. "We couldn't believe it."
Happily, the IVF treatment succeeded on the first try, and Jayme gave birth to Liliana on May 24, 2010.
Not knowing what to expect of the whole process, Jayme said that RHS was very generous about walking them through the steps and keeping in touch. She was particularly pleased to have a personal IVF coordinator, Debbie, available to answer questions at all times.
"There were a couple of times where it was just great to have someone talk us through things," she said. "It was amazing to have that guidance throughout the whole experience."
News & Events
A New Doctor Joins RHS!
Dr. Teresa Erb will be joining our practice in January 2011. More information about Dr. Erb will be coming soon as we welcome this new physician to our team!
Latest Blog Posts
Ask the Doctors
Who makes up the RHS team?
Last newsletter, we introduced the staff members on our front lines. Now, get to know four women who work behind the scenes to ensure the practice runs smoothly.
Robin Musiak, Executive Director of RHS, started her journey at Magee Women's Hospital as an andrology technician, embryologist and laboratory director. She followed Drs. Kubik and Albert in their ventures into private practice and finally in the opening of RHS in 2000.
Annette Senge, our Accounting Administrator since 2004, maintains financial records, administers payroll and oversees the employee benefits program. Brett Nicotera (8 years with RHS) and Dawn Hluhan (4 years with RHS) make up our financial division. They help our patients understand their medical coverage and provide custom financial planning options.
To Robin, Annette, Brett and Dawn, the most rewarding moment at RHS is the end result — news of a healthy baby.
Latest Fertility Find
"Learn. Connect. Take Charge." That's the mantra of Team RESOLVE
, a resource that helps you meet others struggling with infertility and form a community. Team RESOLVE is dedicated to creating support groups for those who feel ignored or abandoned by doctors, insurance companies, family and friends — even each other. Watch the video and start building your Team today.
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Nobel Prize for Work
Pioneering IVF
Of the 15% of the population that struggles with infertility issues, many have found success through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Approximately four million babies have been born with its help thus far. And Robert Edwards, the man who pioneered IVF, was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine in October 2010.
However, IVF has not always enjoyed such wide cultural acceptance. In 1969, a Harris poll showed a majority of Americans felt there was a social stigma attached to IVF.
Despite public opinion, Edwards pushed forward and utterly redefined what we now know about our own reproduction. Edwards, who has been studying fertility since the 1950s, is responsible for learning how human eggs mature in the Fallopian tubes, the role different hormones play in this process and at what point the eggs are receptive to fertilizing sperm.
Edwards in 1989, photo from Nobelprize.org
With his partner Patrick Steptoe, a gynecologist working with laparoscopy, Edwards removed eggs from ovaries and fertilized them with sperm in a cell culture for the first time. However, it took many attempts before they could get the cell to divide and form an embryo.
In November of 1977, the team treated Lesley and John Brown, a couple who had been trying to get pregnant for nine years, with IVF. After fertilizing the egg in a culture, it was returned to Mrs. Brown's womb. And, following a full-term pregnancy, the Browns' daughter Louise was born — the world's first "test tube baby."
In partnership with Steptoe, Edwards went on to establish the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, the world's first IVF clinic. Gynecologists and cell biologists from all over the world went there to learn and develop reproduction techniques and, by 1986, a thousand children had been born thanks to the clinic's IVF studies.
Happily, after Louise Brown's successful birth in 1978, public opinion quickly came to accept IVF. Just one month later, the number of Americans who found it controversial was down to nearly 25%.
As the first IVF-conceived babies are now starting to have their own healthy children, Louise Brown among them, the award comes as yet another vote of confidence for the safety and effectiveness of the treatment.
For those who have known the joy of birth through IVF, giving the Nobel Prize to Edwards, now 85 years old, may seem long overdue. However, given the many roadblocks IVF research has had to overcome, we're just thankful people like him have persevered in order to bring happiness to so many parents and children the world over.
When Your Best Friend Gets Pregnant
For women who are struggling to become pregnant, finding out a close relative or best friend is expecting can be devastating news. It can be even more so if she has not been actively trying to get pregnant. You may be worried about damaging your relationship with this person, since your feelings of envy and frustration are so strong.
But according to Dr. Connie Shapiro, author of When You're Not Expecting: An Infertility Survival Guide,
there are many things you can do to support your friend and maintain a healthy relationship with her. Of course, every situation is different and will depend on how much you've shared your ongoing fertility struggles with your friend. Many couples opt to keep such things within their relationship, so if your friend is unaware of your history, you will have to forgive this lack of knowledge.
In any case, Dr. Shapiro recommends open communication.
"It will probably be up to you to broach the subject," she says. "You might begin by saying to your friend that you are feeling both happiness and envy as she anticipates the upcoming months of her pregnancy. You may say that you worry about feeling left behind as her life becomes increasingly preoccupied with plans for the baby's birth. And you will want to reach out to her to affirm that this is a friendship you treasure and to ask if both of you can spend some time now anticipating how you can keep the relationship resilient."
Overall, you will both need to work hard to be aware of the other's delicate or contradictory emotions. Tolerance of your friend's joy, excitement or even ambivalence will have to be met by sensitivity to your disappointment, envy or sadness.
You can read more of Dr. Shapiro's recommendations on her infertility blog at Psychology Today.
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