In April 2024, the Center of Reproductive Health (CRH), a fertility clinic based in Nashville, closed its doors due to an inability to pay its employees. The facility’s owner, Jaime M. Vasquez, M.D., has since been sued by the Tennessee Attorney General.  According to a statement from the Attorney General’s office, the clinic’s “abrupt closure” left numerous fertility patients in a lurch: The future of their care, access to medical records, and security of their frozen eggs, sperm, and embryos was now a huge question mark.  Just a few weeks later after the clinic shut down,...

Whether you're trying to conceive at home or preparing for an egg retrieval, ensuring that you’re nourishing your body with the proper nutrients — and the right amounts of them — is essential to promoting egg quality while also supporting healthy ovarian function. Since the vast majority of us don't get what we need from diet alone, fertility supplements can be especially useful. Some of the top nutrients to consider include folate, vitamin B12, vitamins C, D, and E, zinc, selenium, iodine, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can typically be found in prenatal multivitamin supplements. But...

These days, it’s pretty easy to find articles online that walk you through numerous fertility protocols, from in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to egg freezing. But what about all the questions that pop up for each step of those protocols? Like, say, what’s it like to take Ganirelix — a hormone medication administered during ovarian stimulation? Can you really be sure you’re getting correct, medically informed answers from the internet? Unfortunately, it’s just as easy to stumble upon articles that contain misinformation, especially if you’re asking Dr. Google. Enter Roon, a free platform comprised of short-form video content providing accurate...

If you’re familiar with preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A), you might have heard the terms “euploid” for genetically normal embryos and “aneuploid” for those with the incorrect number of chromosomes. Those with a mix of normal and abnormal cells are called “mosaic” embryos.  Deciding whether to transfer a mosaic embryo can be challenging, as it involves considering a complex mix of factors. To help you make an informed decision, we spoke to Dr. Robert Straub, a reproductive endocrinologist who’s been with Reproductive Biology Associates in Georgia since 2003. Dr. Straub specializes in ovulation induction and IVF, management...

If you’ve perused TikTok recently, there’s a good chance you’ve come across a video suggesting that matcha can lead to infertility. Take, for example, the trend of women recording themselves drinking matcha lattes alongside text saying that they heard matcha can cause infertility. These videos are all in good fun, a way for creators to tell their audiences they are actively avoiding pregnancy in a tongue-in-cheek way. But, as always, we need to be careful of the kind of information we create and consume online. As we all know by now, social media can be a...

Anyone who has been through fertility treatments knows that it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Hurry up: Make the appointment, contact your provider, pay that bill, and order the medication. Wait: Your body isn’t ready, you ovulated too early, I’m sorry there’s no heartbeat, and it’s still not your turn.  I recently had a friend vent to me about the stress she was feeling around starting to try to get pregnant. I thought to myself, “Do I tell her?” but ultimately decided against it. In my experience, whether it was an embryo transfer that didn’t “stick”...

If you ask “the interwebs” if ovarian cysts cause infertility, you’ll be led down a windy, confusing road of Yes…No…Maybe? Truthfully, it is impossible to answer this question with a simple yes or no because the definition of “cyst” is so broad. A cyst is a fluid-filled sack. Some are completely benign and don't cause any negative symptoms, while others can be problematic due to their size, impact on hormones, or even malignancy.  To help us understand the different types of cysts and how they can affect fertility, we spoke to Levica H. Narine, MD,...

No one's journey to becoming a parent is the same. For some people, it may involve IVF, and part of that might mean using an egg donor in order to conceive and then either carrying the pregnancy or working with a gestational carrier to carry the pregnancy. But how do you even begin this process?  It can be daunting to choose the right egg donor. You’re making a pivotal decision in your future child’s life, and it’s nothing to take lightly. If you need a little bit of guidance in the process, we’ve got you....

For patients undergoing “traditional” fertility treatments, the protocol for, say, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), is relatively straightforward: A routine egg retrieval cycle consists of ovarian stimulation — where the ovaries are injected with hormones to increase the number of mature eggs available for fertilization — on the second or third day of the patient’s menstrual cycle (soon after the period begins). This process continues for about 12-14 days. After the egg retrieval, a fresh embryo transfer can take place within two to five days, or the embryos can be frozen. There is another option, however. It’s called a “back-to-back” egg...

I always swore growing up that I would never drive a minivan. I hated them. Despite having grown up with them to be able to travel with my siblings and parents in my large family, I always imagined a much cooler way to get around.  Ironically, I always envisioned having a large family myself — three, maybe four children and a partner to raise them with. I just always envisioned driving something, anything else. Of all the things I knew for certain about my future, being a mother was and is the most important to...