We're joined by three exceptional women Jen Vesbit,

Maya Grobel and Gina Davis. Each carries a

unique story, tales of decisions made around leftover

embryos and the contemplation of using donor

embryos. Their candid revelations promise to inspire,

inform and perhaps even challenge your own

perceptions. And before we dive in, a quick note for our

listeners. Do visit the Fempower Health website, where you can

find content tailored to your interests or life stage.

And if this episode resonates with you or sheds light on areas

you've always wondered about, please take a moment to leave us a review.

Your feedback helps spread the word and ensures our content reaches

those who need it most. And if you find value in our discussions, don't

forget to share it with friends and loved ones. So now let's set

sail on this introspective journey, exploring the intricacies of the

decisions that shape lives.

Thank you all so much for joining the

FemPower Health podcast. We are here to discuss

a difficult but really important topic, and

that is embryos. And I'm so honored that all of

you can join. And I definitely want you to do the round of

introductions where you also share your personal story. But

what's exciting is this is the first time I've had four people

on. I think the most I've had is three total

people. And so I'm really excited that there's going to be four of us

here to connect. And I'm just

really excited for everything you all have to share because

embryo donation, whether you have leftover embryos, what to do with

them, you want to donate or you need donated embryos,

it's all tough. None of it is perfect. And so that's what we're here to

talk about today. All right, so why don't we go around

and what I would love to start with is tell us who you

are, your background, and whatever you're comfortable sharing about

what brought you here today. So, Maya, why don't

we start with you? Okay.

Thank you for having us.

I am. I'm Maya. I'm a licensed clinical social worker

and psychotherapist in the field of reproductive medicine. And

I had a four plus year

fertility journey that ended with

the birth of my now eight year old daughter who was

conceived through embryo donation. And embryo

donation wasn't exactly the path

I intended to build a family with, but that's where I landed,

and it taught me a lot of different things in the process.

My husband and I also made a film called One More Shot

that came out on Netflix, and it documented our journey to parenthood.

And after that film came out, because it was in all English

speaking countries, we got emails from people

who were offering us their embryos. And it was the

first time I even conceptualized this as an option.

We really didn't know a lot about embryo donation. I had done

IVF. I'd done obviously, IUIs

sort of the gateway into the fertility treatment. But we did IVF.

We did not create any embryos ourselves. I have diminished ovarian

reserve. And so we very quickly went to IVF,

and my sister ended up donating eggs to us at

some point. And we did a lot. And we

learned about embryo donation just through a clinic based program. And

we thought, okay, I guess you don't really know a

lot. And then once the film came out and I

saw people reaching out and then realized you don't even think about having

remaining embryos when you can't make any yourself, in a way. Right? So

I didn't even consider this, and I thought, oh my gosh, these people, they're

sending photos of their children. They're saying, if you need help, we

can help you. And at that point, I already had a child

and wasn't really ready to jump into anything

again. But anyways, it really just opened

up this concept of people have remaining embryos and

they're willing to help other people grow their family. And what does that mean and

how do you make sense of sharing

genetics in this way? And as I started really learning about the

landscape of embryo donation, I learned a lot of things that I thought were

challenging on both sides. And I also learned that there

are well over a million embryos being stored around this

country. And embryo donation is

not that popular. I mean, it's becoming more and

more popular. But anyways, I just realized

there was a lot of work to be done in this space, especially in terms

of education and supporting people. I transitioned my career

to really focus on reproductive

medicine and fertility patients and third party reproduction.

And that was, I guess, a decade ago. And so now here I am

with these two lovely ladies, and we created EM-POWER together.

And did I cover everything? Did you mention the

part about where you are a psychotherapist and also

specialize in reproductive medicine? Correct. So you have, like, deep, deep

knowledge and empathy for what people are going. Through outside of just even

your absolutely. And I was a therapist for a good amount of

time before I became a fertility patient and then transitioned my career.

And my background is child welfare, and I worked with kids

and families who were really struggling. And I think that's also given me

a lens to think about the whole family

when you're talking about whether it's embryo donation or third party

reproduction. And it felt like a little bit of a missing link in

some ways that really understanding the needs of the

children who are conceived in this way. So anyways, it's just

an added kind of lens and it's something we focus on at Empower is just

really helping people create long term healthy

families because it's not just about getting pregnant, it's know

all the different players, all the different people involved. So

Jen, tell us about yourself and your journey.

I'll cut to the end and then I'll go back. I am an

embryo donor myself, which know why

I work in this field, am attracted to this field, think about

embryo donation all the time. My history

with infertility is I was in

a marriage at the time where we were diagnosed with male factor

infertility. It was the typical try for one year.

I was in my thirty s at the time, and then if nothing happens,

you can see a fertility specialist. So we did that.

We did everything we could to increase sperm count,

acupuncture, anything you could think of. And then finally at

the end it was like, okay, really the only way for you

to conceive a child outside of some sort of miracle

is IVF and ICSI.

So we did that. We went through one cycle,

and at the end of that cycle there were two viable

embryos. They transferred both. This is back when they were still transferring

two embryos. This is pre genetic testing. I mean,

they were doing it, but not a lot at the time, and so I did

get pregnant. And then when I went to the eight

week check for heartbeat, there was not one so

very devastating time in my life, as a lot of your

audience probably understands. And

I felt like, I don't even know if I could go through it one more

time. And I know that there are people that go through many, many rounds of

IUIs and IVFs, and for me

it was very difficult, but we did decide

to give it one more shot and

we moved across the country. So I currently live in Portland, Oregon,

and we used a fertility clinic here and we were successful.

So this time around, at the end, we had three viable

embryos, they transferred two. I became pregnant with

twins, I had twins in 2012,

and then I had one single remaining embryo.

So as many people with remaining embryos can

relate to, I would get my annual storage bill saying,

what would you like to do with these? In my case, I hadn't

recalled filling out a disposition option before IVF

because my focus was just to be a mom and I just would sign whatever

and not really think about long term consequences.

So the storage bill would come. For the first couple

of years, it was a no brainer to just continue to pay storage

because we had newborn twins and then toddler

twins. But then around the time that the

twins were four, we really started thinking about, okay, what are we going to

do? My partner preferred to donate to

science or medical research, and I either

wanted to try for another child on my own, or if that

wasn't going to work for us as a family, I wanted to

donate. So in the end, we decided to donate.

My clinic at the time was not doing any sort of directed

open donations, and that was important to me. So I went

off on my own and found a recipient. When my

twins were five, she had a baby

boy. And so sometimes

you think, okay, that's where the journey ends. Like, I made my decision,

she got a baby, I have my twins. But what I

found is really that's when a new journey began, and that is

how to navigate talking to our children

about teaching them from a very young age. My

twins were five years older, so I sort of have done a lot more of

that. And now that he's six, she is talking to

him more. But it's been quite a learning

process and a beautiful experience to see how the children

conceptualize the fact that they have a full

genetic sibling living in another household.

And I could go on and on and on about that and how it's been

and the ebbs and flows throughout the years, but I will just say that

it's really been a beautiful experience. I should also say

that I have my master's degree in counseling. Around

the time when I had my miscarriage, I was graduating.

And so I became a nationally certified counselor. And

so when I was going through the process of

my recipient becoming pregnant and having her child, I really felt

like, where are my people? Where is anybody that knows what this

feels like? And I couldn't find anybody. So I started my own web

community website and started running support groups for people

with remaining embryos that either had donated and

were kind of navigating the feelings of donation or

had not made their decision and were needing to hear from

others who had made similar decisions. So I did

that for a few years, just free online groups on my

own. And that's what led me to meet, I think, Gina first

and then Maya. And so maybe this is a good transition into

Gina's story. Thank you so much. And it's funny with each of your stories, I'm

like, I have a million questions, but we're going to try to cover

the broad areas. But what I really appreciate is people being able

to hear the personal stories because everyone has such an experience. And

I know when I went through my four year fertility journey. It was truly

the experience of others because it's like a different world.

People who didn't have to go through this don't understand. And it's not

a negative thing. It's a just if you haven't done it, it's just different. And

so the community is huge. So, Gina, tell us your

story. So, yeah, my story begins

a little earlier because I actually went into the field of infertility

right out of college. I knew I wanted to be a genetic counselor in

infertility, so I was working as a medical assistant from the time I was 21.

I was working with fertility patients, and then I went to graduate

school, became a genetic counselor, got my dream job, was working

at UCSF. I was working with some of the best and the brightest IVF

doctors. Seeing patients and never really imagining that I was going to be in

their shoes. I mean, I know the stats. So I was like, well, there's a

possibility. But it wasn't like I went in there thinking I was going to be

a fertility patient. I just really connected with the experience of

how do you make meaning of going through fertility treatment and

making genetic testing decisions and all the complication. Like, I like

science and all that stuff, but I like the human aspect of

science. So anyway, I had been working as a genetic counselor in a fertility

practice for several years before my husband and I started trying on

our own. And we started trying for a kid for our first

baby and was surprised because I was really young.

I was 27 when we first started. And I was just thinking,

I looked at all the data and I was like, I think we're going to

be fine. So I really didn't take it very seriously when we weren't getting pregnant

right away, lo and behold, I had unexplained

infertility, and we went through some stuff, as

many people do. I went through several IUIs I went through

several surgeries. Again, it was unexplained, but there were things there's

always something, okay, well, maybe these dermoids are in the way and

we'll get these out so we can do stimulation. And then they found

later, they found a septum in my uterus and there's just like a couple of

different things. But I was not really prepared for really

good news. And when I had my stimulation, I

stimulated like an egg donor. I made so many eggs that I was like,

whoa, this is a good problem. I could only see it as I'm winning the

lottery. Oh my gosh, we're going to have a child.

I was on a high that we had so many eggs. They were

monitoring, and I was like, okay, I was doing the numbers. I'm like, there's just

unless something is really crazy, I'm going to have a baby. So I was just

really excited. My IVF cycle was actually

quite fun in the grand scheme of things because I was

like, okay, this is finally going to happen.

Ultimately, we had all these eggs and I was like, well, what are we going

to do? We had put all our entire life savings at this point into our

cycle. It was in the middle of a recession. There was a lot of financial

reasons, but we decided fertilize all of them and then found out that we

made a ton of embryos. So ultimately I felt like I had won the

lottery and I saw all these patients that I had been working

with and I was just like, I couldn't believe that this

was kind of how it ended for me. Then we had

our transfer. We waited a little while. We transferred our

first embryo and it took. And that resulted in the birth of our

son, who's now twelve years old. So it feels like

almost a different lifetime for me, honestly, when I think about this. But

when we had him, it really hit home. I had 18

embryos transferred, one got a baby. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I have

17 embryos in the freezer. What am I going to do? That is a lot

of embryos. And I started just starting just kind of do

the math in my head of how many kids can I have? How can I

handle this? And then I was really looking at myself as a mom and going,

this mom thing, it's way harder than I thought and

it takes more of my soul than I ever really

understood. And I started just conceptualizing this whole piece

so differently of like, how much can I give to

one child, let alone a lot more? And it really started to

weigh on me that there were a lot of embryos in the freezer and there

were a lot of parents that could be amazing parents, but they didn't have the

luck I had. We ended up transferring another embryo down the line. That's my

daughter. So our two transfers worked. We have two wonderful kids.

I had hit my bandwidth and I was like, I don't think I can I

have more in me to be a good mom to more than

two. And I really wanted to be a good mom. I had had such a

hard childhood myself that I was like, it is such an important thing to

me to be present and engage with my kids and walk through life with them.

I don't want a huge family so that I'm so diluted. I've diluted

in my life that's my experiences, I dilute my efforts

all the time. I'm like, I want to do everything and I try to do

everything and then fail miserably, right? Like, I'm constantly learning

that I'm human and there's limits. And I didn't want to do it with this

chapter of my life. I wanted to write it differently. So it was really

intentional that I reached out for support that. I looked for support

everywhere and I couldn't find it. The only thing I could find,

which is how I met Jen, is she was only one talking about all the

emotions that went into this. And I was like, yes, that's what I'm talking about.

All the people in my clinical circle I had know, I

knew professionals. Nobody was talking about the emotions, it was just the

mechanics. And I knew how clinics ran, I knew why it

was, but I saw this huge gap and nobody was talking about this stuff

that so many people are dealing with because so many people use

IVF now. And it's not an exact science. You typically don't

end up with just the exact amount that you had planned to have your family.

And it's like nobody then the math doesn't make any sense, right? You don't even

know what the variables are going in, like how many kids you want, how many

kids you can handle. All that stuff is just all a

gamble. I ended up donating to my uncle and his wife as our

first recipient. And that happened because I was gathering family

history and I asked, does anybody have any updated

information? I'm going to be donating my embryos. I know this is a weird thing,

but hey, I just want to get the best information I can. And my

uncle reached out to me and said, do you have any extra that you would

be willing to donate to us? And it really got me thinking, and

then it's been the most beautiful experience. Their little girl is five

years old as of yesterday. So I

have my twelve year old and my daughter who's eight, and then they have a

five year old daughter who is amazing. And we have this very unique

relationship where she's just like this amazingly special cousin. They know she's

her sister. Genetically, of course, everybody knows in the family, but we've really

had to, really had to unpack how families

conceptualize this because our family was like, oh, what is

she to you? Everybody's kind of like walking on eggshells

at the very beginning, not knowing how to even talk about it in my extended

family because she's technically my cousin, even though

she's genetically my daughter. And so it's just a little bit we have a little

bit of that family dynamic thing. It's kind of a long story,

but we do have seven remaining embryos that we're still

planning to donate. I'm going to be on our platform very soon. We have a

matching platform, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but I'm going to be on the

platform soon because we're looking for our next recipient and I'm

hoping that those are going to become babies as well.

Wow. Well, thank you. Thank you all so much for sharing your

stories. I agree with you, the mechanics

aren't always fun, but I do think it's important to discuss

one element of the mechanics. So I'm assuming people who are listening to

this episode already understand IVF

and what an embryo is and all that. So we're going to skip past it.

And if there's anyone who happens to be listening who wants to understand all of

this, you can go to the FEMpower Health website and there's a whole section

on trying to conceive infertility where there's all sorts of information

to educate us around those types of things. So sticking to

embryo donation in and of itself. I know, Maya, when we were first getting

to know each other, you were sharing how there really isn't like a

system or process. What are the issues

that people are facing because there isn't a great system

around it until what you all have built now. So maybe, Maya, you

can start and share a little bit about that. Yeah. What are the challenges? Well,

how long do you have? Georgie

and I do want to be solution focused because I think that's

what we're really focusing on. But one of the bigger challenges or

gaps that we saw when we got together and really started

exploring the space is like a real lack of education

around embryo donation or just embryo disposition

in general. When you go through IVF and have remaining

embryos, or if you have remaining embryos, you sign a form at the

front end of your cycle that says, what do you want to do?

Do you want to, whatever, continue storing? Do you

want to discard thaw and discard them, which is essentially get rid of them? Do

you want to donate to science or do you want to donate to somebody else?

How somebody can make that decision on the front end if they're going to donate

their embryos that they don't know if they have or not to some other

person. In what way? In an anonymous way, in a

known way, in giving to my uncle kind of way.

It's not really a fair question on the front end in some ways, but everybody

signs these forms for legalities and the clinics need to

have an understanding of what people want to do. So the

first thing I think that we really see as a challenge is educating people

on what are their options and what do these options mean? And

now that PGT genetic testing has become really

popular, people get a lot more information about their embryos. They

get sometimes told a percentage chance this has to become

a child. They get the sex of the

embryo sometimes. And so people's conceptualization around

these remaining embryos and what they mean can be very complicated.

And we've researched a lot in this field. There's not a ton

of research. But what we've learned is that people really struggle for about

five years with what to do with the remaining embryos and that the

disposition dilemma is really strong. And so what do people do?

They get paralyzed and they go, all right, let's just pay for storage for another

year. Let's just pay for storage. And so for about five years down the line,

if you really go, well, okay, we're not going to need these embryos,

then you got to shit or get off the pot. Essentially. You got

to figure out what you're going to do. We're literally at that five year mark

now and going through the exact same thing now with my uncle.

Yeah, it's almost like clockwork. We're like, oh, we really need to make a

decision now. It's getting to be and choice fees. Are increasing now too, because there's

not enough space. And embryos are teeny tiny, but it takes a lot

of effort and resources and protection

to store these teeny tiny embryos. And with egg freezing becoming more

popular in the last, let's say, five to ten years, it's just

becoming a challenge. So the challenges are

multifaceted in some ways. The challenges are for the

patients, specifically patients who have remaining embryos and have to figure out what to

do, what they want to do. And the challenge is also for the

clinic. So the clinics are really struggling with we have all these

embryos. Historically,

clinics have sometimes offered embryo donation, but in a very

anonymous way, so that patients could essentially

give their embryos to the clinic, relinquish custody

or legal custody of these embryos to the clinic, and then the clinic decides what

to do with them. So we've seen and we've gathered information

about just different protocols and processes where somebody could

have twelve embryos. I mean, or look at Gina situations. Let's say 16

embryos and then they're given to one family and then you have

16 potentially genetic full siblings living in likely

the same geographical area. I mean, it's problematic.

Once 23ANDME and ancestry really hit the scene

in an intense way or in a significant way, it changed the

landscape of donor conception. Anonymity does not exist.

And it's taking the clinics and

the industry a little bit of time to kind of catch up and figure out

what to, you know, donor conceived people are speaking

up and laws are being changed. And Colorado is the

first law, first state to pass a law about not

allowing donor anonymity in the same way that it's been allowed in

this country. And so there are a lot of things at play at the same

time that I think create this challenge, but also a real opportunity

for us as an industry to shift to

a family centered, child centered approach to

alternative family building. Anyway, so we created this

moxie matching as our matching platform where people can

connect, meet and match. And then we can facilitate

some of these early, like helping them navigate these early relationships that

are very new and nuanced. But because we have this professional

experience with clinics and understanding the pain points

at the clinic level, it also allows us to help

journey, manage and help people figure out, okay, if I'm going to ship

embryos. How do I do that? And the legal piece of it. And

we really follow ASRM guidelines in terms of making sure people have

genetic counseling, making sure people have

psychological support, mental health counseling, and then also

legal, which are the three kind of

ancillary supports that people can have so that

everybody gets set up. Well, the foundation of this

next path is really set up. I

would say, like, each of these areas warrants its own deep dive. And it

sounds like your organization will have a lot of those resources for people

who really want to dive in deep. So,

Jen, given that you've built this

community and have helped people have those

conversations and dialogue, what are some

surprising things that people may not find or discover

if they're googling these tough choices and what to do?

What might be some considerations,

or what have you found to help people

get over this hump or the consideration

sets they should have as they go through their journey? That's a great

question. I think one of the first basic questions

that I don't know that everyone thinks about is really how do you

conceptualize an embryo when you're

considering donation? What are the reasons you're

considering donation? Do you feel like because of your faith? Do

you feel like this is a must for you when you have no choice, no

matter what difficult feelings come along with it? Do

you make a decision based on wanting to help another

person who has been through something similar

to you, whether it's failed IVF or miscarriage or

just in general, sort of a giving back? For me, I was in the

latter category. For me, in the end,

I chose to donate because I felt like it gave almost more

purpose to all the pain I had been through by helping somebody

else. So when people come to me and they're

really struggling with decisions, it sort of starts at that base.

Like, how do you conceptualize this embryo and

really what are the options you do feel comfortable with?

I think another thing that makes embryo donors

unique when they're considering this is they all

have children, right? And we talk about feelings changing over time, and

Maya talked about the disposition option in the beginning. I mean, not

only do you not know if you're going to create embryos, you also don't know

how you will feel once you have your own children and you see

these beautiful people in the world and you know that there are other

genetically related embryos somewhere that can go

somewhere. And so I think that's sort of a two part thing is you

start to think about an embryo differently sometimes once you see your own

children. And at the same time, it can

cause a lot of fear or

trepidation, like, well, if I do donate this embryo and I have an

open relationship, will this child feel like mine?

Will it. Be really difficult for me if they look like one

of my children or myself. And so there are a

lot of fears that kind of go into

considering donation. And so we talk about those fears and

like you said, nobody else is really going to understand

unless you are in this particular position. And I know

exactly what you mean. Like, you almost don't have to say anything.

You either get it or you don't. And I had a lot of very wonderful

girlfriends that were helping me through this when I was trying to decide what to

do with my embryo. They were fantastic, but at the same time,

they didn't really get it. And I would get comments like, oh,

I could never do that. And that would immediately make me shut down

because I was so sensitive. And I felt like, judged.

And so having these peer support groups

and people that have been through it and know how it feels is very

important. So I think the biggest thing, and

my biggest message to people and know what Gina picked up on when

she was reading my stuff, is you don't know

exactly how you're going to feel. You can't plan for how you're going

to feel if you do choose donation, but the best thing that you can

do is to let yourself feel. So if those feelings

are like absolute joy from the moment that you

find the person that you're going to donate to and the child is born

and it's wonderful. And then a lot of people have these sort of extended

family relationships, that's great. But if you're

afraid that you might feel jealous at times, like, I

had those own fears and I experienced them and

I spoke about them, and so I think it's really just

that sharing and openness and being able to

say it out loud that really gets you

through it in a positive way, in a supported way. And then

again, there are some people that have come out of my support groups and decided,

this isn't for me. They really explored

how they might feel and they decide at the

end, I'm going to donate to science or lab

research or whatever, which is great too. Like Maya

said, we believe in embryo donation because

we're living it at the same time. It's definitely not for

everybody. And by the way, I just want to also say for anyone who is

listening, we cannot judge anyone for any

decision they make because it is so hard.

And like you said, Jen, I think all of you have alluded to. This is

like you can never predict what you may decide

at given stages because each bit of data gives

you new information. I'm so grateful,

but I play in this space of grateful. And why

didn't I get to choose? Like, I would have loved to say I'm done with

one. And by not having the ability to choose,

I felt slighted so to speak, even though

I'm also grateful. So it's like these mixed emotions

and I'm assuming you guys will all say as you're nodding, like it's

okay, I'm grateful and sad all at the same

time. It helps to make the rest of your life easier if

you can actually land on something like, oh,

well, I didn't anticipate that I was going to have to make

these decisions. I have to bend my idea of the future. Oh

my gosh, what does that even mean? And so I

think for me, I think that it really was

coming into contact with all the intentionality of my

life, the things that I was able to control, the things I wasn't able to

control, and just finding space to be okay with being in the

middle somewhere. And I think you're really talking to something important. Georgie

when it comes to the idea of, you know,

very few mean, I guess if you're in a same

sex relationship and you need the alternative technologies

to have a family, but for the most part, when you

find yourself in a fertility clinic, it's not by choice. It's by

choice, but it's not because you want to be there, essentially. And so I

think for those of us who get

to the path of embryo donation, that's generally after a lot of other

stuff has happened, you spent a lot of time, emotional

resources, financial resources, that mental gymnastics

of, okay, now I'm going to shift to an egg donor. I mean, even just

embracing IVF or

having a doctor be part of your family building, there's a lot of

pieces of this and I think sometimes it can be very traumatic for people

and it changes for some people. You go in, you do

your thing and you get out by the skin of your teeth and you have

a family. But I think for other people who've really had to let go

of pieces of themselves, like literal pieces of themselves, whether that's the

ability to carry or the opportunity to carry or your genetics,

it feels like you're landing somewhere where you don't have choices. I have to do

the only way I can do this is to have a family. And when you're

pushed up against a wall like that as a potential recipient, let's

say, of embryos, it can be a little bit challenging. And

I work with a lot of people just in my

private practice on sort of transitioning through some of this

trauma and history and emotional experience to a place of feeling really

confident with how you're moving forward. And it's

expanding your definition of what makes a family

or know people come with a lot of fears, which

know, jen's talking about the fears for embryo donors in some ways, but there are

a lot of fears on the other side too. Will this child feel like both

parties are feeling? Will this child feel like mine? This child's going to feel like

somebody's, right? But people are having

these common experiences and

how do you just make sense of it when the gap between

what you expected to happen in your life and the reality of what's going

on? Plus, I don't have a lot of time to do

this. Everybody's freaking out because it's like you wanted

this to happen yesterday and our age matters in the

fertility world and stuff. So I think we're really dealing with I don't have a

lot of options, I don't have a lot of choices. And what we've really tried

to do at Empower is not to sound too cliche, but

really empower people to understand what their choices are and to feel like they

have choice. And part of that is the idea of having a directed

opportunity where you can self select, you can match with

each other. You're not going in and ordering an embryo

from a clinic. And as a donor, you're not just giving up or giving

your genetics your embryo for somebody else to

make a decision about, because there are things beyond what color

hair you have and your height and whatever

that connect for people. But again, it's certainly back

to what are my choices and how do I understand these choices and how do

I feel comfortable and confident with my choice rather than I don't

have a choice here, I have to just find an embryo that works and if

they have red hair, great or whatever. Right. And so it's just changing the

narrative around this a little bit. Right. So

a question to that, as you were talking, what occurred to

me also is we're in this society where

things are quick fix, so to speak, because

everything is just moving at such a fast pace and I think all of us

want answers yesterday, or solutions. We want the pill

to fix everything. And it's clear that this is not that

kind of a situation. But as you also said,

Maya, our bodies are on a clock and

this is mean. Yes, someone may be listening to this episode

and say, OK, my question is, do I donate my

embryo or do I use a donated embryo?

But it's bigger than that because

I want a family. How does it happen? What are

all my options? Oh, by the way, I'm Gina

Fast. And it's very

stressful because you're both racing for an

answer every month. You don't know what's going to happen

with that cycle, but then you also know

you have to make a decision. Oh, by the way, you're also emotionally.

Stressed because I meet with people that are considering going on

our matching platform and they'll come and they'll say, I know I

want a boy, I know I want this and I know I want that. And

what we try to do is, yes, great, let us help you. But

at the same time, leave some space for your feelings changing.

Like you might really connect with a donor that has

girls, and that could be okay too. So we really try to help

people through this urgency, and this is what I

want, especially in 2023, where, again, technically,

you can say, okay, here's a boy, you can check off the

boxes. But because

it's a lifelong journey and so it's that

leaving space for feelings, changing over time that I think

helps sort of people through this. And we're very

supportive through the process, and we help with matches and we

help communicate needs and wants and all of that.

So hopefully the people that sort of come through our system,

yes, feel that intensity, but at the same time feel very

supported with the decisions that they

make, whether or not it's what they thought they wanted the

day that they first called us. And two,

also with our education materials with we talked

about we've talked about the spectrum of relationship options. So somebody

might come in thinking, I want this, I want

very little contact, or I want a very open relationship, and then

they might watch our webinar and learn, okay, there's

other places where my feelings can go. And I think that's

also important. Like you mentioned, if you have a partner involved, because again,

the decision not everybody has the same

thing in mind. So we try to do a lot of support

and education around all of that. The truth is that it

is just an entirely new journey that you're on when you embark

on embryo donation as either a recipient or as a donor.

And that making space for you to grow, for your family to grow,

for other narratives to be involved, for other people's feelings to be involved.

It's like the life lesson we learned through all this is that,

oh, it's not just about what I had intended for

my future. It's like all these other people are involved in my world

too now, and how do I make space for that? It's

really beautiful. That's the thing, is that this changed completely from

and that's why the logistics, mechanics of it are just

the top layer. And it's like all this other stuff that you're learning along the

way that you're like, there was a reason I was meant to go on this

journey. I would never have chosen it for myself

if I could have scripted out what my journey of life would have

been. But honestly, wow, what a gift

to have been able to see through the lenses of all these different

people, because that was part of why it was so hard for me,

was I had all this fear of a child that would never be able to

forgive me for in my mind, giving them away

and not being able to be that for

that child. That maybe what they needed, what they thought they needed. And how much

was that projection of my own childhood experience? It took me a long time

to unearth the fears that I had and to really stand back and

say, well, there are things I can do to be my best self in

this, in what decisions I make today. And that

was what has really called me that I'm like, oh my gosh, it is a

gift, even though it was not again, a gift I would have wanted to

accept at the time. It's been really beautiful.

Right, well, I was just going to know on the other side of this, like

what you're speaking about, georgie also or touched on this idea of

time and relationships and all of

that, know, my husband and I were in this

for about three and a half years before we landed on embryo donation.

And it became very clear to me that if we don't get out

of this life of being fertility patients, we

might not make it out of this.

It's really hard. And I mean, that's what our film is really about.

And when we were

filming it, that was sort of our trauma narrative and

we kind of filmed and just kind of went through the process a bit. But

when I look back at it, I can really see it was a really critical

moment for us to pivot and to really think of what is

the best, also fastest and also not

super expensive. We didn't have the money. I

mean, I was just getting out of grad school. We bought a place and then

literally fertility stuff happened. We just didn't have

$100,000 to go through X, Y and Z

multiple times. So we had to make smart decisions and we had to make them

fast and we wanted to stay

together if we could. And I could see what was happening to me and to

our dynamic. So the thing about embryo donation is these embryos

exist, they're there, and it is a faster path for

some people. It is a really good option for some single

women who may have we've worked with several, like

they froze their eggs in their late thirty s and now are in their forty

s and it's a different opportunity

for different populations who've been a bit underserved by embryo donation

in general because of various kind of politics

around embryo donation. But it's faster and it's also the

only truly altruistic gamete donation. You don't pay

for an embryo, you match and you have to go through the process.

But it's a much more affordable option, which I think fertility

treatment is expensive and insurance coverage

has changed over the last decade. Since I was a patient, I didn't have any

coverage and a lot of people still don't. And so I think that there

are different reasons why people come to embryo donation as a recipient,

but the time factor and the cost factor might also play a role in

it. So I do have a question here, which is

bringing up the A word, which is the next episode in

this series on family building, which is adoption,

so many will say, you're so

privileged to go through these options of IVFs

embryo donations. Like, how could you? There's all these children

who need a home. Why aren't you adopting? Or why aren't

you a foster parent? Again, I know there's not

an easy answer that is, like, hard, and so I don't know if we

leave it at, yes, it's hard. Listen to the next episode if

you're looking at that path on how you might handle

those dynamics. But I don't know if there's anything to

just mention here, to just acknowledge sometimes

those dynamics likely from people who aren't in your

shoes to know how freaking hard this is.

Adoption is an amazing choice. I started down the pathway,

honestly, when I was going down the pathway, I

was told by adoption specialists, I went to multiple

meetings, that it's a hard time to adopt. I was told

the expense of it is quite expensive

and you're going to talk to Erin next episode, and she's a friend of ours,

and we love her, and she's done some amazing work to make this a more

affordable path for people. But when I was looking into it, it was upwards

of $30,000 plus. And after you've gone through fertility

treatments, you've gone through loss, you've gone through genetic grief,

I was like, if I can give birth to my child, that would

be a huge win. And that was my own personal feeling. But for people who

aren't as connected to that or who have other challenges

with carrying a pregnancy, adoption is an amazing option. But I don't think

it's like, you're a fertility patient, therefore you should just

adopt. I don't think it's as simple as that. I think it's you're trying to

build a family. Let's look at what's there and what is going to feel like

the best path forward. So I think adoption should be included

in the fertility space. 100%

embryo donation shares some commonalities with adoption, but it's

quite different in a lot of ways. But it's parenting a non genetic child.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about those questions, and I

think primarily because there wasn't a lot written about embryo donors

that I really started to engage in that literature, trying to understand

the dynamics. And some of the things that are very different for

adoption versus embryo donation is the life path

of the genetic parents, essentially. Is

that like, Jen and I and many embryo donors, we've already

created our families. We've already been through a whole lot, and so we're kind of

at the tail end usually, and we're in a

different place where we're conceptualizing things. And I think it's very different

for many, not all. I mean, there's plenty of

adoptees that are second or third children or whatever to a

birth mom, but I think it's a different experience for a lot of people

that place their children for adoption. And so

from that perspective but I also think that it's not for every on the recipient

side of things, on the parenting side of things, the ability to

take on the dynamics and take

on the child's needs in various situations can be very

different. And we really have to prioritize the

child's needs above everything. And so I think it's really important

that only people that are called to adoption, adopt

and that feel capable of meeting all those things. And

a lot of fertility patients are traumatized after their

experience with fertility and not to the point that they're

necessarily every single one of them should be

adopting. They're both really amazing options for

family building. They both have unique needs

and it's not like we're competing against

that. Embryo donation is

an option and adoption is an option. And I think there's a lot of kids,

there's a lot of embryos that are available.

But actually adoption, it's harder, that's actually harder to find.

I don't know that whenever somebody talks to me about

that, I don't consider my embryos

competing with space in families for the

same places that children that would be adopted would be.

A lot of people choose embryo donation even if they're

using surrogate. And so I

think I'm thinking of this one case, for example, of

two women who were cancer survivors.

Neither one was able to create embryos

before very early intervention to create

embryos, neither were able to carry, but one donated her

embryos to the other. So now they sort of have this extended

family because they're raising genetic

siblings, but they also have this past bond

over this experience of

cancer survival. So even if you're not able to

carry the child yourself, a lot of people are

choosing embryo donation with surrogacy because

of whatever meaning it might bring to that sort of extended

family feeling. I love that. Thank you.

So just to kind of summarize, here one.

I am so honored that each of you shared your

story and like so many of us in women's health,

we have struggled and we are here to

say let's help others. And a lot of the

they're called femtech companies are coming out because of

that. It's not just fertility. There's a lot of

conditions in women's health that are underresearched,

underfunded, not well understood. And

if those ahead of us couldn't make the change, we women

who've struggled are. And I really appreciate you

sharing the honest dynamics that people who

are trying to build their families need to think about and

acknowledging that it's hard. And I hope those who've listened, who

maybe aren't going through it, but know someone who is, have a lot more

empathy for how darn hard and scary this is

and can be supportive. So to

end on such a beautiful, even more beautiful note, I don't even know how this

has been such a beautiful discussion, who would like to share the

story? Each match that we're working with

and supporting is just uniquely sweet and special and

beautiful. But I'm thinking about one particular match of

a single man, and we don't hear a lot about single men. Not not a

gay man, a single straight man who after

a divorce went through fertility,

right, went through trying to build a family with an egg donor and a

surrogate and was successful and had remaining

embryos and decided he'd like to give another single

person an opportunity. And let me tell you, for single men

going through this kind of process, it is hard. It is really

hard. And there's stigma and there's all kinds of stuff. But anyways, he's just a

lovely, lovely person and has a child

who's I believe six or somewhere around there and decided he wanted to

help another single person and they matched on

our platform. And it's one of those things where we're just

like we just love them anyways. And we're getting to

the end of the journey management piece and hopefully the beginning of a new journey

for this recipient. And

there are moments where it's like she's still surprised that this has happened for

her. Anyways, it just

warms my heart and that we're able to help people

find their families. And probably in this case, it

will be an extended family kind of scenario, and the children will know each other,

and we'll be able to provide this long term family support so that they have

the language and the tools to talk to these children who are full

genetic siblings with different homes and different single parents that are

awesome. And I don't know, that's just top

of my mind because we're really in it with them right now,

right? Yeah. Wow, I love that because

you're right, everyone's story is so different. It's like, how do you pick? Because there

are and this is definitely not a game,

so to speak, on who gets the best option. But I'm

glad I asked the question because that is such a beautiful story because

I know right now women are

underfunded, under researched. We women need more. We deserve better. But

I actually have a lot of men come to me and say, but there's a

lot for men you don't understand yet either. And here you go with

that example. So thank you. And thank you

all so much for making time. And the show notes

will have all the information on how to stay in touch

with you all. And are there any last requests or

statements or have we covered this in every

perspective possible in a short episode? Yeah, no,

I think we could. I know. Anybody want to

talk about embryos? But no, we just really appreciate

we appreciate the work that you're doing and the way you're educating and informing

people, and we're just so grateful to be a part of it because we know

this is a real topic for a lot of people

going through fertility and yeah having embryos. So

thank you for having us. Awesome. Thank you. And I'm so happy the three of

you were brought together to do this.