achieving dreams

Using Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) to Achieve a Family: An Industry Insider’s Tips on Managing Your Treatment

by Mindy on November 10, 2010

Fourteen years ago, I was confronted with my own infertility struggles: after having a successful first pregnancy, my husband and I were not able to get pregnant a second time and I was eventually diagnosed with unknown secondary infertility. Over several years’ time, I went through numerous insemination cycles and several in vitro fertilization cycles before becoming pregnant with twin boys. Treatment was difficult, both physically and emotionally and at times strained what was, until then, a very happy union.

Going through all this instilled in me a desire to help others through their own infertility cycles, and eventually lead me to start my own company, Lotus Blossom Consulting. What I present in this article are the lessons I learned not only from my own treatment, but also the sum of over fourteen years’ experience working in the industry and walking with others through their cycles.

I hope that this toolbox of ideas and pointers helps you as much as it does all my other clients.

ART is a full time job

For many who have not gone through infertility treatment, or who may have just started, they might wonder why there is so much fuss about injections and cycles, and treatment. We quickly realize that it is not just the stress of not being able to have your own child; assisted reproductive technology, in all its glory, is extremely hard to undergo financially, emotionally and physically.

Infertility cycles using ART require a strict and sometimes painful treatment regimen, involving heavy dosages of injectable medications, needles, policies about when to have sex, and frequent trips to the physician. Women may need several days off over the course of treatment for recovery. On top of it all, ART is not cheap, and if you are lucky, insurance might cover some of the cost. Finally, significant gaps of time pass with no results. There is a lot of “wait and see” in an ART cycle.

For many, such a strain on time, body and budget inevitably impacts their professional and personal relationships. Will you be able to get time off without having the entire office know? Do you tell your family? Will they be supportive? How long will it take to get pregnant? Can you afford more than one cycle? These issues along with a host of others create stress even in good situations. Managing all of these physical, emotional and financial arms is what makes an ART cycle another full time job. What this leads to is extreme stress, and it is clear that people make bad decisions under duress. My system encourages you to think about the whole picture and lay a foundation before treatment, so that decisions you make, at the time you make them, are the ones in hindsight you are glad you made.

7 effective strategies to maximize your opportunity

I have seven points that I go through with all of my clients when I first meet with them. This helps us clarify goals, examine differences of opinion and determine answers to “if, then” scenarios. This is the foundation of the family building plan. Talking through these points alleviates some of the stress that can crop up later, and allows you to move forward more quickly and confidently when treatment does not go as planned.

Enlist a team approach including multi disciplinary professionals to address specific needs
“Enlisting a team approach” means relying on the professionals available to you for their area of expertise. What I often see are people who look to their physician or nurses for emotional support and counseling as well as legal and financial advice. As wonderful and caring as these people are, oftentimes they are unable to fulfill this role. Not only is this not their function, but they simply do not have the time to be the emotional ballast for all of their patients. People become unhappy with their doctor when there is no fault to blame. The solution is to rely on them for their subject matter expertise and use your friends, family and a therapist for emotional support. Use your legal counsel for your contracts in a third party cycle, and your accountant or financial planner for help planning costs.

Establish a foundation of financial resources

Speaking of financial planners, the second step I review with clients is making sure that at the outset, they have enough funds set aside not only to pay for one treatment cycle, but to cover all potential costs involved with two cycles. It is a very real possibility, especially depending upon your diagnosis, that the first cycle might not be successful. Balancing hope with caution is an essential element to staying positive and clear when treatment does not go as planned, and having the financial resources available to move immediately to the next step if necessary takes some strain out of the situation.

Define the end family building goal

Understanding how big you want your family to be drives early decisions, particularly financial planning. Additionally, this impacts how you might use your insurance benefits and how you handle third party cycles.

Set financial parameters and timeframes to help guide you through treatment options and establish indicators to know when to change the course of treatment

Establishing financial parameters and timeframes means discussing the common “if, then” scenarios encountered with ART as well as your own personal situation. It involves taking an honest look at your diagnosis and realistic outcomes in terms of your family’s financial plan. Although this is difficult, it is easier to do when you, your partner and physician are not already invested in one, two, or however many cycles down the road; it is easier now than when you are already tapped out financially and have used up all of your insurance benefits. Having the discussion as part of the foundation building component of your treatment allows for an optimal decision. You avoid having the decision tainted by any other undue stress.

Analyze each chance of success in conjunction with the financial outlay. Enlist an independent unbiased perspective to help you since judgment is often clouded by intense emotions.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, part of setting parameters and timeframes is taking an honest look at your diagnosis and the average success rate given your situation. Use an infertility consultant or other professional whose opinion you value to help guide you and your partner through this process.

Communicate often and openly with your partner to identify and address each others’ concerns. Work together to be effective team leaders.

We hear this often enough to know that this is a fundamental truth to any good relationship. Easier said than done, right? If you find it hard to communicate with your partner, enlist a professional to help you with this. Infertility treatment is well known to cause stress and strain even in a good, solid partnership. Break the ice; bring up the issue- do what you need to keep the relationship healthy through the stress.

Make informed medical decisions and be confident in your decisions as you work to achieve results.

In order to be confident with your decisions and secure in your plan, you need to make informed medical decisions. Knowing at the highest point of stress, or when the worst “what if” scenario becomes a reality, that you made your decisions in good stead with open and honest communication with your partner and your team gives a great sense of comfort and eases the pain.

Making an informed decision involves educating yourself about your diagnosis and the available treatment options for your condition. It means realistically analyzing the chance of success for each treatment option in light of your financial situation. Do not be afraid to ask your physicians all the questions you have, and seek a second opinion if you feel you need to. Additionally, do your insurance homework to ensure that you maximize all your lifetime benefits. Call your provider more than once if need be and send a letter to them requesting your benefits in writing.

Also, plan for multiple cycles and if you are using a third party, identify the best possible resources for donors or surrogates. Identifying a candidate that closely meets your criteria affords a confidence level for the cycle, and with resources available nationwide there is no need to settle for a candidate.

ART does not have to be overwhelming. ART can be challenging, sometimes scary, often exciting and always very powerful. Do not be afraid to ask questions and seek help. The rewards you reap as a result of your effort and hard work building the foundation for your cycle will be well worth the time and effort devoted to the journey.

About Mindy Berkson and Lotus Blossom Consulting

As one of the first infertility consultancies in the United States, Lotus Blossom Consulting, LLC was founded by Mindy Berkson in 2005. With more than a decade of experience at physician’s offices, and egg donor and surrogacy agencies, Berkson assists individuals working through the often-challenging roadblocks of infertility, by providing the best information and resources available to them from around the world – all in one location.

Lotus Blossom Consulting works with individuals on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration clients’ emotional, physical and financial infertility issues and then develops an individualized, comprehensive plan, to help clients make informed decisions and pull together a team of unbiased professionals to accomplish a treatment cycle. Mindy is a sought-after infertility expert and has appeared on countless media programs and speaker panels educating audiences on the topic of infertility, egg banking and surrogacy. For more information about Lotus Blossom Consulting, LLC, call toll free (877) 881-2685, email mindy@lotusblossomconsulting.com or visit the web at www.lotusblossomconsulting.com or www.infertilityconsultant.com.

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Conceivable Options™ – When The Pathway to Parenthood is Not Linear

by Mindy on November 10, 2010

As children and young adults many of us were raised to grow up and become not just well established adults, but moms and dads. It is often a natural progression to graduate school, focus on career, marry and raise a family. Kids are the ultimate goal and accomplishment.

Today however, given the rise in infertility one in five couples today, or 7.3 million Americans struggle with infertility — the biological inability to conceive or carry a pregnancy to full term. Many factors can contribute to this staggering and continually growing statistic. Most common are delayed child bearing, advanced maternal age, medical conditions, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity and environmental factors. As women continue to work and delay having children, their needs with regard to infertility treatment has also continued to grow.

The infertility diagnosis can be devastating and demoralizing. Unable to become pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term, women often feel inadequate, alone and depressed. Infertility treatment is costly and invasive. Success rates are not guaranteed and insurance benefits are often limited. The emotional, physical and financial stressors associated with the infertility process are often challenging and overwhelming.

Age matters in many aspects of life and definitely in the creation of life. Women are most fertile between the ages of 20 to 28 with their fertility decreasing in half by the time they reach 35 years of age. By age 45, only a 1% chance remains each month of conceiving naturally. This is a startling fact considering the average age a woman has her first child has risen to a record high of 25.1 years with 20% of women waiting until they are 35 years old to begin their family.

An increasing number of women choose to delay childbearing due to further schooling, career choice, or are waiting to find their perfect partner. Many individuals are choosing to be single parents. While those choices are understandable and personal, as women naturally age so do their ovaries; affecting their fertility. Oocyte cryopreservation, commonly known as egg banking, generally provides women up to the age of 38 a chance to stop their biological clock and effectively plan and preserve their fertility for the future.

Other treatment options to help overcome infertility include egg donation and surrogacy. Egg donation involves retrieving eggs from a donor between the ages of 21 and 32. Since success rates are linked to the age of the egg, using an egg donor can greatly impact the success rates for pregnancy after in-vitro fertilization treatments. It is most common to use an egg donor in an anonymous arrangement. Legal contracts are necessary to outline the roles of all parties and to have the egg donor relinquish all rights to offspring produced from the treatment cycle.

Surrogacy is another widely available option to help overcome infertility. Over the past decade surrogacy has become more acceptable as the laws in certain states have enabled couples and individuals to establish parentage at birth or shortly thereafter. The most prevalent form of surrogacy today is gestational surrogacy where the surrogate candidate is not biologically related to the offspring.

The pathway to parenthood is not always linear. But understanding the treatment options available will help you to determine your emotional tolerances and physical endurance for exploring treatment and reaching the American dream of becoming a mom and dad.

About Mindy Berkson and Lotus Blossom Consulting

As one of the first infertility consultancies in the United States, Lotus Blossom Consulting, LLC was founded by Mindy Berkson in 2005. With more than a decade of experience at physician’s offices, and egg donor and surrogacy agencies, Berkson assists individuals working through the often-challenging roadblocks of infertility, by providing the best information and resources available to them from around the world – all in one location.

Lotus Blossom Consulting works with individuals on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration clients’ emotional, physical and financial infertility issues and then develops an individualized, comprehensive plan, to help clients make informed decisions. Mindy is a sought-after infertility expert and has appeared on countless media programs and speaker panels educating audiences on the topic of infertility, egg banking and surrogacy. For more information about Lotus Blossom Consulting, LLC, call toll free (877) 881-2685, email mindy@lotusblossomconsulting.com or visit the web at www.lotusblossomconsulting.com or www.infertilityconsultant.com.

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GLMA 2009 Conference

by Mindy on September 23, 2009

Understanding the Healthcare Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Individuals

A growing number of medical societies, health plans, academic institutions, public health officials and others have recognized the need for healthcare providers to receive special training on how to meet the unique healthcare needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals. This fall, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) is hosting the 27th Annual Conference of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association to address this need.

I am honored to be one of the featured speakers at this event discussing how gay and lesbian families can navigate the alternative family building journey through surrogacy.

The conference will be held on September 30 – October 3, 2009 at the Westin Washington, DC, City Center.  It is the world’s largest scientific meeting focusing on LGBT health, healthcare delivery, workplace discrimination, and healthcare education and offers up to 18 hours of continuing education for healthcare professionals. In addition to rich educational offerings, the conference provides ample opportunities to meet and socialize with other healthcare professionals, students and GLMA members.

More information about the Annual Conference, including a preliminary program of educational offerings, is available at www.glma.org/annualconference.

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Egg Banking: Ready When You Are

by Mindy on August 5, 2009

There are countless numbers of products available to women to slow the visible effects of aging, but what about the parts of the body that are out of sight? Now with egg freezing technology it possible to stop a women’s biological clock allowing them to “freeze” their fertility for the future.

Age matters in many aspects of life as well as in the creation of life. Women are most fertile between the ages 20 to 28 with their fertility decreasing in half by the time they are 35. By age 45, only a 1% chance remains each month of conceiving naturally. This is a startling fact considering the average age a woman has her first child has risen to record high of 25.1 with 20% of women waiting until they are 35 to begin their family.

 An increasing number of women choose to delay childbearing due to further schooling, career choice, or are waiting to find their perfect partner. While those choices are understandable and personal, as women naturally age so do their ovaries; affecting their fertility.  Oocyte cryopreservation, commonly known as egg banking, provides women up to the age of 38 with a chance to slow down their biological clock and effectively storing their fertility for the future.

 A women’s egg supply is finite therefore, freezing your eggs allows you to stop your biological clock until you are ready to conceive, increasing the odds of having a healthy successful pregnancy. Women are born with millions of eggs yet once they reach puberty only 300 of the 300,000 eggs left will have the chance to ovulate. The frozen eggs can be thawed at anytime to be fertilized with the sperm of choice and then refrozen as embryos for future in vitro fertilization treatment cycles.

 Egg banking is also an option that is highly recommended for women who have been newly diagnosed with cancer but have not begun medical treatments that may negatively impact their fertility. While treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy are lifesaving, they can potentially leave women infertile.  The ability to freeze viable eggs before undergoing cancer treatments instills hope for a family in the future.

 Egg banking, the newest technology available in the infertility field, is a wonderful option for those women who plan to delay childbearing for personal reasons or for medically induced situations. Since women do not continually reproduce more eggs over a lifetime, the availability of egg banking technology allows women to protect a precious resource and helps to ensure their fertility until such time that they are ready to begin a family.

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Patient Advocacy

by Mindy on March 6, 2009

As an Infertility Consultant, I am horrified and embarrassed that octuplets were allowed to be created, and the industry has been burdened by the wrath of their birth these past few weeks. The news stories have been less than flattering, and rightfully so. But it is unfair that one story gone awry should cloud what the industry as a whole has to offer. Infertility treatments have helped so many to achieve their dreams of parenthood. These success stories cannot be mitigated.

Now more than ever it is vital to focus on education. Empowering the patients with information about the risks and potential outcomes associated with given procedure, and helping patients to determine an appropriate level of risk given their particular situation and individual risk adversity.

I understand completely, the exhaustive process that infertility involves. It affects every emotion, both in one’s personal and professional life, it greatly impacts one’s financial resources, and physically, continued treatments take a toll on one’s body.
And if this is not enough there are still many factors that need to play into the decision to undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments. These are the moral and ethical debates. What to do with embryos that have been frozen for future embryo transfer attempts once your family is complete? Should we be able to create more embryos then we intend to transfer so that we can use these embryos for future genetic siblings?

I started my company, Lotus Blossom Consulting after having walked in the shoes of these women who are tortured by these very difficult decisions and face the same crap shoot each time they undergo an IVF treatment. There are no guarantees. The stakes are high financially and emotionally, as well as the desire to pursue each attempt is inflated by the basic and often innate desire to procreate. So how does one strike the appropriate balance when attempting to achieve their end family building goals?

There is no one solution. Each individual is required to make choices that are often very risky. Choices, however, need to fall within the parameters and suggested guidelines that are set in place and congruent with industry standard. These guidelines although suggested, do act in the patients’ best interest. In the recent case of the octuplets certainly, this intended mother should have considered, or been required to undergo four separate frozen embryo transfers limited to only two embryos each. These multiple transfers would have limited the exponential potential risk factors associated with multiple births. The intended mother would have had the same opportunity of achieving her goal of a large family, but the pathway to parenthood would have afforded her a chance at a similar outcome with much less risk to herself and the all of the offspring.

We need to learn from this graphic mishap and move forward with measures to appropriately balance hope with caution. These efforts emanate from education and awareness. Education is empowering. Education needs to include:

• Having a clear understanding of your treatment options and the success rate of each given opportunity at a particular embryology laboratory
• Assuming appropriate risk factors emotionally, physically and financially for each individual situation
• Formulating a clear cut treatment plan, treatment philosophy with specific boundaries to guide you
• Using the above established guidelines to know when to change the course of treatment
• Understanding informed medical consents, risks and benefits before signing and undergoing any treatment

These are the necessary elements that allow you to be your own best advocate through the process.

Being your own best advocate requires effort and commitment. Keep copious notes of your consultations, ask for medical records and test results. In the event that you decide to obtain a second opinion, the information does not need to be re-gathered. Learn about your condition, your options for treatment, and the success rates for couples in your situation. Doing your research will enable you to effectively discuss your situation with your healthcare team. Learn to advocate for yourself by being assertive, staying informed, asking questions, and keeping records. Be certain you get what you need from your healthcare team.

Patient advocacy is more important than ever in order to keep up with the advancements of medical innovations and technologies available to us today. With these advancements come responsibilities. These responsibilities demand a level of conscientiousness, and this needs to be distributed among those who offer and those who receive the benefits.

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I’m the cover story on City Woman Chicago!

by Mindy on October 24, 2007

Check out the full issue table of contents here.

It’s difficult to express how excited I am – Seeing my family on the front cover of the magazine was overwhelming.

While this is a print publication, they also have a .pdf version online so you can read the article even if you aren’t in Chicago. (Fact: Over half of my clients are international, so I’m used to making sure people that aren’t in the same area I am get the info they need!)

Let me know what you think of the article…thanks!

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Building the Foundation for Infertility Treatment

by Mindy on October 22, 2007

Download a registration form or call (312) 582-6035 to register.

Lotus Blossom Consulting, LLC, is a concierge service for people undergoing fertility treatment. Join the company’s founders, MINDY BERKSON and TONI SIRAGUSA, for this seminar that will discuss a range of issues confronting people with infertility: maximizing insurance benefits, choosing a fertility center, holistic opportunities, and financing treatment. Berskon has worked in the industry for over 10 years in a variety of capacities both at donor agencies and at fertility centers. Siragusa is a financial planner and insurance agent who has worked specifically with couples undergoing infertility to properly plan for and finance treatment. Check out their Web site at www.lotusblossomconsulting.com.

Location: Latin Upper School, 59 W. North Blvd.
Instructor: Mindy Berkson & Toni Siragusa Course Fee: $40
Date: Thu, 25-Oct 1 Class Time: 6:30-8:30 pm

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Building Families and Achieving Dreams

by Mindy on October 7, 2007

I’m really pleased to be able to present you with an article published this month in FHI (For Her Information) – please take a moment and visit. You’ll be glad you did!

http://www.forherinformation.com/herstoryart11007.php

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Jude Andrew Adams Charitable Fund

by Mindy on August 31, 2007

Lotus Blossom Consulting has established the Jude Andrew Adams Charitable Fund to bring hope and new life to those in need. Through this grant, we are offering a free fertility treatment cycle for financially needy individuals.

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