The Surrogacy Lawyer Radio

Program- Thursdays at 11am PDT or

2pm EST

Amy Demma, Prospective Families; Andrea Bryman, LMFT; and Pamela Madsen, The Fertility Advocate: The Eggsploitation Controversy

The filmmakers promote it as “the fertility industry’s dirty little secret.” In the trailer, several former egg donors describe horrific experiences resulting in permanent health damages and how they were lured into making poor decisions with offers of hard to resist compensation. The music, ironically scored by the group Thieves and Liars, is dark and foreboding, reminiscent of a horror film. And the name of the documentary – Eggsploitation – implies its intentions, which is to let the world know about the “trade” in human eggs and “older women with money targeting younger women.”
So is this documentary a wake-up call for the infertility field or is it a narrow-minded attempt to push an agenda, with the truth lying somewhere between the hyperbole and the criticism? The Surrogacy Lawyer Theresa Erickson will explore these issues on Thursday, September 2.

Ms. Erickson will be interviewing three leading infertility and collaborative reproductive specialists, including Andrea Bryman, LMFT, a marriage and family therapist specializing in egg donation and surrogate assessment and support; Amy Demma, a New York attorney and founder of Prospective Families Egg Donation Agency; and Pamela Madsen, infertility blogger and patient advocate who wrote several posts about the movie on her blog The Fertility Advocate that steamrolled into a lively Facebook discussion.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to move the robust discussion that started on Facebook into the real-time, interactive realm of radio, “ says attorney Erickson. “As a former egg donor during college and now as a third party reproduction professional who has dedicated my career to this field, I want to insure that the absolute best practices are established for the welfare of both egg donors and parents via egg donation. So regardless of the public’s or field’s perceptions of the documentary, I am glad we have this chance to move the discussion forward.

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Posted under "Eggsploitation", Egg Donation

I was reminded just the other day of the concept of “The Wounded Healer” by a fertility blogger named Keiko Zoll. Keiko writes a truly fabulous blog call “Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed” – and she has been doing this wonderful blog series on being an advocate.  I was truly touched and reminded about my own wounded healer in reading her words in A Belly Full of Fire: The Wounded Healer. Keiko like so many advocates – started her blog out of a desire to express her experience – to fill some unnameable void – to shout into the universe all that was in her heart and in her belly – and in doing so – by speaking with a courageous honesty – she found a community and became a healer. Her words touched hearts and erased the pain of feeling alone  for others. Keiko writes from her gut and  it is that kind of writing – that kind of honesty that touches people.

You don’t need a medical degree to be a healer. You can be a healer by raising money to support a cause  – my colleague and friend Andrea Bryman Lmft is walking to raise money for breast cancer (make a donation here) and recently another colleague and friend Amy Demma was so touched by friend’s struggle with cancer that she has decided to make her facebook status and all manner of communication on Monday’s dedicated to fertility and cancer.  She asked her friends to support her just by talking about the issues (Pam waving at Amy in support). And my husband loves telling this story about a nun who came to our summer house looking for clams to help cure cancer and I just found this piece about her in an old People’s Magazine.  Oh yes – Sister Arline also had fire in her belly.

You see – once you get a fire in your belly – anything is possible.  It is often that place of disbelief, that place at the edge of pain where the most incredible creation and healing can happen.  It was so good to be reminded of that this week. Even this old dog advocate sometimes needs encouragement to keep on keeping on.  You see – its not always fun and games – this place of “Fire in The Belly”.  Sometimes – writing, doing, and change making from the place of the wounded healer can be very vulnerable work.  I remember going on the Joan Lunden Show – my first media appearance with my baby in my arms – to talk about IVF.  I wanted to show that IVF babies were normal and beautiful. I remember how my knees shook – and how scared I was. I was coming out on national television as a woman who had infertility – and had an IVF baby.   My husband and I were so worried that other parents would in some way classify our kid as an IVF  experiment. We were really scared – IVF was so new 20 years ago. But we had a fire in our belly. We needed to talk to get the word out about infertility and the possible solutions.  We needed to show the world that IVF kids were normal. And so I went.  That day was perhaps my first day  as a wounded healer.

Once  you start your first blog,  write your first article, walk your first walk, or do whatever it is that you need to do for your own healing -  you may  find  that you too have taken your first steps on the road of the wounded healer.  It is through that delicious fire in the belly place – that all changes happens. And don’t worry if you sometimes you feel scared and alone.  When you hit that place – just take a breath and know that you are building a bridge for others to walk across.

Thanks Keiko for the reminder.

Posted under Advocacy, Facebook, Fertility, Fertility Blogs, Fertility Support, IVF, In Vitro Fertilization, Infertility, Keiko Zoll, inspirational thoughts

So last night I went to the first gathering of the New York Fertility Professionals Networking Group.  It had a great attendance – and it was so interesting to see who showed up and who did not.  You can find out more about the New York Fertility Professional Networking Group – Founded by Amy Demma Esq – simply by searching groups on Facebook.

And we were all buzzing – about this and that. Did you know that Dr. Zev Rosenwaks and Dr. Marc Goldstein have released their first patient book, “A Baby At Last?” and was on ABC yesterday morning chatting about it?

I didn’t get a review copy – so I can’t review it for you – but what I can say is that these two men have been change makers and thought leaders in the field of infertility as long as I have breathed air.  Actually it doesn’t impress me that Dr. Rosenwaks helped get Celine Dion pregnant.  She is just one of many infertile women that have received care from Dr. Rosenwaks.  What has always impressed me about Dr. Rosenwaks – is that no matter how “big” he was or is in the field of reproductive medicine – he always understood the value of human relationships and being there for the people in his life.  In my world – we call that a “Mensch”.

So I wish “A Baby At Last!” good luck. And I know just like Dr. Rosenwaks and Dr. Goldstein – that it will touch many people’s lives.

Posted under Amy Demma, IVF, MD

Wow. Sometimes it feels like the internet is bursting at the seams in content. There is so much to do – so much to read – and so many new sites and blogs to plug into. This week in the world of fertility – was just such a week.The issue of donor egg, telling kids about their conception,  older women using donor eggs, and the decision to use donor eggs is really hot.  I could have spent hours on line lost in commentary, controversy, and just plain gossip.

There was the John Travolta and Kelly Preston pregnancy speculation – did they use donor egg or didn’t they? After all – Kelly is 47. And lots of women over the age of 45 wanted to know! Oh yes – the phone calls and emails have already begun – you know the ones – “Where did Kelly go for treatment? Did they REALLY get her pregnant with her own eggs? Do you know? Please! Please! Please tell! My mother in law is making me crazy – that if I would only find out which doctor the Travolta’s used – I could get pregnant using my own eggs too”.

I really hate taking those calls. What am I suppose to say? It’s so painful – the right to privacy – the right to keep our medical decisions private – and the continued stream of high profile celebrities pregnant after the age that most women begin peri-menopause. Frankly – when I look at women over the age of 50 parenting young children – I always think better them than me! I couldn’t imagine. After all – I did IVF when I was 27 for my first child – and he just graduated college. The days of flying cereal in the diner are long behind me  – my biological clock has long ago stopped ticking both in desire and ability. But women are so different in their desires about when is the right time to have a child. And I am behind each and every one of them to have a baby when they think that the time is right.

I think that the Travolta announcement  led perhaps to the conversation about telling children their IVF origins. My kids learned about IVF before they could walk – but there were no donor issues involved – and I think that for many people that makes the telling more complicated.  I liked Amy Demma’s little commentary over at her blog called “I was not donor conceived!” And while we are on the subject of third party reproduction – over at Lisa Rosenthal’s blog at RMA CT - she did a great round up of information of donor egg. Love those round ups! Don’t you?

I thought that Marna Gatlin’s (The Executive Director and Founder of Parents Via Egg Donation) guest blog over at The Fertility Daily (a brand new blog that I edit), entitled “Losing My Genetic Link and Becoming a Mom: My Story of Becoming a Donor Egg Recipient” was incredibly special. If you are considering becoming a parent via egg donation – please jack into this blog. It is totally work your time. And Dr. David Kreiner’s blog over at The Fertility Doc on “Nature Vs Nurture” was also worth a read.

I think as the Kelly Preston pregnancy blooms – we will be reading more about these issues in the weeks to come. Don’t you?

Posted under Egg Donation, Fertility, IVF, Infertility, John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Lisa Rosenthal, Marna Gatlin, PVED, Parents via Egg Donation, Pregnancy After Infertility, Sharon LaMoth

I am just back from an incredible adventure in London where I attended The Fertility Show with Dr. Dave Kreiner, the Founder of East Coast Fertility , his wife Robin Kreiner, and Amy Demma, Esq, the Founder of Prospective Families.

I should have known that this trip would forever live in my memory as the start of something big when a piece of magnificently prepared giant prawn got lodged in my throat the first night. I will never forget Robin Kreiner, chatting with her son on the cell phone letting him know that we had just arrived safely in London as she gave commentary on the unfolding action at the dinner table. “I think Pamela is choking and Daddy is giving her the Heimlich Maneuver.” She calmly described as I gasped for air, felt Dr. Kreiner smoothly perform the maneuver and felt the offending prawn “pop” out of my throat! I think it was the start of many “firsts” for all of us!

First off, I have never been at a fertility conference this large directed at consumers interested in fertility. At the height of my day at The American Fertility Association, if we counted every breathing head we might have hit 1000 people in one room. And while The Fertility Fair promised 4000 attendees they might have delivered close to 3000 – still an amazing number.

The booths were set up professional conference style – and if I didn’t know better, I might have thought that I was in the convention center at the annual meeting of ASRM.

Live educational seminars were taking place all around us on every subject possible including what patients should know about seeking fertility care abroad. It was amazing listening in on this workshop from the perspective of someone offering treatment aboard to patients, instead of counseling patients about going abroad for treatment as a patient advocate representing a patient organization.

I heard a lot of the same messages about why UK consumers should not leave their country to seek fertility treatment. Many of them were messages that I used to give to American consumers myself as a warning to stay in the United States for fertility care such as:

• differences in the culture

• language problems

• irregularities in care

• lack of emotional support

• sub standard quality

• No medical follow up

Now that I offering care to patients who live outside of the United States at the highest level of quality and care – what I heard sounded an awful lot like fear mongering to me. I found myself feeling rather insulted! Of course, we offered the highest levels of medical care, emotional support and created systems of follow up medical care for our patients. No one is going to deny that it adds an additional level of stress for patients to leave their home land for medical treatment, and there certainly will be culturally differences. After all, even for us as Americans in Britain we struggled with menu selections that featured “Spotted Dick and Jugged Hare”!

Hearing that talk on seeking care abroad in many ways embarrassed me as I knew that I had given many such talks myself in the past. Perhaps we need to develop a “Questions to Ask If You are Seeking Treatment Abroad” rather than assume that patients will have a horrific experience if they dare to leave their borders for treatment.

We also had a few lessons in what “Free Access” to fertility treatment looks like; how it works and how it doesn’t work. I have never met so many people who knew that they need fertility care, but had yet to see a doctor and had no idea where in the process that they fell. They were on wait lists to see clinicians for the initial diagnosis process and they had come to The Fertility Fair to gather up every piece of information that they could in case they would need it in the future. In the public system in the UK – many would be eligible for free IVF – but they needed to wait their turn. While this worked very well for many – others were frightened of long wait lists because of their age and were exploring traveling abroad not only for hard to get services such as egg donation, but for standard IVF out of fear being aged out of being able to use their own eggs.

Many were seeking care outside of the UK because they were concerned over issues of disclosure. In the UK, all of the laws in regard to assisted conception are written with the child first in mind. And in the UK, that means that there is really no completely anonymous egg donation because at age 18 the child has access to the donor’s information. This was very concerning to many of the couples that were seeking information egg donation in the United States. They wanted to make sure that if they traveled to the US to do egg donation, that they would be assured of completely an anonymous egg donation experience.

Yes, there are differences in legal systems all over the world. And this is something to be mindful of. On my second to last night in the UK – an intruder kicked down my door early in the morning at my hotel room. I was terrified. So this was how it was all going to end for me? Dr. Kreiner had save me from a shrimp all for nothing? Instead it was going to be rape and murder in my little hotel room in London?

I think not.

I screamed, and pushed whileobscenities were directed my way as I fled under the very tall, very aggressive and very big man’s arm. Thank goodness he was drunk and I know how to move quickly. I ran screaming down the halls begging for help – and of course that landed me at Dave and Robin Kreiner’s room! The police were called, and they found the man asleep in my bed. The English police asked me to come up to the room to identify the man who was now hand cuffed and struggling wildly with two or three officers. The next thing I will never forget is Robin Kreiner, Amy Demma and I turning on our heels and running frantically away down the stairs back to safety.

As for me, I am none the worse for wear except for a bit of trauma, and hurting in places I don’t remember hurting pushing my way out of that room. And I got to learn a bit more about the British legal system that had nothing to do with egg donation and fertility care.

So that is what London, The Fertility Show, Jugged Hare, Spotted Dick, Access to health care, the Heimlich Maneuver, fear mongering and handcuffs have in common! It all happened in four days on my very first trip to London!

I can’t wait to go back.

Posted under "Cross Border Fertility Treatment", Dave Kreiner, Dr. Dave Kreiner, East Coast Fertility, Egg Donation, The Fertility Show