Join Dr. Carrie Bedient from the Fertility Center of Las Vegas, Dr. Abby Eblen from Nashville Fertility Center, and Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas Fertility Center to discuss early disclosure of donor identity for donor-conceived people. Dylan Morgan, Chief Operations Officer of Cascade Cryobank, and Melanie Mikkelsen, a reproductive mental health counselor for Hold Hope join them to discuss the issues relating to early disclosure. For many years, donor identity was kept secret from parents and children. We know that children are not harmed by understanding their origin story. Josh is an advocate for donor disclosure and discusses why he believes all banks should adopt this practice. Parents either find out identifying information at the time of donation or when the child becomes an adult. Donors at Cascade Cryobank can opt in or out for early disclosure to children conceived with their sperm. If donors opt in for early disclosure, parents receive identifying information at conception. Melanie shares information about psychological outcomes for children. She also discusses the latest information from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine on donor disclosure. You will not want to miss this episode. Have questions about infertility?  Visit FertilityDocsUncensored.com to ask our docs. Selected questions will be answered anonymously in future episodes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Theralogix. 

Episode Transcript:

Abby Eblen MD (00:01.402)

Hi everyone, we’re back with another episode of Fertility Docs Uncensored. I’m one of your hosts, Dr. Abby Eblen from Nashville Fertility Center. And today I’m joined by my loquacious and luscious co-host, Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas Fertility Center.

Susan Hudson MD (00:18.05)

Hello, everyone.

Abby Eblen MD (00:20.282)

And Dr. Carrie Bedient from Fertility Center of Las Vegas. And today we have two special guests, not just one. We have Dylan Morgan. He is the Chief Operations Officer at Cascade Cryobank. And he’s in DC today joining us. And we also have Melanie Mikkelsen. She’s a reproductive mental health professional. She has a private practice in Washington called Hold Hope.

Carrie Bedient MD (00:23.744)

Hey guys.

Dylan Morgan (00:35.35)

Nice to meet you.

Abby Eblen MD (00:49.156)

She and Dylan work very closely together. And today we’re going to talk about a really interesting topic. It’s early disclosure of donor identity for donor conceived people. And we’ll get to that in just a second. But first we were chatting with Dylan, and Dylan has a very special hobby or had a very special hobby. Maybe you still do it now, but he worked as a brewer when he was in college. So tell me how do get that job and how long did you do it? And did you make any great brews?

Dylan Morgan (01:08.313)

Yeah.

Carrie Bedient MD (01:15.338)

And how do you graduate from college while you have that job?

Dylan Morgan (01:21.56)

I’ll start out the beginning when I was 18, I mean 21, started brewing beer with my mom. We were doing in the garage. And just kind of fall in love with it pretty quick once you start. It’s so fun. You’re sitting around just watching water boil, just having fun talking. It’s almost like having a campfire. Exactly. Exactly. And so then when I end up going to college, instead of a traditional internship, I started working as an assistant brewer at Bellview Brewing Company out in Washington state and cultivated my love, my passion for the job. And in college, I got my degree in biochemistry, ended up focusing on fermentation biology. I took that forward and…

Abby Eblen MD (02:09.276)

I hated that part of bio chem.

Dylan Morgan (02:13.786)

It was my favorite, that’s what turns you into a brewer, unfortunately. But then, took that forward and I ended up doing that professionally for a few years before I started working at the sperm bank. Yeah.

Susan Hudson MD (02:31.119)

That’s kind of a jump. How did you go from brewing beer to diving into the sperm world?

Dylan Morgan (02:37.716)

Well, I was actually originally recruited as a sperm donor before I was hired to run the business.

Susan Hudson MD (02:45.902)

Interesting interesting. Well before we go too much into the sperm business, let’s do a question real quick. All right, so Our question today is: We’ve been trying for two and a half years for with no luck. We did three cycles of IUI with two and a half milligrams of letrozole and had five follicles each time Everything else is normal and or fantastic results. What’s going on? So what else could be going on guys?

Carrie Bedient MD (03:15.222)

Did we get an age?

Susan Hudson MD (03:16.97)

We do not have an age.

Carrie Bedient MD (03:19.852)

Okay, so Probably the first and foremost thing that’s going on is that in the best case scenario, a letrozole IUI cycle has about a 15 % success rate. And so Even if you’ve done that three times, that does not add up to 100. I mean, Nothing in what we do adds up to 100%, but three IUIs sure doesn’t lead up to that. I think It’s something like 39% cumulative success rate. That means that there’s a 60 % chance that it’s not gonna work. And that’s just because human reproduction is horribly inefficient. If the rest of us did our jobs with the frequency that human reproduction works, we would all be fired unequivocally out the door. One possible reason is just that it hasn’t gotten there yet because the success rates for that particular type of treatment, while better than nothing, are still nowhere close to 100%.

Abby Eblen MD (04:17.718)

You also want to make sure that you’ve had the general workup, make sure sperm count’s good. Might want to consider SpermQT test to look at how well the sperm binds to and penetrates the egg, the function of the sperm. Probably want to make sure your tubes have been checked, the cavity, your uterine cavity’s been checked to make sure you don’t have polyps or fibroids. And then there’s also some other blood tests that we may want to do. What would you consider for blood tests, Susan?

Susan Hudson MD (04:44.014)

So blood tests, I would want to do blood tests looking at your ovarian reserve, which it sounds like if you’re recruiting five follicles each time, you probably have a pretty good ovarian reserve, which is great. I would make sure your thyroid and your prolactin levels are normal. But even with a completely normal workup and knowing you’ve done three letrozole IUI cycles with multifollicular recruitment, at this point, you probably start need to start looking at things like IVF because realistically, you’ve given it three good tries and at this point your success rates really start to plateau. And so there’s a lot of things such as: Is fertilization happening? Is implantation happening? What is that egg and sperm interaction? Is there maybe something that’s biochemically not creating the best environment inside the uterus and actually creating embryos outside the uterus may provide a better environment during that early developmental stage. And so even if we don’t have an exact reason why you’re not getting pregnant, we know that if you were doing letrozole with IUI, you should be pregnant by now if it was going to work. Occasionally it’ll work if you keep on trying that. But really, this is probably the time you need to think of at least start thinking about kicking it up a notch.

Abby Eblen MD (06:07.238)

Dylan, I’m gonna start with you. I was debating about who I should start with, but I’m start with you. So tell me what early disclosure of donor identity actually means and compare that with what’s traditionally done by a lot of the other banks.

Dylan Morgan (06:20.98)

I’ll start from the top. Originally, sperm donors were anonymous. Somebody would come, would donate their sperm, and we’d process it. When a bank would sell it, no one would ever figure out, find out who the donor was. Of course, that has not been well received over time by the donor conceived community. It makes sense to us. So some laws were passed. The Universal Parentage Act put in place something called OpenID, where instead of having an anonymous donations, donors could opt in to being this OpenID standard, where once the donor conceived people turned 18, they could go back to the banks and apply and receive that donor’s identity information, which was a huge step in the industry. It was great. It was very well received. People were pretty happy about it. When we met Melanie, she’s worked with lot of donor conceived people. She was terrific insight for us. Mind you, we’re really new at this point. So we’re trying to figure out how do we differentiate ourselves? How do we do this job better than anybody else? And what it came down to is, from Melanie’s direction, you gotta think about these people who are being born, the donor conceived people. So we put together the early disclosure program where instead of waiting 18 years, what we’re doing is just releasing the identity of the donor to the intended parents, our families, at the time of a live birth. So no longer do people have to wait 18 years or never find out who their donors are or put all this time and money and resource into figuring out their donor’s identity. Now we just make that available. And we also moderate contact between our donors and their families. We want to be transparent in as many ways as possible, and this is from our perspective, the best way to do that.

Susan Hudson MD (08:18.164)

So to clarify, when you have somebody who’s coming in to be a sperm donor, what type of evaluation do they have to make sure that they’re ready for that type of disclosure either sooner or later? Because I’m assuming that sooner or later is still at the discretion of the intended parents.

Dylan Morgan (08:42.024)

Yeah, so I’ll pass this off to Melanie here in a second, but I will say we don’t do anonymous donations, and we’re pretty upfront about that when we recruit. So when donors come in, they know at least that they’ll have to have their identity released after 18 years. Otherwise, they’re not going to donate at Cascade Cryobank. When it comes to getting these guys ready, know, seeing if they’re okay with it, that Melanie plays a big part. And so I’ll pass it off to you.

Melanie Mikkelsen (09:11.815)

Thanks, Dylan, and thank you all for having me. I’m so glad to be here today to talk about this important subject. So one thing to keep in mind that was already mentioned is donors do have a choice. They don’t all have to opt into the early disclosure. And what is interesting anecdotally is we are seeing more than you would have imagined or more than I would have imagined that might have chosen that early release program. So there is still the option, whether they want to be in that earlier or identity release of information to a donor conceived offspring at the age of 18 or above for the donor conceived offspring. So it’s neat that they have the option to choose between those two pieces of the program. And as far as with the screening, one of the things I love about Cascade Cryobank is that they do follow the ASRM guidelines for the full psychological evaluation and screening of their sperm donors. That includes the use of a psychological testing instrument called the Personality Assessment Inventory, as well as clinical interviews. The doctor that runs the program reviews all the profiles and so once someone is accepted into the program, they’ve already they’ve met a lot of the people they’ve had the full screening and they’ve really been given a lot of education about what does this look like and what is this gonna look like moving forward in the future.

Abby Eblen MD (10:52.752)

Melanie, how does that differ from what’s typically happening with other sperm banks right now in terms of screening?

Melanie Mikkelsen (10:59.507)

I can’t speak to all the other sperm banks, but I will say that oftentimes, a full psychological evaluation with psychological inventories are not done. So this is something that is unique to Cascade Cryobank, although other sperm banks may be doing different types of psychological meetings or psychological education.

Susan Hudson MD (11:26.21)

So if somebody is looking at using donor sperm, that’s something you can ask when you contact different sperm banks is what type of psychological evaluation or testing have these donors undergone? Is that a reasonable question to ask?

Melanie Mikkelsen (11:42.217)

I think that’s a wonderful question and reasonable question to ask. And again, part of it is the education piece that goes to the donor, making sure that they know that this is a lifetime decision that they’re making and being able to front load that information to give them the best understanding of what they are agreeing to do as well.

Carrie Bedient MD (12:07.03)

So When you’ve got someone who’s coming in and they say, yes, I agree to this communication in whatever manner, what information actually gets released to the intended parents? And you said that you mediate the communication. What are the logistics of that? How does that work?

Dylan Morgan (12:27.376)

Great question. Open ID, the original ID release standard, is name, date of birth, and last known address. So that’s pretty much it and then also we can release you know how many families these these donors have. It’s actually pretty important to our intended parents and our recipient families to know how many other families are out there. It’s a metric that the whole industry works off of is how many families do we limit ourselves to. We do 25. We’re doing our best at 25. We’d love to go lower, but just to make things work. That’s where we’ve landed. But when we have an open ID donor, we don’t do the address. We do the name and date of birth just so that we don’t cross those lines with the donor considering an 18 year gap. We don’t necessarily want to promote having all these people show up at this person’s house. So that being said, it’s simple as putting Melanie is we’ll be doing our moderation for our meetings between donors and recipients and families and donor conceived people. And it’s as simple as getting the donor’s time, getting the family’s time, and then getting Melanie’s time all structured at same time, and then putting them on a Zoom call together. At that point, it’s up to the donor what they’re comfortable to release, what information they’re comfortable sharing. And it’s different for each of them. Sometimes they’re willing to talk in depth about their family and their history. Sometimes…they’re comfortable with meeting people in person and having them come visit or going to visit them. And sometimes they just want to be, hey, here I am. I’ll answer your questions. No further contact, please. So it’s it depends on the donor really at that point.

Abby Eblen MD (14:36.486)

So how many people have been part of this? Because this sounds like a pretty new thing with your bank. And so have there been many families that have done this yet and just interested in how that’s gone overall?

Dylan Morgan (14:45.576)

So we started this program just over nine months ago and we’re just about to have one of our first early disclosure births and we’re all pretty excited about it. Now in terms of donors, it’s just about 45 % of our donors have agreed to this. So it’s a little over 25 just about 25 donors have all signed up to be early disclosure and we have pregnancies for almost all of them all over the world at this point. So we’re excited to see.

Carrie Bedient MD (15:18.764)

So how does this work with people who are not early disclosure? 18 years from now, they say, okay, we want this information. How do they go about getting it? Do the parents request it or the child requested at that point and then it’s released or?

Dylan Morgan (15:35.126)

It would be the child. It’s their right to come to us. Being donor conceived through our donors, according to the rules as written, they can come to us in 18 years after they turn 18. Essentially, we have a brief application for them to fill out just to basically say, this is my parent, double check that this is the person, and then this is the donor, and then it’s pretty straightforward. We just send them the information they’re requesting in an email or phone call.

Abby Eblen MD (16:10.406)

So Melanie, in the mental health literature, I’m interested to see kind of what the impetus was for bringing this about. I assume that there’s people out there that are donor conceived and found out at different times and kind of what brought this about and why is this the state of the art now?

Melanie Mikkelsen (16:27.647)

Well, I think again, it is still evolving. Mainly, it’s the donor conceived community is really becoming more vocal and more active because the offspring have grown up and are growing up. And we’ve learned a lot from the adoption model. Even though this is not adoption, we have learned that telling early, telling the child often, helping them be aware of the fact that their parent used the donor to conceive them is really the standard of care now. And that is what we counsel the donors to help them understand that as well as the intended parents. The difference is also we were finding that more and more people, they were wanting to know updated health information, for instance, sooner than at age 18 or above, being able to provide accurate information for their child’s medical record when working with pediatricians, doctors. Also, Cascade Cryobank does donor health updates. Every few years they gather that information. That’s part of the the responsibility that a donor needs to understand they have to provide to the bank as well. And so those forces all come together to really make that a package where there’s choice, there’s more choice. And that’s what people are wanting now in this marketplace.

Susan Hudson MD (17:59.628)

So Melanie, I have a question. What types of improvements have we seen in the literature when children either know of their origin story earlier than later? What are those improvements that we have seen over decades of teaching about learning those types of situations?

Melanie Mikkelsen (18:26.836)

Well, even though we can say decades, we need more research. There’s some research, but we need a lot more research as well. And a lot of the best research has come out of New Zealand, Great Britain. Honestly, some other countries ahead of us with that. Dr. Susan Golombok and her research and literature is one great place for people to start and her books to look at that. What we have found though so far is it really helps with a donor conceived person’s identity formation and that they have more positive outcome and more positive experiences with their own developmental stages and their identity formation when they are finding out this information earlier on. And there is some research to show that donor conceived children are doing as well as people that are not donor conceived in their developmental phases and happiness scales. However, one of the things though, again, we don’t know-and it’s hard to compare- because there are people that haven’t been told they’re donor conceived. Yes. Exactly.

Abby Eblen MD (19:41.378)

That’s what I was going say. How do you really design a study like that? How can you say they have better identity formation when you don’t really a lot of some of the adult children don’t know?

Melanie Mikkelsen (19:51.447)

That’s a very good question and you are absolutely correct. That’s why it’s hard to complete some of this research because we don’t know. You know, There’s people that have never been told or they find out later in life. Obviously as we know, more people are being told, I think in part because of the advent of ancestry.com, 23andMe, all the direct to consumer testing. Everybody’s finding everybody. And so I think that definitely has led to more impetus to telling earlier.

Abby Eblen MD (20:23.942)

Well, I think you can draw from that, as you can say that children who are told at an early age do just fine, basically.

Melanie Mikkelsen (20:29.983)

They do. They have found that. Yes.

Susan Hudson MD (20:33.826)

Are there any networks or banks? I mean obviously the sperm banking industry has gotten larger over time. And there are sometimes sperm banks buy other sperm banks and things merge and divide and things like this. Are there any systems within the US to help maintain these types of databases or information? So maybe, somebody decides, hey, we don’t want this information until somebody’s, you know, 15.

Susan Hudson MD (21:11.222)

Okay, I’m just picking a random age. And then 15 years later, it’s like, how do I how do we know this information is still valid it or even can get this information?

Dylan Morgan (21:22.826)

Yeah, no, so that’s a great question. So number one, you’re right, it’s all kind of decentralized. There’s no central repository, no government database of sperm donors, anything like that. So this is something that people have had to take on themselves. And of course, the sperm banking industry being competitive, the banks aren’t necessarily working together to share their donor’s identity with each other. So what it really comes down to is number one, like Melanie was mentioning, the donor-conceived community. We have the DCC, the Donor Conceived Community, the USDCC, the United States Donor Conceived Council. These are two groups that we’ve worked with already that are, they’re terrific and they’re more advocacy groups, but they create space for Donor Conceived people to come together and meet and try to figure these things out. And they all provide resources to each other. We’re very happy to disseminate those resources for them as well.

Melanie Mikkelsen (22:21.852)

I do think you bring up though an area that is definitely lacking. And again, other countries have done a better job than us of this because there is no national registry. There are places like the donor sibling registry that people can go and sign up on as donors and as parents as well as offspring. And then, oftentimes sperm banks and egg banks do a good job of doing their own internal registries, especially sperm banks where the intended parent can meet with other people who have used the same donor. So there are more informal ways, but yes, it is an area that needs improvement.

Dylan Morgan (23:06.569)

Absolutely.

Abby Eblen MD (23:07.964)

I’m just curious, Dylan, when you mentioned that you said about 45 % of your donors are open to open identity, but that means 55 % are not. But those 55 % still know that down the road, they’re still gonna have to, their identity’s gonna be open at some point. Why would they not be agreeable to do it now? I guess is my question.

Dylan Morgan (23:25.376)

That’s a terrific question we’re trying to figure out ourselves. I mean, in a sense, I think the idea of like delaying the inevitable is just enough to be comfortable with the idea. Like, in 18 years, I’ll have been able to process this and I’ll be able to deal with it down the line. And of course, a lot of our donors are in their late 20s, early 30s. So there’s still young men like making their way in the world, trying to come into their own. And so maybe thinking, in 18 years, I’ll be more presentable to a family, to children and these intended parents. But you know, I understand. I think it’s a reasonable perspective considering you don’t want to be like, yeah, no, I’m going to college, working part-time, living with a couple of roommates and I’m a sperm donor right now. In reality, it’s like, listen, you’re in college, you’re smart, you’re doing a good job, you work hard, and you’re good person. But at the same time, yeah, to me it makes sense, but then some people have a more nuanced perspective where they understand what I just said. I am who I am now. I’ll change, but not too drastically in 18 years, so I may as well just present who I am right now to these people and be open about it.

Abby Eblen MD (24:26.672)

Yeah.

Dylan Morgan (24:53.504)

People find this information out one way or the other. These families, of course, this is important information. The donor conceived people, want to know where they come from. This is like Melanie said, important to their identity. A lot of times, even if you’re anonymous, people will go to lengths to figure out who you are, what your name is. And so this is a way for us to help control that release of information. So, hey, maybe you signed up to be anonymous, but somebody came knocking on your door and it’s one of your donor conceived children. And you weren’t expecting that. Now you have some ill feeling toward the process. I regret being a donor. I wish I didn’t go to that sperm bank. Now we can just confidently say, listen, this information is getting out there. We’re going to release it. We’re going to be controlled about it. And we’re going to be your screen. It will respect your boundaries the whole time. But just so you know, if somebody wants to meet you, we’ll at least be able to tell you first. We’ll be able to come to you and say, we have some people who want to talk to you about this.

Abby Eblen MD (25:58.884)

And Melanie, to that end, what is the reason why families would not want early disclosure?

Melanie Mikkelsen (26:05.695)

Why the families themselves would not want to meet the donor? Is that what you’re saying?

Abby Eblen MD (26:08.284)

Why would they say, I’m not going to this cryo bank because I don’t want to know this information.

Melanie Mikkelsen (26:14.763)

Well, the good news about that is, and what, again, part of the education process is, this isn’t reciprocal. So the donor doesn’t necessarily get to reach out to you. If the donor chooses either of those early or 18 or above. So that’s normal, but sometimes they are confused about that. So I’m really careful about helping educate the parents as well, that it’s not a reciprocal thing, but it’s something that they are signing up for. And this is something they’re doing for their child. I know that when we work with people in the beginning, they just want a baby. They just want to be parents, right? And I talked to them about how it’s all about you right now. But when we have this hopeful pregnancy and baby, it becomes about that child and it becomes about developmentally, what is needed, what is appropriate, what information are you going to want to share with your child? So really we have to talk about the focus of the future and their child, right? At the same time providing the safety, like you say, to realize these are options. It’s an option you’re picking for your child. And that’s wonderful that you’re giving your child the future option because not all donor-conceived people are going to want to find their donors. Now the majority do. Not all are going to want to find them early. Not all are going to want to find them when they’re 18. Sometimes at developmental, it’s when they themselves go to have children. So that’s the one thing we know about donor conceived people. There isn’t one size fits all. We can’t put a mold over that.

Susan Hudson MD (28:02.336)

And to clarify, when you’re saying that these people may meet, have a conversation, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to establish a relationship with each other. Some people may eventually, correct, but a lot of people may just exchange basic information. This is who I am. This is who I’ve become. Is there any other things in my family history that have happened you know, that I should be aware of?

Susan Hudson MD (28:30.284)

So a lot of it is actually more transactional than relationship-wise. Is that correct?

Melanie Mikkelsen (28:37.803)

That is correct. And what I would also say is, again, this is a lifetime. This is a lifespan. And so what you may want to find out in the beginning is not what you are maybe going to want to know later. So I talked to people about that. What do people want to know when they search for their donors, especially 18 or above? It makes sense. A picture’s worth a thousand words, right? They want to know, what does the donor look like? Do I look like the donor or not? They want to know updated medical health history. They want to know often does the donor themselves have any children that they are raising? And beyond that, what I always find fascinating, oftentimes, the adult donor conceived people, once they have that basic information, they really want to know about, do I have donor conceived half genetic siblings out there? And it makes sense because those are often gonna be their peers, similar in age. And it’s really a special bond that they develop with those siblings, sometimes even more than the donor, or they wanna know more about that piece of things.

Carrie Bedient MD (29:44.906)

Dylan, have you met with or communicated with any of the donor conceived children that may have been related to your donations?

Dylan Morgan (29:53.662)

I don’t have any. So before I was here we didn’t sell sperm, we were just collecting and processing. When you are behind the scenes and you see who’s making purchases it’s a pretty significant ethical concern if you say, hey look that person bought my sperm. So I don’t have any inventory of course. I made that jump essentially. 

Abby Eblen MD (30:37.414)

Any last comments you guys would like to make before we close? This was a really interesting topic and one we really not talked about. Four and a half years of doing this.

Dylan Morgan (30:47.382)

The sperm banking industry, the fertility industry in general, it’s going through like a pretty interesting period. There’s been some developments in legislation, like in Colorado. There have been more significant voices in the field talking about some of the pros and the cons of the sperm banking industry as it is. And you’ll see companies…like ours, not to be too, not to self promote too much, but you know, we’re trying to make differences and there’s other sperm banks out there that are sperm donor matching services who are trying to make. you know, positive impact in some of those places, including ID release. Known donorship is another whole option that I can’t really get into right now because it’s a whole other side of things. It’s got, it’s, all, it’s its own conversation.

Abby Eblen MD (31:22.972)

Yeah.

Dylan Morgan (31:41.206)

There’s a lot of resources out there right now to learn about how to choose donors, how to choose a bank. And I would also urge you, if you’re looking for a sperm, go consider, absolutely read into donor conceived people. Look at the DCC and the USDCC. Learn about these organizations, become members, and immerse yourself in these networks. They’re very knowledgeable. They’ve been doing this for a while. We love them. We respect them. And they play a huge role in what we do. So yeah, just it’s a great time to be really mindful about this process and you have a lot of options now. There are way more options than just, this list of a couple sperm banks that everybody knows about and they’re the options. No, you have a lot to consider. So make those considerations. It’s an important decision in your life and the life of your potential child.

Abby Eblen MD (32:24.518)

Yeah, a lot to consider. Melanie, any final words to parents out there that are trying to negotiate this decision and decide what’s best for them?

Melanie Mikkelsen (32:41.705)

Well, I would just say it’s a complex decision. And for many people, it’s a loss and a grieving if they hadn’t considered using a donor and moving from thinking of using their own gametes to using a donor. So I would highly encourage, of course, I’m a big believer in mental health. And I love when we get to see parents and people that have the questions. And we want you to know that we are here, again, for the lifespan. I love to provide the education. I love that we can all work collaboratively with the wonderful doctors like yourselves that are showing an interest in this and with the banks. If we all come together and continue this communication, that’s in the best, obviously, terms for long-term family functioning and the best interest of all the people we see, donors and intended parents and the clinics and agencies that serve them. I’m just very, very thankful to be a part of this and to be learning something new all the time.

Abby Eblen MD (33:45.596)

There’s many different ways to have children. And I just really applaud both of your efforts in making this something that’s a different origin story for a child. The heart of it is, like you said, patients want to be parents. And I think it’s great that you’re making this not something that you should be ashamed of, but something that you should encompass and embrace and, you know, help yourself or help have the family that you desire. So thank you so much for joining us and to our audience, thanks for listening. Tune in next week for more. Be sure to subscribe. Leave us review in iTunes. We’d love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook. So hop on and leave us a like or a comment.

Susan Hudson MD (34:27.468)

You can also visit fertilitydocsuncenored.com to submit specific questions you have about infertility. All questions will be answered on the podcast anonymously for our Ask the Docs segment, so don’t hold back. We love to hear your episode ideas as well, so let us know what you are thinking and want to hear.

Carrie Bedient MD (34:42.036)

And as always, this podcast is intended for entertainment and is not a substitute for medical advice from your own physician. All right. We’ll talk to you all soon. Tune in next week. Bye.

Abby Eblen MD (34:51.196)

Bye.

Bye.

Susan Hudson MD (34:52.024)

Bye.