Egg Donor Patient Video: Michael and Sandra

Michael: Given our age, I’m in my late thirties, San is in her early forties, we just sought some advice and help just to sort out what our situation was. Both of us needed help, we had a less than 1% chance of giving birth naturally. It just hits you like a sledgehammer. Even with the IVF treatment, we weren’t responding.

Sandra: We were quite despondent because we’d had a couple of unsuccessful attempts, and I felt that time wasn’t on our side.

Michael: it became that the only way we were going to have children was through a donor program.

Sandra: A daunting time to sort of get your head around that biological thing, but once you’re given an option it doesn’t seem important anymore.

Amanda Segal, International Patient Liaison: Shady Grove Fertility, this is Amanda Segal, how can I help you? Oh hello Sandra, how are you doing?

Michael: The first telephone call we had with Amanda was incredible. And took us through everything with unbelievable amount of detail

Amanda Segal, International Patient Liaison: She answered the questions of “Well how many times do we have to go to America? Are we going to be going backwards and forwards?” We just didn’t understand the concept and she said no it is very simple, there are two trips.

Michael: The once daunting journey all of a sudden became very straight forward with a clear plan with people we can trust. What underpins all of that is a real, kind of rigorous science where the statistics are given to you so you can start to weigh up what your chances are. It can be traumatic at times, and having someone get that, and understand it and respond and give you advice and guidance was a big thing for us. We had not experienced that before.

Sandra: From the Spanish clinic, we found that the language barrier was a problem, that we were assigned a donor who was available who had the same hair color, eye color, we knew nothing else about that person. And we found that it was quite enlightening from a conversation with Shady grove that it was all about the donor.

Michael: At shady Grove we were given the opportunity to go through this huge database. The richness of information that you can read about to get some real confidence and reassurance in these people that are helping you with this wonderful gift is mind-blowing.

Sandra: We had a ton of information, their genetic history, medical history, grandparents, grandmothers.

Michael: It is a very emotional thing to go through and read about their story and why they are giving you the opportunity to start a family. Gail is a miracle worker quite frankly. It’s not just her sort of clinical knowledge that comes to the fore, it’s her understanding of who you are as people.

Sandra: From day one, she was there because there is lots of screening beforehand, and as soon as you are getting ready, your body ready to receive the egg she takes you through that whole process and then it continues once you are pregnant there is another course of injections. And you have another contact as well for day to day things so you are never short of someone to speak to at Shady Grove.

Michael: they were really happy with the quality of the egg and the way in which the process had gone in the transfer and I remember Dr. Michael Levy saying that there was a 68.9% chance that you can get pregnant here, and 68.9% sounded fabulous at that point given everything that we’d gone through.

We were successful first time, we went to a local hospital here in Surrey, Alphie is five months old now.

Sandra: We still pinch ourselves and say can you believe Alphie is here.

Michael: He’s the most adorable little miracle. We will be telling Alphie everything and giving this little boy a real grounding and understanding about this incredible gift that we’ve been given.

Sandra: I don’t think I’ve ever doubted that he’s my baby and I’m his mommy, and he’s our boy.

Give Amanda a call, they’re amazing, Dr. Levy is amazing, we can’t speak highly enough of them.