The only thing more perfect than the beautiful spring weather for Long Island IVF’s 25^th Anniversary reunion party yesterday was the smiles on the faces of all of our babies and their grateful parents!

Every spring, Long Island IVF celebrates the births of our most recent IVF arrivals with a picnic for that year’s newborns and their parents. But this year…for our big anniversary…we opened it up to all 5,000+ couples whose families we’ve helped build over the past quarter century! Please “like” us on Facebook and check out some more reunion pictures there.

For those who don’t know, Long Island IVF was the practice to bring Long Island its first IVF baby, first FET/cryo baby, and first donor egg baby. The same doctors who co-founded Long Island IVF twenty-five years ago are still partners today.

We cherish every little life we’ve helped create, from the college grads to those being conceived today. But it was especially exciting to reunite with some of our oldest babies, now all grown-up, including the second baby born to Long Island IVF’s program, Alyssa.

Alyssa is the beautiful 24 year-old blonde in the picture with Dr. Kreiner. She and her mother came (her 21 year-old younger brother couldn’t make it) and they were instant “celebrities” as word spread throughout the crowd that Baby #2 was “in the house”. They each addressed the crowd, recalling how important Long Island IVF was in their lives, in a very emotional moment of the day that really helped bring home the magnitude of what Long Island IVF has meant to so many couples for 25 years and counting.

Other beautiful older babies were there. Some reiterated the same sentiment as they spoke about their lives…lives that would not have been possible without Long Island IVF. It was a humbling and gratifying experience for the whole Long Island IVF staff. As always, the fresh crop of adorable newborns and toddlers, decked out in their finest, were a joy to meet and gush over!

Everyone at Long Island IVF would like to thank all of the parents and children who came out to celebrate this very important milestone with us…and all those who were there in spirit, but were not able to come.

You and your families are beautiful. You all inspire us each day to do the work we love…building families. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for allowing us the privilege of building yours.

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Were you at the party? Please share your thoughts and feel free to upload a photo on our Facebook page.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is our big 25^th Anniversary reunion, and we’ve worked so hard on making it special (or at least Lindsay has!) that we could all use a little stress-buster. If you want to come to the party, just show up between noon and 2 pm to the Mid-Island Y JCC at 45 Manetto Hill Rd., Plainview, NY…but you have to be a Long Island IVF parent of any of the IVF babies we’ve helped create over the past 25 years, or one of our babies!

Welcome to Nearly Wordless Wednesday, our weekly photo caption contest*… or NWW to the regular players. It’s a blog-based contest where anyone anywhere can enter to win by submitting a clever caption for the photo of the week. Work a few minutes into your week for this stress-buster. Come on and play.

Each week, the winner gets a gift card as our little thank you for playing our game.

This week’s contest winner will get a Dunkin Donuts gift card. It’s finally iced coffee and tea weather around here! And donuts are a year round treat! But to get the gift card, you’ve got to be the best caption of them all. So come on and play our game and the coffee and donut could be on us next week!

Before we move on to the contest, we need to announce last week’s contest winner: Amanda! Remember the picture of the woman’s feet with the toenails that were multi-colored… and about 8 inches long? Yikes! Well, we really liked Amanda’s caption:

“Just put your feet in the stirr—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!” (Of course we never really see feet quite like that on any of OUR patients. LOL.) And a great creative shout-out also to Tiffany.

Amanda, please email your address and the words “NWW Contest #70 Dunkin Donuts” to Lindsay at lmontello@liivf.com to claim your gift card.

Now on to this week’s challenge…

Kids do the darnedest things. This picture cracked me up. The photo comes from the funny stock of curiousphotos.blogspot.com.

Give this photo a caption on the blog (remember it’s not a Facebook contest). Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Best entry winner gets Dunkin Donuts on us! It’s a fast, fun and free contest open to anyone, whether infertile or not, and whether a patient of our practice or not. Join our “regulars” in the weekly challenge!

Bookmark our blog and check back next week to see if you won and we’ll mail you your gift card.

Plus, if you decide to “LIKE” us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/longislandivf , we may be able to send you the prize as an e-gift right through Facebook, depending on what this week’s prize is, so you could be enjoying your winnings as early as on the day we choose the winner! But we’re more than happy to mail it to you! (So as much as we’d love you to “LIKE” us on Facebook, it is absolutely not required to either enter or win our contests!)

*This is a blog-based contest. You may only enter it on the blog. This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with Facebook.  All entrants or participants completely release Facebook for any claims. Participants are disclosing their entry information to LIIVF, not Facebook. “Liking” LIIVF on Facebook is not required to enter or win.

Enter today! Or at least before next Tuesday!

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Why not bookmark us so you remember to check back often…at least every Wednesday…so you don’t miss our NWW contests. And we also run bigger contests, too. Please feel free to suggest other fun places we could get gift cards from that you’d like to win as prizes for these fun contests or topics you’d like to see discussed on the blog. Now go enter the contest!

Photo credit: http://curiousphotos.blogspot.com/2009/06/compilation-of-funny-kids-58-pics.html

image courtesy of free digital photos.net

Perhaps the only thing harder than walking in to the fertility clinic for the first time… is walking out of it for the last time. And while that’s obviously true when treatment is discontinued, it’s also true with a baby on the way.

It’s not easy to face infertility and the fact that neither your own best efforts as a couple nor the treatment of your trusted gynecologist are enough to get your pregnant. You may feel anything from concern, anger, fear, depression, denial, or even shame walking in for the first time. But in time, many people come to not only trust their fertility doctor and the staff, but to bond with them in a meaningful way.

And when the infertility treatment produces a positive pregnancy test result, especially if it’s been a long time in coming, many patients wish they could stay with their fertility clinic for the duration of the pregnancy. But just as there was a time when your gynecologist needed to refer you to a reproductive endocrinologist in order to get you pregnant…the time comes shortly after a heartbeat is confirmed when the RE will refer you back to the obstetrician, who is the expert at monitoring your pregnancy and delivering your baby.

So while one part of you is happy to skip off clutching your black and white sonogram, the other part of you tearfully watches the door close behind you. A chapter is over.

This place that you never wanted to have to come to…where countless mornings were spent being poked and prodded…where tears of all kinds were shed…where you never lost sight of the dream no matter how intense the hormonal havoc got…

This place that somehow…when you weren’t looking… became strangely comfortable and comforting.

Now just like that, with one final wave of the sono wand, you’re gone. Like baby dust and fairy tales.

Of course, at Long Island IVF, we expect you to come back and visit with the baby. And we look forward to all the holiday photo cards each year. And we really love it when you check in with a photo or an encouraging word on our Facebook page and let us know what the little miracle did today that took your breath away. But this year, we’re doing better than all that…

This Thursday, May 16^th, we are inviting ALL of the Long Island IVF (and East Coast Fertility) IVF babies and their parents back for our 25^th Anniversary Reunion celebration, from noon until 2:00 pm at the Mid-Island Y JCC, 45 Manetto Hill Rd., Plainview, N.Y. 11803.

Many of our babies will be driving their parents there! Please try to make it as we would really love to see you again and bring those old pictures with you from the early reunions. Email Lindsay at lmontello@liivf.com for more info and to tell her you’re coming. Many of the nurses and staff from the 90’s still work here and can’t wait to see you.

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Was it hard to say “goodbye”? Have you kept in touch by visiting or through Facebook?

Will you be coming on Thursday?

photo credit: Stuart Miles/http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Other_Metaphors_and__g307-Time_For_Goodbyes_Message_Showing_Farewell_Or_Bye_p146553.html

Welcome to the Journey to the Crib Podcast.  We will have a blog discussion each week with each chapter.  This podcast covers Chapter Twelve: What Do You Know About Your Fertility? You, the listener, are invited to ask questions and make comments.  You can access the podcast here: http://podcast.longislandivf.com/?p=74

What do you know about your fertility?

Women have a biological clock.  Everyone knows that.  However, life seems to get in the way sometimes; whether it be school, career or failure to find Mr. Right.  Most people assume that if they are healthy then there should not be a problem conceiving.  Unfortunately, general health and fertility are not always related.

Women are born with their reproductive lifetime supply of eggs.  That means the body doesn’t produce new ones.  With each menstrual cycle one egg is released and an additional thousand eggs simply are lost in the body’s natural process of selecting one for ovulation.  As a woman approaches 50, she typically runs out of her store of eggs.

Additionally, there is the issue of the effect of aging on the eggs.  Older eggs are more likely to have chromosomal abnormalities making them unlikely to become viable embryos.  Fertilized eggs with abnormal chromosomes are the most common cause of miscarriages, running about 40% by age 40.

Furthermore, not everyone’s ovaries/eggs age at the same rate and again it is not necessarily reflective of how old you look either.  Often very young looking women have very old acting ovaries and eggs.  You can be screened to evaluate your fertility status with an ultrasound examination of your ovaries performed by an experienced reproductive endocrinologist as well as by blood hormone screening looking at your FSH, estradiol and AntiMullerian Hormone levels.

I urge every woman of reproductive age who has not completed her childbearing to be evaluated and make plans based on knowledge about her own fertility.  Aggressive fertility treatment might be needed depending on your age, how long you have been trying to conceive, and your fertility screening.  Women who do not have a partner should explore the possibility of freezing their eggs while the likelihood of them still being healthy is high.  Remember, fertility treatment has a high success rate that decreases significantly as time passes on the biological clock.

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Was this helpful in answering your questions about your fertility?

Please share your thoughts about this podcast here. And ask any questions and Dr. Kreiner will answer them personally.

If I had a dollar for every post I’ve read about how Mother’s Day is the hardest, most dreaded day of the entire year for infertile women, well… I could probably pay for an IVF cycle.

I’ve written such posts myself over the years. The memories of my personal pain and frustration each Mother’s Day during my years of infertility have caused me to perhaps do some of you a disservice with my prior Mother’s Day posts of survival tips and quick verbal comebacks. In my need to help you through this day, I’ve assumed you are all inconsolably miserable and totally broken, as I had always been. And while many of you may well be, that assumption is unfair to those infertiles who may be able to find some measure of joy on this day.

I read something this past week that made me realize the unimaginable…that being infertile on Mother’s Day is not automatically the end of the world for every infertile woman. (It took a lot for me to let that sink in).

Who am I (or anyone else) to assume the day was going to be awful for you? Is it fair to set you up in advance to have a horrible day? What if you happened to wake up on Mother’s Day and, against all odds, actually didn’t fall apart as you thought you would…or as some well-meaning blogger predicted you would?

What if you were somehow stronger?

So while advice to sleep late, focus on your own mom, avoid places that mothers would be, and go to bed early may be helpful to many seeking to get through a day so painful they can hardly bear it, they are not hard and fast rules for every infertile woman.

Just as the causes of our infertility are different, so are the ways we handle it. Even on Mother’s Day. Forgive me if I underestimated you.

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Did anyone have a better day than they expected to have? If so, please share. And if it was as bad as you thought it’d be, feel free to vent.

Photo credit: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=497&picture=tulips

Today is Advocacy Day, and after a long day pressing the flesh in the nation’s capital, our tired advocates could use a stress-buster.

Welcome one and all to Nearly Wordless Wednesday, our weekly photo caption contest*… or NWW to the regular players. It’s a blog-based contest where anyone anywhere can enter to win by submitting a clever caption for the photo of the week. Work a few minutes into your week for this stress-buster. Come on and play.

Each week, the winner gets a gift card as our little thank you for playing our game.

This week’s contest winner will get a Dunkin Donuts gift card. Well, will it be a hot or iced coffee or tea? Jelly or crueller donut? To snag our DD card, you’ve got to be the best caption of the bunch. So come on and play our game and the coffee and donut could be on us next week!

Before we move on to the contest, we need to announce last week’s contest winner: Tiffany! Remember the picture of the woman stepping out of her car…shaving her legs in the lot?  Well, we really thought Tiffany’s caption was clever:

“That moment before your gyno appointment when you realize you haven’t shaved your legs in a very long time.”

Tiffany, please email your address and the words “NWW Contest #69 Dunkin Donuts” to Lindsay at lmontello@liivf.com to claim your gift card.

Now on to this week’s challenge…

Following up the spring theme…here’s one in honor of flip-flop season! This photo comes from the funny stock of freefunnypicsblogspot.com.

Give this photo a caption on the blog (remember it’s not a Facebook contest). Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Best entry winner gets Dunkin Donuts on us! It’s a fast, fun and free contest open to anyone, whether infertile or not, and whether a patient of our practice or not. Join our “regulars” in the weekly challenge!

Bookmark our blog and check back next week to see if you won and we’ll mail you your gift card.

Plus, if you decide to “LIKE” us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/longislandivf , we may be able to send you the prize as an e-gift right through Facebook, depending on what this week’s prize is, so you could be enjoying your winnings as early as on the day we choose the winner! But we’re more than happy to mail it to you! (So as much as we’d love you to “LIKE” us on Facebook, it is absolutely not required to either enter or win our contests!)

*This is a blog-based contest. You may only enter it on the blog. This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with Facebook.  All entrants or participants completely release Facebook for any claims. Participants are disclosing their entry information to LIIVF, not Facebook. “Liking” LIIVF on Facebook is not required to enter or win.

Enter today! Or at least before next Tuesday!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Why not bookmark us so you remember to check back often…at least every Wednesday…so you don’t miss our NWW contests. And we also run bigger contests, too. Please feel free to suggest other fun places we could get gift cards from that you’d like to win as prizes for these fun contests or topics you’d like to see discussed on the blog. Now go enter the contest!

Photo credit: http://funnyfreepics.blogspot.com/search/label/WTF%20Pics

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos,net

It’s National Nurse Appreciation Week.

There was a time when the word “nurse” would conjure up a vision of a bedpan-toting woman in a funny white hat. Nowadays (gee am I dating myself with this lingo?) nurses are gals… and guys… in fashionably-colored scrubs.

Not to de-value the bedpan-slinger (because there is certainly a time and place for that!), but no one can compare to a great IVF nurse. And I should know. I’ve had my share. Seven to be exact.

An IVF nurse is a key part of your team, and especially so if your partner comes up short in the emotional support department. She is always there with the answers you seek, the dosage you forgot, and the shoulder you need.

She’s got your back.

And depending which nurse you’ve been assigned, she may even have walked in your shoes. Several of Long Island IVF’s staff, including the nurses, were also patients. And many of the nurses have been working here for over ten… and sometimes over twenty… years!

Why not take a moment and give a shout out to your favorite IVF nurse(s) and share a memorable moment?

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I’ll start. Thanks Joey, Sue, Maryann, Denise, Vicky, Patty, and Dotty. And I can’t forget the nurse practitioners: Lorraine, Olga, and Kathy. Or Gail. Too many memories to choose from… though Dotty and I (and any witnesses) will always remember our famous wheelchair ride story!

Photo credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/agree-terms.php?id=100146507

image courtesy of free digital photos.net

Fear can be an awesome motivator. 

Unfortunately, when it leads to avoiding a vital medical test such as investigating the patency of fallopian tubes it can prevent a physician from discovering the cause of a couple’s infertility. 

The hysterosalpingogram (HSG) is an x-ray of the fallopian tubes after radio-opaque contrast is injected transvaginally through the cervix.  Contrast can be visualized filling the fallopian tubes and spilling through patent fallopian tubes into the pelvis.

The HSG is performed using a metal instrument clamped on the lip of the cervix while a tube is placed through the cervix and contrast injected into the uterine cavity under pressure.  Patients have complained that this procedure is too painful for them to endure and either refuse to undergo the procedure or go for a surgical laparoscopy under general anesthesia.

Today, a new procedure, known as the Femvue, is available whereby a physician inserts a catheter similar to that used at insemination into the cervix.  The physician observes by transvaginal ultrasound the flow of air bubbles through the tubes and into the pelvis.  This can be accomplished in the office with typically minimal discomfort to the patient. 

Sometimes, it may be difficult to get reliable results with Femvue in obese patients. In cases where the results of Femvue are abnormal, a traditional HSG may be done to confirm results.

With the Femvue, the fear of pain experienced by some patients from the HSG is no longer an obstacle to the infertility workup.

Femvue is currently being performed at Long Island IVF by Doctors Kreiner, Pena, and Zinger.

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If you have had an HSG, was it painful? If you’ve had Femvue, how did it go?

Have you avoided an HSG because of fear?

Photo credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Diseases_and_Other_M_g287-Woman_With_Abdominal_Pain_p76296.html

Today is International Bereaved Mother’s Day.

Celebrated on the Sunday before Mother’s Day, it’s dedicated to those who have suffered the pain of miscarriage, stillbirth, losing an infant or child, or are suffering from infertility. To those who are still standing.

This year there is a world-wide project known as #iamstillstanding , through Still Standing Magazine, which encourages women and men who have suffered these unspeakable losses to share their stories, post a picture, or simply to speak their children’s names…to acknowledge the grief and help in some small way to bring a measure of healing. You can participate through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and/or Pinterest. Go here for more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/552753651414253/

The stories already uploaded are hard to read, yet comforting. They are heart-warming, and heart-breaking. They will take your breath away.

In addition to Still Standing Magazine, two helpful resources for bereaved parents are Carlymarie’s Project Heal https://www.facebook.com/CarlyMarieProjectHeal?fref=ts and A Heart to Hold https://www.facebook.com/AHearttoHold?fref=ts. The first is support from a bereaved mother and artist and the second is a non-profit organization that provides hand-sewn hearts of the exact weight of the lost baby to bereaved moms, so they have something soft of significant weight to hold during their grieving.

For those local women who are looking for professional, one-on-one or group counseling to process your grief over infertility or other related losses, please contact Long Island IVF to speak to our professionals or go here for more information: http://www.longislandivf.com/mind_body.cfm

May those suffering find some measure of comfort in the above resources.

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Are there any additional resources you can recommend for others who may be grieving?

Photo credit: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=238&picture=statue-of-an-angel

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

May is here.

The weather on Long Island has finally warmed up. Mother Nature has been particularly cruel for so long… with Hurricane Sandy and Winter Storm Nemo combining for seven long months of misery. But for those suffering from infertility, the weather is the least of our worries.

Especially in May.

May is ugly. It brings Mother’s Day on May 12…the hardest day of the entire year for infertile women. There are so few ways to console yourself that day. And even fewer if your infertility journey has been long, if you’ve suffered losses or miscarriages along the way, or if you’ve lost your own mom. And you’re not imagining things…every stranger you encounter really is wishing you a Happy Mother’s Day. It’s maddening.

But May is also good. It brings Advocacy Day on May 8…an opportunity to do something about your infertility. An opportunity to feel some sense of control over your situation. And lack of control over infertility is one of the most frustrating parts of it. You can join the movement of hundreds…maybe thousands… of suffering infertiles from across the nation as they descend upon the Capitol to meet and speak with their elected representatives about the impact infertility has had on their lives. You can educate them about infertility and the unbearable pain of this disease. You can put a face to the disease and make it easier for your officials to support new and pending legislation, such as the Family Act, that will positively impact infertile couples everywhere. Go to Washington if you can. Learn more about Advocacy Day here: http://familybuilding.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=advday_home

What if you want to, but can’t, go to Washington for Advocacy Day?

RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association has the perfect Plan B for those of you on Facebook or Twitter: Join the Thunderclap! That’s an effort where, at the same precise moment on May 8, 2013, the cyber-world will hear the deafening crescendo of one unified message…a “thunderclap” of an untold number of supporters of the infertile. You can get more information about and can join this movement (and have your friends join) by clicking here: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/2094 .

By joining the Thunderclap to “Unite for the Family Act” and designating whether you want to support the movement through Facebook or Twitter, the Thunderclap Project and Resolve.org will automatically send this message once on behalf of each person who joins in: “Ask your Members of Congress to support issues important to people with infertility. http://thndr.it/11CJK6T” …and each message will be sent at the same time on May 8 to make a noticeable impact!

So the only way May can be all bad is if you don’t take advantage of Advocacy Day by either attending the annual event in Washington or by joining in the Thunderclap project. Taking some action will help your spirits. It is some much-needed empowerment in a world where you’ve been stripped of control. Movements like these are what we hope to look back on as the reason the Family Act gets passed someday.

Unfortunately, it won’t make Mother’s Day any less ugly.

But it can be the start of something beautiful.

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Will you join the Thunderclap?

Photo credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/agree-terms.php?id=100156288 by arztsamui