It takes a village.

There are a lot of people involved in making a successful egg donation cycle happen.  There are doctors, nurses, schedulers, attorneys, paralegals, lab techs – not to mention donors and recipients.  Perfect cycles are easy – donors go to their appointments, test results are ideal, contracts are signed quickly, no one has a vacation or a sick day and we’re in and out before we know it.  That doesn’t happen very often. It is far more likely that an unexpected bump in the road will present itself and it will require everyone to rise to the occasion.   On those days the true professionals literally shine.

I am lucky to work with a number of doctor’s offices and attorneys who understand what it takes to get the job done.  They are patient, fast acting, flexible and magically easy to reach.  Nurse coordinators, especially, are the heart of the egg donation cycle machine.  Their willingness to be a team player, to be communicative, to stay calm in the face of any surprise is invaluable.  Nurses are often the unsung heroes in the shadow of the incredible work of the doctors and embryologists but their role will impact the cycle profoundly.  Unfortunately there aren’t SART statistics about the positive outlook of the nurse coordinator at a particular office or “number of phone calls returned per week” but there should be. If you’re in the process of choosing a fertility clinic for your cycle – spend some time with the IVF nurses before you make your decision.  Ask them what would happen if the donor needed to adjust the calendar by one day for a family event and how often that happens. Their answer will tell you a lot about how they would approach an unexpected issue – big or small.

-Ellie Klein, BHED Cycle Coordinator