why it’s not working, I don’t know,
I don’t know, I don’t know . With cancer you’re always in action mode. There’s a plan every day. Today I killed my cancer. I had radiation . That’s very active. But with infertility, you can’t do anything for weeks. You just
have to sit around and wait. I found it very hard.”
Plus, she was haunted by a conversation she’d had with a doctor prior to a speaking
engagement at Yale. She had miscarried in her hotel room before giving a speech to
oncologists. Sad and desperate for answers, Lindsay secretly presented her own case
to the local reproductive doctor she appeared with at the presentation.
“I lied and said, ‘This woman called me this morning and here’s her case.’ I laid
out my case, and he said to me, ‘There’s no hope. She needs donor eggs. You need to call
her and tell her it’s not going to work.’ So I asked him, ‘What if it’s on the male
side?’ And he said, ‘That never happens. That’s like a point-five percent possibility.’ ”
Lindsay had survived cancer, found her Prince Charming, preserved her eggs, and now
she couldn’t get pregnant. She was thankful she could help other people manage their
fertility, but she felt aggravated that she had no control over her own.
“The challenge of running my own organization and having it overlap with my life,”
she admits, “happened with the fertility piece, not the cancer piece. I found it very
hard to go to work every day. I couldn’t get away. My life at home was all about fertility
and my life at work was all about fertility, and that was very hard.”
Lindsay wanted to explore every avenue of what could be causing the problem, so in
early 2005, Dr. Rosenwaks ordered a karyo-type test for both Lindsay and Jordan. It’s
basically a blood test to identify and evaluate the size, shape, and number of chromosomes
in a sample of body cells. The test could determine whether a chromosome defect was
preventing Lindsay from becoming pregnant or causing miscarriages. Lindsay was standing
in Penn Station en route to a work conference when her phone rang. It was Dr. Rosenwaks.
“He said, ‘Lindsay, I’m so sorry. We got the test results and we uncovered that Jordan
has a rare genetic abnormality that’s causing the miscarriages.’ And he had his bad-news
voice on, the voice he uses when he says, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve miscarried.’ But I said,
‘Awesome!’ ” She laughs. “ ‘You found the problem and now we can fix it!’ ”
Lindsay was excited, but Jordan took the news hard.
“I felt terrible,” he says. “She survived. She did everything she could to preserve
her fertility so she was one hundred percent able to have children, and then I come
along, we’re in love with each other, and then I’m the cause for her to go through
another challenge to accomplish her dream.”
Both were astounded by the odds of two people meeting and getting married who had
such unique fertility challenges. They were alsoimmensely grateful there was a potential solution, one that had just launched in the
medical market. Science now allowed for the ability to create embryos, suck one cell
out of each, and check them under a microscope to determine which embryos were genetically
normal. So that’s what the pair did. In June 2005, they began IVF utilizing pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis, or PGD. Alas, no good embryos. But in September, three healthy
embryos were identified and two were implanted in Lindsay. The doctor told them that
if this didn’t work, the next step could be a sperm donor. Lindsay’s frozen eggs were
available, but success was unlikely in the reproductive process due to Jordan’s chromosomal
abnormality. Miraculously, this time, Lindsay got pregnant. With cautious optimism,
they counted the days, praying she wouldn’t miscarry. At five weeks, Dr. Rosenwaks
told them they could come in to see the
I don’t know, I don’t know . With cancer you’re always in action mode. There’s a plan every day. Today I killed my cancer. I had radiation . That’s very active. But with infertility, you can’t do anything for weeks. You just
have to sit around and wait. I found it very hard.”
Plus, she was haunted by a conversation she’d had with a doctor prior to a speaking
engagement at Yale. She had miscarried in her hotel room before giving a speech to
oncologists. Sad and desperate for answers, Lindsay secretly presented her own case
to the local reproductive doctor she appeared with at the presentation.
“I lied and said, ‘This woman called me this morning and here’s her case.’ I laid
out my case, and he said to me, ‘There’s no hope. She needs donor eggs. You need to call
her and tell her it’s not going to work.’ So I asked him, ‘What if it’s on the male
side?’ And he said, ‘That never happens. That’s like a point-five percent possibility.’ ”
Lindsay had survived cancer, found her Prince Charming, preserved her eggs, and now
she couldn’t get pregnant. She was thankful she could help other people manage their
fertility, but she felt aggravated that she had no control over her own.
“The challenge of running my own organization and having it overlap with my life,”
she admits, “happened with the fertility piece, not the cancer piece. I found it very
hard to go to work every day. I couldn’t get away. My life at home was all about fertility
and my life at work was all about fertility, and that was very hard.”
Lindsay wanted to explore every avenue of what could be causing the problem, so in
early 2005, Dr. Rosenwaks ordered a karyo-type test for both Lindsay and Jordan. It’s
basically a blood test to identify and evaluate the size, shape, and number of chromosomes
in a sample of body cells. The test could determine whether a chromosome defect was
preventing Lindsay from becoming pregnant or causing miscarriages. Lindsay was standing
in Penn Station en route to a work conference when her phone rang. It was Dr. Rosenwaks.
“He said, ‘Lindsay, I’m so sorry. We got the test results and we uncovered that Jordan
has a rare genetic abnormality that’s causing the miscarriages.’ And he had his bad-news
voice on, the voice he uses when he says, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve miscarried.’ But I said,
‘Awesome!’ ” She laughs. “ ‘You found the problem and now we can fix it!’ ”
Lindsay was excited, but Jordan took the news hard.
“I felt terrible,” he says. “She survived. She did everything she could to preserve
her fertility so she was one hundred percent able to have children, and then I come
along, we’re in love with each other, and then I’m the cause for her to go through
another challenge to accomplish her dream.”
Both were astounded by the odds of two people meeting and getting married who had
such unique fertility challenges. They were alsoimmensely grateful there was a potential solution, one that had just launched in the
medical market. Science now allowed for the ability to create embryos, suck one cell
out of each, and check them under a microscope to determine which embryos were genetically
normal. So that’s what the pair did. In June 2005, they began IVF utilizing pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis, or PGD. Alas, no good embryos. But in September, three healthy
embryos were identified and two were implanted in Lindsay. The doctor told them that
if this didn’t work, the next step could be a sperm donor. Lindsay’s frozen eggs were
available, but success was unlikely in the reproductive process due to Jordan’s chromosomal
abnormality. Miraculously, this time, Lindsay got pregnant. With cautious optimism,
they counted the days, praying she wouldn’t miscarry. At five weeks, Dr. Rosenwaks
told them they could come in to see the
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