Sylvia’s Story

I am a 46-year old single mom, thanks to Dr. Massey.  My career as a veterinarian never allowed me the time for serious relationships, so I never had any children.  Suddenly, when I was 43-years old, the alarm clock in my body got my attention and I knew that I wanted to have a baby.  I have always had good health, so I thought it would be easy.  But when I went to Dr. Massey, he was very real with me about the statistics for a woman my age.  The bottom line?  Not good.  My egg reserve was very low and the quality of the eggs at my age was not good either.  I decided I wanted to move forward despite having the odds against me.

Dr. Massey allowed me to go through one cycle of artificial insemination, which I insisted on because of my success in reproduction in animals as a vet.  After that failed, he strongly recommended that we go straight to IVF because the success rates are so much better.  On the second IVF cycle I got pregnant and now I have a beautiful little boy.

Going through infertility treatments is not an easy thing to go through, and as a single woman, without the support of a significant other, it was really hard. Even after I got the positive pregnancy test results, I was so scared I would lose the baby.  Dr. Massey allowed me to come in for an ultrasound any time I needed reassurance. I appreciated how much he cared about me and about the outcome, always helping to put me at ease.  He knew how important this was to me.

Since I had my son, I have moved back to Spain and I have re-prioritized my life to make more time for my personal life.  I am so thankful for Dr. Massey.  While going through infertility treatments is difficult, there IS hope!  It is worth trying!  I am so glad I didn’t give up on my dream of becoming a mom!

We found Dr. Massey and the low-cost Servy Massey Fertility Institute AFTER we had already spent $35,000 at a full-price fertility clinic with no success and disappointment!  

I got married in my late 30’s as many women do these days, never imagining that I would have fertility issues.  Throughout this process, I have found that so many women like me are simply unaware and uneducated about the reality of their fertility with what we consider to be a “normal” time to start a family in our generation, due to careers and/or getting married later in life.  After several years trying to conceive, we knew we had to try IVF in order to realize the dream we had of having our own baby.  We started out at a “well known” clinic that our friends recommended but after no success and all of our savings for IVF spent on one try/round, we realized that we didn’t have many options left.  However, I had my dream so I remained determined.  I will never forget the day we found Servy Massey Fertility Institute and we felt our prayers had been answered!  After meeting with Dr. Massey and his wonderful team, I knew it was the place for us. 

The new concept of low cost IVF, which SMFI embraces, is now giving so many women the opportunity to increase their chances of having a baby.  A lower cost program with the same expertise as the groups with higher overhead allows you more opportunities to conceive.  For so many evaluating IVF, it simply does matter if the treatment is affordable for your family.  When you are looking at statistics and opportunities for success, if you can have two or three rounds for the price of one, it will most definitely increase your chances of having that baby you have always longed for and a potential to have another baby down the road. In addition to the financial benefit to your family, there are no words to describe the care, warmth, expertise and true partnership that Dr. Massey and his team offered to our family and to me, as the woman going through one of the most important processes of my life.  They were always extremely responsive, available for my questions and calls and motivational. In short, they treated us just like family and I will always be thankful that I found them.

Being 43, many clinics would have discouraged a second attempt at IVF.  For a long time, Dr. Massey and SMFI have been using DHEA to improve outcomes in people like me. The best news is that since we got pregnant the first time we tried with Servy Massey, we will be able to try again down the road!!  If you are on this path and are struggling with what to do or where to go next, I encourage you to choose SMFI as your fertility clinic and partner.

Jessica & Jonathan with their son Max

Jessica & Jonathan M.

After discovering we would need to undergo IVF cycles to have a child, we went to a large fertility group in Atlanta. We were astonished to find out that it would cost us about $21,000 total to have a baby – and that is if it worked.

There is always a way to find the resources for what is important in life, but there was no way we were going to spend that kind of money.

We decided to look harder and discovered Servy Massey Fertility Institute. In doing thorough research, we called nurses who worked for Dr. Massey in years past: everyone we talked to had great things to say about Dr. Massey.

Digging deeper, we discovered that both Dr. Massey and Dr. Servy were pioneers in the infertility field. With SMFI’s affordable treatments, the decision was clear. Why not go to the best and pay far less? We knew we had found an IVF treatment we could afford.

The SMFI staff was so helpful and friendly, which made staying positive throughout the process much easier. Dr. Massey always took a very straightforward approach and was so kind. He instilled confidence in me when there were things I didn’t like to do, especially when it involved needles!  The short drive to the lab in Augusta was made easy knowing that we were saving so much money.

Our experience was absolutely positive. Thank you SMFI and Dr. Massey. Our little Max is absolutely perfect. We plan to do it all over again next year!

Surrogacy is the arrangement by which a woman conceives, carries and delivers a child for another couple or individual. This woman is known as a surrogate mother or a gestational carrier.  The gestational surrogate enters into a legal arrangement that declares she is not the mother of the child she is bearing, and she contractually surrenders the child or children to the intended parents who will treat the child as their own.

The intended parent or parents arrange gestational carriers, most often, due to the physical inability to bear a child such as absence of a uterus.  There are other severe female infertility factors, which can make surrogacy the only option for having a child.  In some cases there are severe medical diseases, which preclude pregnancy or delivery.

In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is the genetic mother.  This has become a common practice these days.  In this case, the child is conceived by artificial insemination, using usually frozen sperm by insemination at the time of her ovulation. This connection is more difficult to break emotionally and legally.

Currently, the most common type of surrogacy is called gestational surrogacy, which involves in vitro fertilization, the creation of an embryo or embryos and the placing of embryos in the gestational carrier’s uterus.  Her eggs are not involved.

Another increasingly common use of gestational carriers by males – usually gay couples – are those who wish to “commission” a gestational carrier.  In these arrangements, sperm or eggs may be provided, when possible, by the commissioning parents. Donor sperm, eggs or even donor embryos may also be used.  There is a vast range of complex possibilities.  All involve the use of IVF and there is no genetic link between the carrier and the baby.

The gestational surrogate uses psychological techniques to distance herself emotionally from the child.  The contact between the intended parents and the gestational carrier is heavy during the pregnancy and immediately after.  The arrangements that are made for contact with the gestational carrier after birth vary according to the particular situation.

Because states vary in their approach to surrogacy, couples need to engage experts with knowledge of prevailing laws.  Georgia happens to be a surrogacy-friendly state.

Joe B. Massey, MD

Dr. Pastuszac at Baylor College of Medicine has discovered two new genetic causes of infertility.  There was one previous gene deletion noted on the Y chromosome.  Previously, the Y-chromosome microdeletion and major chromosomal errors were known to cause severe male factor infertility.  The frequency of either of these is under 5 percent of infertile men.  Now the Glut-3 and Caspr5 abnormalities have been identified in a few infertile men.  Future work will determine how important these are.  It would be a reasonable guess that in the future many more genetic causes will be found for currently unexplained infertility in men.  I am very pleased that Dr. Larry Lipshultz was the professor in charge of this very innovative research.  He was a colleague of mine at the University of Pennsylvania years ago and has made many contributions to the puzzling issues surrounding male infertility.

By Dr. Joe Massey

It has been debated for years how much rest is needed after embryo transfer. Science has not proven that rest is necessary. A recent study by Dr. Calhoun et al. at the University of North Carolina has shown that the duration, intensity and frequency of physical activity had nothing to do with the outcomes of IVF.

At Servy Massey Fertility Institute, our patients rest between fifteen and twenty minutes after a procedure. It seems that since the patients have had a valium, that everyone would need to rest or be reasonably quiet for a couple of hours after that. Walking around is not going to cause embryos to fall out of place and strict bed rest is not necessary. Our Atlanta patients, of course, are riding back in a car from Augusta, which confines them to rest for a couple of hours.

By Dr. Joe Massey

Servy Massey Fertility Institute (SMFI) opened its doors in 2011 with the belief that fertility treatment should be made easily accessible to all prospective patients. This month, Dr. Servy and Dr. Massey expanded their services by offering oocyte (unfertilized eggs) vitrification thereby affording women more control over their fertility.

Vitrification is a new method of cryopreservation, preferred by fertility specialists for its simplified process over the traditional technique of slow freezing. Last October, American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) removed its label of vitrification as “experimental,” thereby granting clinics nationally the freedom to focus efforts on oocyte preservation.

In preparation for the changes, Dr. Edouard Servy (founding partner of SMFI) requested the help of Italian biochemist Giovanna Di Emidio who specializes in oocyte vitrification. Di Emidio spent more than a week teaching the new method to SMFI embryologists Yaqi and Karla, which is similar to the embryo vitrification technique that they have been using for years.

Giovanna Di Emidio, who graduated from the University of L’Aquila in central Italy, focused her studies in reproductive biology. Dr. Di Emidio spent extensive time in Germany researching the link between the aging of oocytes and oxidative stress, as well as in Spain where she worked on vitrifying oocytes.

Dr. Di Emidio, who “was convinced to study biotechnology after seeing the difficulties a friend encountered while trying to get pregnant,” likens the role of an embryologist to that of a baby sitter: “he or she takes care of the eggs, keeps them outside the incubator the minimum amount of time and makes sure that they stay at the correct temperature, with clean air and dim light.”

Dr. Servy said he invited the specialist, “because Italy is far advanced in oocyte cryopreservation by vitrification.” In 2004, Italy passed law restricting the freezing of embryos to reinforce social perception surrounding the issue. The law prohibited fertility clinics and laboratories from fertilizing more than three oocytes. Italian laboratories therefore began freezing all extra oocytes.

Who could benefit from oocyte freezing?

• Through oocyte vitrification, donated eggs can be used whenever a recipient needs them, without having to worry about donor synchronization.
• Women who are about to receive cancer treatment (chemotherapy, radiation therapy) and want to protect their oocytes for future conception.
• Young women who are not yet ready for a pregnancy, however would like to preserve their fertility.

Dr. Di Emidio spent six days working with the lab’s embryologists for training. ”The user instructions for vitrification are no secret,” she explained, “but there are many tricks to practice if you want to achieve the best possible results.”

In her work with SMFI, Dr. Di Emidio demonstrated her method by splitting eggs into two groups, injecting eggs from the first group with sperm and froze the remaining eggs to thaw and inject at a later date. The following day embryologists compared their results, finding that fertilization of the frozen eggs provided results similar to conventional IVF.

“The fertilized frozen eggs turned into beautiful embryos that grew into the blastocyst day five stage,” said Dr. Servy. “It means they stand a good chance to implant in the uterus and lead to a healthy pregnancy.”

“Oocyte vitrification is a new procedure for our clinic,” said Karla after a training session. “Just as Servy-Massey’s low-cost IVF has dramatically increased traffic to our lab, so too oocyte vitrification will be a tool to reach a large population of women seeking increased accessibility for fertility.”

By Claire Perez

When replacing two embryos in young patients, the IVF success rate is about 40 percent for each cycle. This means 60 percent of patients will not conceive as result of the first cycle. Sometimes couples have frozen embryos that can be used as a “second chance” option. In the case that this doesn’t work either, we must consider alternative approaches for the successful pregnancy. Is it sound practice, however, to replace more embryos in hopes of improving the odds?

A paper from the renowned Shady Grove Fertility Center recently revealed that patients under 35 should not become overly aggressive by using three embryos rather than two, even in the case of two failed IVF attempts. The group showed that on the third cycle, pregnancy rate was approximately 35 percent whether two or three embryos were replaced. The multiple pregnancy rate for two embryos was 25 percent while in a three-embryo transfer, 45 percent of patients had multiple births.

It was also discovered that the triplet rate was 18 percent, which presents a very severe challenge. At Servy Massey Fertility Institute, we do everything we can to select two good blastocysts and avoid putting back three embryos. Three half-pound babies face a month in the ICU and a nine percent risk, per child, of developing long-term neurological problems.

By Dr. Joe Massey

Every year the top minds in fertility join at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ARSM) conference where many innovative papers are presented, the most prestigious of which is the Oral Abstract Prize Paper. In 2012 the accolade went to a study regarding chromosome testing of embryos after IVF, also known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis or screening (PGD or PGS).

In their presentation, Dr. William Schoolcraft and colleagues revealed that in patients 35 years and older who had their embryos biopsied and tested for chromosomal abnormalities had higher pregnancy rates and lower pregnancy losses. The study included observation of a blastocyst-freezing step, which, they found, did not adversely affect the overall findings.

The testing increased the chances for success, but is it cost-effective? This is not clear. Typically, fertility centers must delay the transfer of embryos often increasing costs related to the process of freezing and thawing (unless, of course, this cost is waived).To preform a traditional embryo biopsy typically costs about $3,000, as the process requires use of a $40,000 micromanipulator and a highly skilled operator to extract the cells. In this case, embryos are biopsied on the fifth day, which is now the standard in the embryo biopsy procedure. Adding another $3,000 for the sophisticated genetic analysis brings the total to $6,000. In a low-cost IVF setting this is obviously not recommended for every patient. However, patients who have had recurrent pregnancy loss or repeated IVF failures certainly may wish to consider screening their embryos before doing a transfer.

The researchers from Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine and RMA of New Jersey proved that in patients experiencing unexplained pregnancy loss with more than three miscarriages could benefit from PGD by doing a biopsy of the blastocyst and chromosomal analysis. We know from a number of papers – including Dr. Schoolcraft’s presentation – that the vast majority of pregnancy losses as well as failed implantations are due to chromosomal errors. This is true for recurrent pregnancy loss as well. For couples that have had several miscarriages, even without “infertility,” IVF with PGD is a sensible option to consider. The miscarriage risk can be reduced to near zero.

In some cases of cycle failure, the embryo quality is obviously low and embryos are simply unable to make it to day five. PGD will not a good fit in this situation as the embryos are not capable of further development due to chromosomal failure or any of a dozen other deficiencies of the embryos.

In some cases, after repeated failed IVF cycles, couples have put back a number of “good-looking” embryos several times. However, after PGD we find that all embryos are abnormal and the couple must move to donor eggs. It is not common, but by no means is it rare.

By Dr. Joe Massey