Connect to Purpose – With The Lafayette Team
Helping One Patient Turn “Lemons Into Lemonade” Brings the Team Back to Ovation’s Purpose
Dr. Chelsey Leisinger, Ovation Fertility Lafayette Laboratory Director At Ovation®, our purpose is to bring the joy of parenthood through innovative science. The team members in our labs understand how much patients have been through by the time they need advanced fertility treatments like IVF, so they do everything they can to ensure each cycle is a success.
That’s exactly what the Ovation Fertility Lafayette team did when they recently helped a young patient overcome great odds to see a positive pregnancy test.
When a 27-year-old patient was facing a diagnosis of unexplained infertility, she decided to move forward with IVF. While the egg retrieval resulted in 15 eggs, it wasn’t all good news.
According to Senior Embryologist Julie Dupre, “Egg maturity is important, but this patient’s 15 eggs were only M1 [metaphase 1] even a few hours after retrieval. At the time of fertilization using ICSI, all the eggs were still M1 and poor quality.”
For those who don’t work in the IVF lab every day, M1 eggs are ones that have not matured yet and are less likely to become an embryo. In contrast, metaphase 2 (M2) eggs are mature and much more likely to successfully fertilize and become an embryo that can develop into a healthy pregnancy and baby.
The embryologists used all their experience and skill when fertilizing each egg using ICSI, which resulted in the patient having four embryos. After testing, it came back that three of the embryos were chromosomally normal (euploid). “This was amazing and somewhat surprising news,” Julie says.
Although the first frozen embryo transfer was not successful, the second one resulted in a positive pregnancy test for the happy patient. She has since “graduated” from fertility care and has been released to her obstetrician who is taking excellent care of her while the patient eagerly awaits the birth of her precious baby.
For Julie and the team in Lafayette, this story is a perfect example of why they do what they do. “This patient’s story reminds us why our work and perseverance is so important. She started with lemons and finished with lemonade, which is why we never give up on the patients who put their dreams in our hands,” Julie explains.