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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: The series features conversations about pregnancy, complications and loss. Please

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Speaker 2: take care while listening. In twenty eighteen, a brand new

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Speaker 2: fertility company started building clinics across the country.

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Speaker 1: Introducing kind Body, a new generation of women's health and

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Speaker 1: fertility care with a redesigned patient.

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Speaker 2: Kind Body promised an entirely different approach to fertility.

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Speaker 1: We believe that going to the doctor should feel like

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Speaker 1: a visit with a trusted friend, where you can get

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Speaker 1: all the care you need in one place.

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Speaker 2: And in a world where costs are notoriously high and

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Speaker 2: outcomes notoriously uncertain for lots of women, this new approach

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Speaker 2: sounded really appealing.

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Speaker 3: My coworker we were walking past the kind Body and

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Speaker 3: she said, only God, look, they look so good. They're

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Speaker 3: supposed to be really amazing. They're geared toward women and

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Speaker 3: helping women and women's health.

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Speaker 4: I saw it and was like women doctors and the

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Speaker 4: way they made it seem like it was just so

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Speaker 4: easy to do and seamless. Right away, I just was like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 4: this is the easiest choice I've had to make.

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Speaker 5: The vibe looked like it was just straight out of

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Speaker 5: like West Elm or something. It was very inviting for

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Speaker 5: you to want to come in and sit in the

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Speaker 5: bright colors and just really relaxing, almost like you were

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Speaker 5: going to go get a massage. To be honest, I

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Speaker 5: saw the aesthetics of it.

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Speaker 6: I was so excited. I was like, finally a place

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Speaker 6: is going to get it. It's going to pamper our patients,

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Speaker 6: give them that clc that they need.

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Speaker 7: You just got the feeling you were going to be

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Speaker 7: taken care of and you weren't just a number and

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Speaker 7: part of the masses. So I was like great.

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Speaker 2: And the company's founder, Geina Partesi, had big plans to

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Speaker 2: turn a lot more women into Kind Body converts.

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Speaker 8: We're opening Washington, d C. We're opening Brooklyn, a third

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Speaker 8: locale in New York. We're actually coming to Columbus before

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Speaker 8: coming to Cleveland. Our plan costs for fifty locations within

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Speaker 8: the next two years.

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Speaker 2: That's Gina Bartesy speaking to Griffin Jones on the Inside

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Speaker 2: Reproductive Health podcast in twenty twenty two. Under Gina, kind

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Speaker 2: Body grew quickly. The company had signed lucrative contracts with

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Speaker 2: Tesla and Walmart about a competing IVF chain, doubling the

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Speaker 2: number of clinics that operated. Company leaders ring the bell

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Speaker 2: at the New York Stock Exchange. Its valuation had reached

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Speaker 2: one point eight billion dollars and it seemed to be

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Speaker 2: only going up. An initial public offering was in sight,

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Speaker 2: and Gina had a specific way she liked to describe

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Speaker 2: this euphoric chapter at kind Body.

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Speaker 6: They is the.

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Speaker 8: Rocket ship analogy a lot.

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Speaker 6: We are on a rocket ship to the moon, and

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Speaker 6: then he Al's talked about like the rocket ship We're

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Speaker 6: going to like last to the moon, help everyone's fertility.

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Speaker 2: I first heard about kind Body when its ads started

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Speaker 2: showing up in my Instagram and TikTok feeds around twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three, encouraging me to think about freezing my eggs.

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Speaker 2: I was right in its demographic, a professional woman in

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Speaker 2: her early thirties living in a big city. This company

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Speaker 2: seemed to be offering something new, combining the vibe of

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Speaker 2: a health club or a spot with a part of

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Speaker 2: medicine that can deliver pretty miraculous and life changing outcomes.

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Speaker 2: I got curious, so I started making some calls, and

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Speaker 2: right away it became clear that things at kind Body

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Speaker 2: were not as they appeared. I heard from former patients

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Speaker 2: and employees.

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Speaker 6: When you tick the rose colored glasses off, because at

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Speaker 6: first you don't want to see it right as I

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Speaker 6: slowly start to say to myself, Oh, this is not good.

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Speaker 4: I should have done more research. I should have been

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Speaker 4: looking into this more, and I would have found so

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Speaker 4: much more. Looking back on that, I see it as

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Speaker 4: a red flag now.

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Speaker 6: I kind of had like a mental breakdown. I felt

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Speaker 6: like I was lying to my patients and I'm just

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Speaker 6: not that kind of person, and it just really broke

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Speaker 6: my spirit.

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Speaker 4: I'm like shaken just thinking about it.

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Speaker 8: And it was a real pressing on all of us

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Speaker 8: to go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster, And when you

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Speaker 8: go faster, sometimes you miss an exit.

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Speaker 9: I remember I was trying to collect payment for one

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Speaker 9: of the services and I couldn't collect the payment, and

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Speaker 9: then my manager was like.

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Speaker 3: Oh, ha ha ha, we do it this way because

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Speaker 3: he's in prison.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jackie Devalos, a tech reporter at Bloomberg, and I

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Speaker 2: wanted to find out what led to so many people

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Speaker 2: feeling disillusioned. I've spent the last two and a half

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Speaker 2: years trying to understand kind body and how it fits

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Speaker 2: into the larger fertility industry in the US. I've talked

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Speaker 2: to more than one hundred current and former employees and

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Speaker 2: fifty former patients. I've seen internal company documents and heard

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Speaker 2: from executives and investors about the company's finances and strategy.

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Speaker 2: Along the way, I had a front row seat as

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Speaker 2: the rocket ship sputtered. Kind Body declined to speak on

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Speaker 2: the record for this podcast, but over the course of

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Speaker 2: my reporting, it has acknowledged some incidents. The company said

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Speaker 2: these are not unique to kind Body and pointed to

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Speaker 2: some other examples of errors across the fertility industry. And

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Speaker 2: this is true. There are problems across fertility, but kind

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Speaker 2: Body is unique in that it is one of the

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Speaker 2: fastest growing players in the field, and its story shows

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Speaker 2: some of the consequences of that rapid growth. Kind Body

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Speaker 2: was pitched as a startup, and their approach will be

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Speaker 2: familiar to anyone who knows about the saying move fast

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Speaker 2: and break things, which is mostly associated with the consumer

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Speaker 2: tech companies, but the lack of regulations in the fertility

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Speaker 2: industry made it relatively easy to try it there too.

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Speaker 2: I wanted to know what happens when a startup takes

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Speaker 2: on one of the most intimate decisions in our lives,

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Speaker 2: making a baby, where the stakes are high, the customers

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Speaker 2: are vulnerable, in people's dreams starting a family hanging in

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Speaker 2: the balance. From Bloomberg and iHeart Podcasts. This is IVF

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Speaker 2: Disrupted the Kind Body story. To understand kind Body, first,

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Speaker 2: you need to understand the woman behind the company, Gina Bartesi.

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Speaker 2: Gina who is now in her fifties. It's been in

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Speaker 2: the fertility industry for nearly twenty years, so she's a

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Speaker 2: well known player. When Gina talks about her career in fertility,

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Speaker 2: she always starts with her own story. She declined an

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Speaker 2: interview for this series, but here she is telling it.

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Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty two, in a conversation with reporter

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Speaker 2: Kristin V.

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Speaker 8: Brown at thirty eight, I was eating well, I was

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Speaker 8: working out all the time, and you have this false

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Speaker 8: presumption that, oh, I'm a healthy person. I don't have

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Speaker 8: any issues with my fertility. So we tried on our

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Speaker 8: own for about the first six months, and then after

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Speaker 8: six months, so many of my friends had gone through

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Speaker 8: IVF and had success and had babies, and I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 8: we'll just go through IVF. But I can remember how

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Speaker 8: like I was aghast at the I knew it was

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Speaker 8: going to be expensive, but even when he told me

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Speaker 8: how much it was going to cost, I was like, Wow,

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Speaker 8: that's really expensive.

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Speaker 2: Before starting kind Body, Gina had found it another fertility

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Speaker 2: startup in IVF Referral Network, which became known as Progeny.

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Speaker 2: Progeny was a middleman between employees and fertility clinics and

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Speaker 2: negotiated the price of treatments with clinics by buying in bulk,

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Speaker 2: and then sold those packages to employers who offered them

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Speaker 2: to their staff and their health insurance plans. Gina was

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Speaker 2: in on the ground floor of a quickly expanding market. Now,

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Speaker 2: the science of fertility is relatively new, but the business

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Speaker 2: is booming. The upsurge is fueled by shifts in social norms,

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Speaker 2: millennials putting off having kids, rising rates of infertility. One

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Speaker 2: research firm I Mark placed the global fertility market at

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Speaker 2: forty six billion dollars in twenty twenty four and said

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Speaker 2: that it would more than triple in the next decade.

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Speaker 2: The demand has spelled opportunity for investors, from venture capital

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Speaker 2: to private equity who want to cash in on the

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Speaker 2: lucrative business of fertility and Gina's company, Progeny, became one

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Speaker 2: of the biggest players in the industry and went public

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Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen. But by the time Progeny iPod, Gina

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Speaker 2: had left and was hard at work at her new company,

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Speaker 2: Kind Body. With kind Body, Gina dreamed even bigger. Progeny

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Speaker 2: was just connecting company employees to medical providers. Kind Body

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Speaker 2: did that too, but it would also be the medical provider.

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Speaker 2: It would own the clinics, it would employ the doctors,

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Speaker 2: it would treat the patients.

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Speaker 8: What I learned after kind of being middleman with my

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Speaker 8: previous businesses is the only way to control for patient experience,

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Speaker 8: patient outcomes and cost is that you must be in

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Speaker 8: the provision of care. So today we are in the

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Speaker 8: care delivery business at our clinics. You see, we have

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Speaker 8: our own physicians, medical assistants, nurse practitioners to really prioritize

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Speaker 8: the patient experience and reinvent family building care.

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Speaker 2: That point Gina made about controlling costs, that was a

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Speaker 2: big deal. Kind Body was promising to make fertility care

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Speaker 2: more accessible by making it cheaper. IVF is very expensive.

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Speaker 2: The average cost of one round of treatment is about

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Speaker 2: twenty three thousand dollars. That's according to fertility iq, a

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Speaker 2: platform that tracks prices and reviews for clinics, most patients

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Speaker 2: end up doing two or three rounds before getting pregnant.

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Speaker 2: Kind Body promised to make all of this more efficient

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Speaker 2: with its own medical record and patient portal software and

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Speaker 2: by building and running its own clinics and labs. Kind

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Speaker 2: Body said it could control every aspect of operations and

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Speaker 2: ultimately offer fertility treatment at a cheaper price. It would

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Speaker 2: be part of a wave of startups them tech companies

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Speaker 2: catering to women's health. The company had plans to offer

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Speaker 2: an unusually wide range of services. It wanted to be

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Speaker 2: the place where women would come for regular gynecology checkups,

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Speaker 2: but also for IVF, egg freezing, embryo transfers, and storage

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Speaker 2: for eggs, sperm, and embryos. There was nowhere else that

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Speaker 2: offered this kind of one stop shopping for fertility services.

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Speaker 1: We are the doctors, we are the clinics. We are

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Speaker 1: your end to end family building solution.

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Speaker 2: Gina herself wasn't a doctor. Her expertise was in marketing.

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Speaker 2: Early on, other people in the industry questioned whether someone

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Speaker 2: without that medical knowledge actually understood how to put something

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Speaker 2: like this together. I spoke to a dozen investors and

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Speaker 2: founders of large chains of fertility clinics about kind Body

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Speaker 2: at the time, and they told me they were skeptical

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Speaker 2: that a startup could offer so many services at once.

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Speaker 2: But of course, if you're a startup founder, having the

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Speaker 2: incumbents tell you that you don't understand how things work

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Speaker 2: can kind of feel like a sign you're onto something big.

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Speaker 2: Here's Gina, So I get those criticisms.

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Speaker 8: If you're the old guard or you're the legacy clinic

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Speaker 8: and you've not changed in thirty years, that somebody comes

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Speaker 8: and disrupts the business, I don't anticipate them to go

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Speaker 8: away anytime soon.

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Speaker 2: Gina envisioned her new company as a consumer brand. She

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Speaker 2: was inspired by soul Cycle and Drybar. Kind Body would

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Speaker 2: have a millennial friendly aesthetic. Clinics wouldn't be tucked away

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Speaker 2: in a hospital. They'd be in storefronts, in shopping malls

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Speaker 2: and on busy streets with lots of foot traffic, right

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Speaker 2: next to the barry's boot camps and the trendy juice bars.

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Speaker 2: Here she is on CNBC in twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 8: We believe in this consumerism of healthcare, you have to

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Speaker 8: bring care to the patient. There is a retail nature

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Speaker 8: to kind body.

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Speaker 2: It's funny because not everyone agrees that healthcare is like

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Speaker 2: any other consumer product. But for Gina, the experience of

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Speaker 2: being a patient was just as important as the treatment itself.

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Speaker 2: The lobby would have to be as carefully designed as

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Speaker 2: the exam room.

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Speaker 8: I think historically in healthcare, you really didn't think about

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Speaker 8: your patient as your customer, right. You didn't think about hospitality.

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Speaker 8: And we want to be intentional. How can we think

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Speaker 8: about the robes that are more comfortable? How can we

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Speaker 8: have cold water in the Healthcare is not wired like that.

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Speaker 8: Almost every other industry, as restaurants are, retail, is think

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Speaker 8: about everything else is built around you.

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Speaker 2: Gina had this idea to house everything under one roof,

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Speaker 2: including the lab where eggs and sperm are handled and

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Speaker 2: where embryos are actually made. Until this point, most fertility

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Speaker 2: clinics looked like a typical doctor's office. Patients seeking IVF

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Speaker 2: treatment would usually go to a clinic that was operated

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Speaker 2: by a university health system like Cornell, Stanford, Northwestern, or

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Speaker 2: a smaller, privately owned clinic. They aren't exciting, viby spaces.

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Speaker 2: On busy streets, next to restaurants and boutiques. This was

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Speaker 2: Gina's radically new idea. It would take a long time

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Speaker 2: to build a sort of clinic. The Kind Body wanted

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Speaker 2: to start attracting patients early, so it started constructing what

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Speaker 2: it called mobile clinics. These were basically trailers, like the

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Speaker 2: ones you would find on a movie set. The exteriors

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Speaker 2: were painted with Kind Body's signature pastel yellow, with the

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Speaker 2: message your fertility Understood in big bold letters. Anyone off

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Speaker 2: the street could go inside and take a free hormone

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Speaker 2: test that measured roughly how many eggs they had left.

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Speaker 9: We're here in front of our third mobile pop up event,

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Speaker 9: and we're here talking to women about their pertility.

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Speaker 2: Here's an early Kind Body executive back in twenty eighteen

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Speaker 2: talking about a mobile clinic. This video comes from the

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Speaker 2: website Well and Goods YouTube channel.

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Speaker 9: So in the van you will talk to our fertility specialists.

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Speaker 9: A nurse will draw your blood and take a test

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Speaker 9: which is called the A and H test. We get

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Speaker 9: your results back, and we send you a report that

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Speaker 9: fully contextualizes what you need to know and helps you

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Speaker 9: understand what your next steps might be.

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Speaker 2: The first mobile clinic opened up in Manhattan on the

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Speaker 2: corner of twenty fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, right near

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Speaker 2: Madison Square Park. Kind Body took the bus on the

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Speaker 2: road to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Hamptons. The

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Speaker 2: hormone test was a great promotional tool. The results gave

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Speaker 2: women the feeling of empowerment and control. If results showed

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Speaker 2: eggs were dwindling, kind Body said, no problem, just freeze them.

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Speaker 2: No need to stop your career to have children early on.

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Speaker 2: This was kind Body's message to women, particularly young women.

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Speaker 2: Most women who seek IVF are typically in their late

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Speaker 2: thirties or forties. The kind Body want to reach them sooner.

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Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Gina told the Verge quote, what we

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Speaker 2: want to do is help women live a life of

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Speaker 2: no regrets and have children when they want them, on

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Speaker 2: their own time frame. End quote. This was a bold proposition.

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Speaker 2: Egg freezing does not automatically guarantee a future pregnancy. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: eggs don't survive thawing, and even if they do, some

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Speaker 2: might not fertilize. It's not a perfect science and it's

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Speaker 2: very new. Some experts at the time criticize kind Body

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Speaker 2: for selling false hope and a misguided sense of security.

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Speaker 2: But for others working in the field, kind Bodies mission

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Speaker 2: and messaging represented a welcome change for an industry that

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Speaker 2: seems set in its ways. We'll be right back. Many

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Speaker 2: former employ I spoke to who joined kind Body in

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Speaker 2: the early years tell me they were drawn in. They

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Speaker 2: loved the mission, the beauty, the way the company presented itself.

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Speaker 2: One of those early employees was Tracy Sosa, a medical

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Speaker 2: assistant who's been working in healthcare for twenty years. She

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Speaker 2: was recruited in twenty twenty to work at kind Bodies

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Speaker 2: Clinic in Princeton, New Jersey. When she started, the clinic

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Speaker 2: wasn't up and running yet, but Tracy had this sense

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Speaker 2: that this company was different.

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Speaker 6: Once I googled and I researched and I looked, I

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Speaker 6: saw the aesthetics of it. I'm goosebumps right now just

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Speaker 6: talking to you about it. I was so excited.

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Speaker 2: Tracy accepted the job, and together with her coworkers, she

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Speaker 2: set up the clinic from scratch.

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Speaker 6: We were unpacking boxes, we were decorating. It was there

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Speaker 6: in there, and we built that thing and opened it.

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Speaker 6: Frush for I didet right open. The three of us

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Speaker 6: there was a lot of good things that were there.

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Speaker 6: It was warm, the color of the practice, it was holly.

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Speaker 6: It was inviting. It wasn't cold, it wasn't sterile. It

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Speaker 6: was clean. It was crisp. You would want to go there.

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Speaker 6: I was so excited. I was like, finally a place

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Speaker 6: is going to get it. It's going to pamper our

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Speaker 6: patients here then give them not only just a medical

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Speaker 6: pharmaceutical approach, but also a holistic approach thing for mind, body.

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Speaker 8: And soul.

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Speaker 6: I was drinking the kool aid.

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Speaker 2: I was all about it and all the work that

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Speaker 2: Tracy and her colleagues had done to make the Princeton

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Speaker 2: clinic look so inviting. It was working.

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Speaker 5: They were giving gifts. I think we got little water

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Speaker 5: bottles and a couple, you know, little I don't know,

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Speaker 5: maybe pans or whatnot. And it was obviously all women,

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Speaker 5: which I thought was pretty cool.

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Speaker 2: This is Dina. She visited an open house at the clinic.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty. She and her partner b had started

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Speaker 2: treatment at another clinic in New Jersey, but they were

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Speaker 2: thinking of switching because Tina's employer was now covering Kind

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Speaker 2: Bodies services.

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Speaker 5: The women are great, I mean They were really upbeat

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Speaker 5: and just really wanted you to know that they were

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Speaker 5: going to take care of you and the options you had.

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Speaker 7: Dina's reaction as soon as she got out of there

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Speaker 7: and called me, was like, all positive. This place is

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Speaker 7: like totally different to the other place. It's very personal.

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Speaker 7: You weren't just a number and part of the masses.

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Speaker 7: So I was like great.

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Speaker 2: Dina and Be always knew they wanted to have kids.

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Speaker 7: That was something that was always on the cause for us.

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Speaker 1: That's Be.

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Speaker 2: She and Dina have been together for over a decade.

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Speaker 2: Dina and Bee didn't want to share their last name

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Speaker 2: when discussing this part of their lives. Six years ago,

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Speaker 2: they decided to tie the knot and moved to a

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Speaker 2: suburb of New Jersey. It's a short drive away from

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Speaker 2: the school where Dina works.

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Speaker 7: We took a little while in getting married, but we

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Speaker 7: knew that as as soon as we were married, we

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Speaker 7: planned to buy a house. And pretty quickly after we

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Speaker 7: got married, we started the process of trying to have

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Speaker 7: a family.

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Speaker 2: They planned out how they wanted it to happen. They

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Speaker 2: told me about it when we spoke last year. It

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Speaker 2: was late in the evening.

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Speaker 7: We just each knew that we wanted to carry a child.

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Speaker 7: I think initially we were planning on having them a

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Speaker 7: year apart or so. We were like, great, Dina will

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Speaker 7: go and she'll get pregnant, and then I'll go like

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Speaker 7: a year or so later, and it'll be great. We

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Speaker 7: had no idea in the beginning what the journey was going.

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Speaker 6: To look like.

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Speaker 2: Between the good vibes at the open house and the

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Speaker 2: fact that Dina's job would cover a big chunk of

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Speaker 2: a cost, they decided to switch from their previous clinic

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Speaker 2: to Kind Body. Soon after, Dina and B met Tracy,

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Speaker 2: the medical assistant who had helped open up the Princeton

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Speaker 2: clinic they were now going to.

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Speaker 6: They were lovely. They were literally our favorite Pasians.

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Speaker 2: Dina and B spent a lot of time with Tracy.

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Speaker 2: She became like their guide and a trusted friend.

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Speaker 6: You go on this journey with them, and because when

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Speaker 6: they start a cycle, you're drawing their blood every day,

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Speaker 6: you're in the room with them when they're doing their ultrasounds,

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Speaker 6: You're in the room when they're doing all their pretesting

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Speaker 6: to get prepped for their cycles. After going through cycles

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Speaker 6: with patients, you just build a.

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Speaker 4: Bond with them.

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Speaker 6: When I went on vacation and went to Vegas, I

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Speaker 6: got them a key chain like I lie love beast too,

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Speaker 6: women like I love them to death.

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Speaker 2: For anyone going through IVF at any clinic, there's lots

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Speaker 2: of highs and lows. Dina and B experienced a lot

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Speaker 2: of disappointment in the early stages. The first step would

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Speaker 2: be for a doctor to retrieve eggs that are healthy

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Speaker 2: enough to be turned into embryos. Indiana and Bee's case

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Speaker 2: with donor sperm, they both had multiple egg retrievals with

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Speaker 2: kind Body.

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Speaker 5: It's hard to remember. I remember them calling and saying

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Speaker 5: that none of them ended up making it. We weren't

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Speaker 5: getting a lot of them that ended up being viable

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Speaker 5: to be implanted.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, none of them were very successful at all.

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Speaker 2: To be honest, the retrievals weren't yielding enough healthy eggs.

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Speaker 2: Dina and B were both in their early forties. Studies

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Speaker 2: show that after thirty five women see a decline in

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Speaker 2: the quantity and quality of their eggs. Still they kept trying.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I thought the retrieval process was exhausting. I mean,

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Speaker 5: the injections, it's a lot. It's a lot physically it's

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Speaker 5: a lot emotionally. It messes up your body, it messes

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Speaker 5: up your head. And we didn't have success early on.

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Speaker 5: So the amount of retrievals we had to do to

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Speaker 5: be able to get embryos was a lot. So, I mean,

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Speaker 5: our process was very long. Was it two and a

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Speaker 5: half years, So a lot of retrievals, a lot of time.

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Speaker 7: It's just like you just lose those years, you lose

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Speaker 7: that part of your life because the roller coaster, like

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Speaker 7: Dina's describing as just incredibly exhausting in terms of your relationship,

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Speaker 7: your extended family, your physical body. The hormones are insanely

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Speaker 7: up and down and that's just the drugs.

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Speaker 2: And when they managed to retrieve healthy eggs, the next

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Speaker 2: hurdle was combining those eggs with donor sperm to create

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Speaker 2: viable embryos to be implanted.

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Speaker 7: We didn't have many embryos at all. I can't remember

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Speaker 7: how many we were down to, but it was not

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Speaker 7: many to a point where every single one was so

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Speaker 7: precious and valuable.

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Speaker 2: Some embryos don't develop, others might be ruled out during

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Speaker 2: genetic testing. They both tried to have healthy embryos implanted

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Speaker 2: multiple times, but none of these resulted in a pregnancy.

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Speaker 7: I had two. You had three. Yeah failed of five

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Speaker 7: total fail so we didn't have many embryos. We both

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Speaker 7: had unsuccessful transfers.

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Speaker 2: IVF is hard, and it's not unusual for a woman

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Speaker 2: to go through two to three cycles or spend tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands of dollars on the process, but there were

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Speaker 2: specific things about the way kind Body worked that Dina

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Speaker 2: and B said made things harder for them. Dina and

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Speaker 2: B were so laser focused on having a baby that

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Speaker 2: to this day they struggle with remembering the warning signs

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Speaker 2: that everything was not okay for them at kind Body.

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Speaker 2: Only now those signs are coming into focus appointment reminders

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Speaker 2: with B's name instead of Dina's. Paperwork mix ups on

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Speaker 2: the day of a procedure. For one thing, the clinic

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Speaker 2: near them in New Jersey wasn't the one stop shop

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Speaker 2: that kind Body had been selling. Their kind Body clinic

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Speaker 2: in Princeton didn't have a full time time doctor on

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Speaker 2: staff or an operating room, and their IVF lab had

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Speaker 2: yet to be built. That made their medical assistant, Tracy

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Speaker 2: feel uneasy.

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Speaker 6: So after the first six months or so, I was

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Speaker 6: like it was still on a doctor like, what's going

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Speaker 6: on As I slowly start to say to myself, Oh,

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Speaker 6: this is not good. This patient can't have XYZ or

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Speaker 6: they had to go all the way into the city.

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Speaker 6: It just wasn't appropriate. You need a full time doctor there.

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Speaker 2: Tracy wasn't the only kind Body employee who was bothered

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Speaker 2: by this. Other staff members told me it led to

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Speaker 2: more mistakes because they were coordinating important procedures for patients

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Speaker 2: they didn't really know. A lot of information can be

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Speaker 2: lost in the game of telephone between clinics, and communication

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Speaker 2: can suffer at a company growing as fast as kind

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Speaker 2: Body was. But Dina and b didn't have a choice.

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Speaker 2: They were ready to do another transfer and so they

439
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 2: had to go to Kind Bodies, off more than an

440
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 2: hour away near Manhattan's Brian Park. So one day in

441
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 2: the spring of twenty twenty one, they headed into the city.

442
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 7: So we had our transfer day, which is always, you know,

443
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 7: a big X in your calendar, and it's super exciting

444
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 7: and you're all hype about the fact that you're about

445
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 7: to go and get pregnant.

446
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 2: For any couple going through IVF, the transfer day is

447
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 2: a big deal. But for Dina and b this day

448
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 2: had extra significance.

449
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 7: This was the first time we were going to try

450
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 7: transferring mind into Dina.

451
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 2: The plan was to do reciprocal IVF. It's a technique

452
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 2: in which one partner's eggs are used to create an

453
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 2: embryo that is then implanted into the other partner, So

454
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 2: Dina would get bees eggs.

455
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 7: So I think being in a lesbian couple, it really

456
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 7: meant a lot for us to be as jine partly

457
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 7: connected as we possibly could. So for me not knowing

458
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 7: whether I will be able to carry or not because

459
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 7: I'd not had a successful transfer at that point, it

460
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 7: was huge, like, Okay, if I can't carry because my

461
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 7: womb was what did.

462
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 5: They call it, not hospitable?

463
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 7: Not hospitable? Yeah, how nice is that it was important

464
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 7: for us genetically for Dina to carry my embryo that way,

465
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 7: in the future she may have been able to carry

466
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 7: one of her own, but she would be able to

467
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 7: put it blond cook my bon So it was a

468
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 7: really big deal and we thought, if this turns out

469
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 7: to be a successful pregnancy, this would be awesome, like

470
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 7: a little piece of both of us in this new baby.

471
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 7: Super excited. It's like the epitome of everything we've been

472
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 7: building up to.

473
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 2: They traveled into Kind Bodies Brian Park Clinic for their appointment,

474
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 2: as they had with other procedures in the past. It's

475
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 2: not the most comfortable spot.

476
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 7: We get in the office. You're in these tiny rooms

477
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 7: because in the clinic in the city, I mean space

478
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 7: is short, right, You're like shuffling past each other. You

479
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 7: can't even open the door if someone stood there. Like,

480
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 7: this room is tiny. So we're in this tiny room.

481
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:20,679
Speaker 7: They tell us, this is great, We're here to do

482
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 7: a transfer. Dina, get in the gown, get on the table.

483
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 7: Everything seems to be normal. So we do all that

484
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 7: and then nothing happens.

485
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 2: They waited for someone to come into the room and

486
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 2: tell them what would happen next.

487
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 7: And we're like, you're just yeah, we're just sitting there

488
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 7: and we're like, okay, like this has been a while case,

489
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 7: this has really been a while.

490
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 6: Now.

491
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 5: I know this sounds kind of crazy, but you also

492
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 5: have to like you can't pee.

493
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: When patients prepare for an embryo transfer, they're advised to

494
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 2: go in with the full bladder. It helps doctors get

495
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: a clear view of the un on the ultrasound.

496
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 5: I remember this vividly because I had to go to

497
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 5: the bathroom so bad, and I was like, this is

498
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 5: like I kept being like, we need them to come,

499
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 5: like they need to come now, but they wouldn't come,

500
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 5: and I'm like, this is strange, Like why are they

501
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 5: not coming in here right now?

502
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 7: Over thirty minutes we were sitting there, for sure. So

503
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 7: we were sitting there, sitting there, sitting there, and it's

504
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 7: weird and no one's coming in and telling us anything.

505
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 2: Then the doctor and embryologist walk into the room. The

506
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 2: mood shifts.

507
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 7: I don't even remember what it is they said exactly,

508
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 7: but to the effect of there's been I don't even

509
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 7: know if they admitted to it being a mistake, but

510
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 7: there's been a situation. Let's say there's been a situation

511
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 7: where the embryo you chose to be defrusted was not

512
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 7: and we defrusted a different.

513
00:29:53,960 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 2: Embryo coming up on IVF disrupted the kind body story.

514
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 7: You don't even refreeze chicken.

515
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 3: I didn't find out right away.

516
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 6: It was like a few hours into the day and

517
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 6: then I was like, wait, what did you guys just say?

518
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 6: Like I think they were trying to keep it as

519
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 6: much hash as possible.

520
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 5: How can we establish ourselves so that we are building

521
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 5: a lab and like what is our goal? Like these

522
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 5: were just never conversations that were.

523
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 4: Had these air handling systems.

524
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 2: They're not cheap.

525
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 6: I'm like shaking just thinking about it, because that's something

526
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 6: that's just hammered into your like, oh my god, the

527
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 6: chance command heads that that goes.

528
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 2: Through IVYF Disrupted. The Kind Body Story is reported and

529
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 2: hosted by me Jackie Devallos. The series is produced by

530
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: Sean Wen and Jilda de Carly, editing by Caitlin Kenney,

531
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 2: Jeff Grocott, and Joshua Breustein. Blake Maples is our sound

532
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: engineer and composer, fact checking by Anaica Robbins. Bloomberg's senior

533
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 2: executive editor for Technology is Tom Giles. Our head of

534
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 2: podcast asking is Sage Bauman. You can reach us at

535
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 2: podcasts at Bloomberg dot net. IVF Disrupted is a production

536
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg and iHeart Podcasts