1
00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:07,040
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

2
00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:13,319
Speaker 2: This episode features conversations about pregnancy complications and loss. Please

3
00:00:13,360 --> 00:00:17,680
Speaker 2: take care while listening. In twenty eighteen, a brand new

4
00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 2: fertility company started building clinics across.

5
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:25,120
Speaker 1: The country, introducing kind Body, a new generation of women's

6
00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:28,120
Speaker 1: health and fertility care with a redesigned patient.

7
00:00:28,200 --> 00:00:31,680
Speaker 2: Kind Body promised an entirely different approach to fertility.

8
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:35,000
Speaker 1: We believe that going to the doctor should feel like

9
00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:37,720
Speaker 1: a visit with a trusted friend, where you can get

10
00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:39,440
Speaker 1: all the care you need in one place.

11
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 2: And in a world where costs are notoriously high and

12
00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:48,240
Speaker 2: outcomes notoriously uncertain for lots of women, this new approach

13
00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:50,040
Speaker 2: sounded really appealing.

14
00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:57,600
Speaker 3: My coworker we were walking past the kind Body and

15
00:00:57,680 --> 00:00:59,960
Speaker 3: she said, Oh my god, look they look so good.

16
00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:03,360
Speaker 3: They're supposed to be really amazing. They're geared toward women

17
00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:05,440
Speaker 3: and helping women and women's health.

18
00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:08,200
Speaker 4: I saw it and was like women doctors and the

19
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:10,800
Speaker 4: way they made it seem like it was just so

20
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:14,800
Speaker 4: easy to do and seamless. Right away, I just was like, oh, yeah,

21
00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:16,479
Speaker 4: this is the easiest choice I've had to make.

22
00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:18,760
Speaker 5: The vibe looked like it was just straight out of

23
00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:21,399
Speaker 5: like West Elm or something. It was very inviting for

24
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:23,200
Speaker 5: you to want to come in and sit in the

25
00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,200
Speaker 5: bright colors and just really relaxing, almost like you were

26
00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:28,479
Speaker 5: going to go get a massage. To be honest, I.

27
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:29,720
Speaker 6: Saw the aesthetics of it.

28
00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:31,200
Speaker 4: I was so excited.

29
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:33,600
Speaker 6: I was like, finally a place is going to get it.

30
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:36,840
Speaker 6: It's going to pamper our patients, give them that clc

31
00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:37,720
Speaker 6: that they need.

32
00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:40,000
Speaker 7: You just got the feeling you were going to be

33
00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:43,320
Speaker 7: taken care of and you weren't just a number and

34
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:46,480
Speaker 7: part of the masses. So I was like great.

35
00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:50,560
Speaker 2: And the company's founder, Gina Bartesi, had big plans to

36
00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:53,760
Speaker 2: turn a lot more women into Kind Body converts.

37
00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:58,080
Speaker 8: We're opening Washington, d C. We're opening Brooklyn, a third

38
00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 8: location in New York, ac coming to Columbus before coming

39
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:05,080
Speaker 8: to Cleveland. Our plan costs for fifty locations within the

40
00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:08,160
Speaker 8: next two years.

41
00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:13,120
Speaker 2: That's Gina Bartesi speaking to Griffin Jones on the Inside

42
00:02:13,160 --> 00:02:17,960
Speaker 2: Reproductive Health podcast in twenty twenty two. Under Gina, kind

43
00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:21,640
Speaker 2: Body grew quickly. The company had signed lucrative contracts with

44
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:26,040
Speaker 2: Tesla and Walmart. It bought a competing IVF chain, doubling

45
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:29,480
Speaker 2: the number of clinics that operated. Company leaders rang the

46
00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:34,280
Speaker 2: bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Its valuation had

47
00:02:34,320 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 2: reached one point eight billion dollars, and it seemed to

48
00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:41,560
Speaker 2: be only going up. An initial public offering was in sight.

49
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,960
Speaker 2: It was around this time in twenty twenty three that

50
00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:48,959
Speaker 2: kind Body got on the radar of Jackie Devalos, a

51
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:50,120
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Tech reporter.

52
00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:53,680
Speaker 9: I first heard about kind Body when its ads started

53
00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:57,480
Speaker 9: showing up in my Instagram and TikTok feeds, encouraging me

54
00:02:57,639 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 9: to think about freezing my eggs. I was right in

55
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:05,080
Speaker 9: its demographic, a professional woman in her early thirties living

56
00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:06,239
Speaker 9: in a big city.

57
00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:09,560
Speaker 2: The company seemed to be offering something new, combining the

58
00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 2: vibe of a health club or spa with a part

59
00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:15,840
Speaker 2: of medicine that can deliver pretty miraculous and life changing outcomes.

60
00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:19,720
Speaker 9: I got curious, so I started making some calls, and

61
00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:23,640
Speaker 9: right away it became clear that things at kind Body

62
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:25,480
Speaker 9: were not as they appeared.

63
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,160
Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder,

64
00:03:33,320 --> 00:03:36,520
Speaker 2: and I'm Jackie Devalos. Today on the show, the first

65
00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 2: episode of a new five part series, IVF disrupted The

66
00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 2: kind Body story from Bloomberg and iHeart podcasts. We'll hear

67
00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:47,400
Speaker 2: the first three episodes through the weekend and the rest

68
00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:50,440
Speaker 2: next weekend. I'll let Jackie take it from here.

69
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,559
Speaker 9: I've talked to lots of former Kind Body patients and employees,

70
00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:04,840
Speaker 9: and many of them told me they felt disillusioned by

71
00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:06,840
Speaker 9: their experiences with the company.

72
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,080
Speaker 6: When you take the rose colored glasses off, because at

73
00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 6: first you don't want to see it right as, I

74
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:15,680
Speaker 6: slowly start to say to myself, Oh, this is not good.

75
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:17,760
Speaker 4: I should have done more research. I should have been

76
00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:19,599
Speaker 4: looking into this more, and I would have found so

77
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,840
Speaker 4: much more. Looking back on that, I see it as

78
00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:23,640
Speaker 4: a red flag now.

79
00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:25,560
Speaker 7: I kind of had like a mental breakdown.

80
00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,320
Speaker 4: I felt like I was lying to my patients and

81
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:31,000
Speaker 4: I'm just not that kind of person, and it just

82
00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:34,080
Speaker 4: really broke my spirit. I'm like shaken just thinking about it.

83
00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:36,600
Speaker 3: And it was a real pressing on all of us

84
00:04:36,640 --> 00:04:40,560
Speaker 3: to go faster, faster, faster, faster, faster.

85
00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:43,920
Speaker 9: And when you go faster, sometimes you miss an exit.

86
00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:47,159
Speaker 6: I remember I was trying to collect payment for.

87
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:50,760
Speaker 10: One of the services and I couldn't collect the payment,

88
00:04:51,080 --> 00:04:53,440
Speaker 10: and then my manager was.

89
00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:55,920
Speaker 1: Like, oh, ha ha ha, we do it.

90
00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:58,920
Speaker 3: This way because he's in prison.

91
00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:05,520
Speaker 9: I've spent the last two and a half years trying

92
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:08,120
Speaker 9: to understand kind Body and how it fits into the

93
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:11,839
Speaker 9: larger fertility industry in the US. I've talked to more

94
00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:16,479
Speaker 9: than one hundred current and former employees and fifty former patients.

95
00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:20,320
Speaker 9: I've seen internal company documents and heard from executives and

96
00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:25,400
Speaker 9: investors about the company's finances and strategy. Along the way,

97
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:29,479
Speaker 9: I had a front row seats as the rocket ship sputtered.

98
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:34,680
Speaker 9: Kind Body declined to speak on the record for this podcast,

99
00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:38,120
Speaker 9: but over the course of my reporting, it has acknowledged

100
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:41,560
Speaker 9: some incidents. The company said these are not unique to

101
00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 9: kind Body and pointed to some other examples of errors

102
00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:49,600
Speaker 9: across the fertility industry. And this is true. There are

103
00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:54,200
Speaker 9: problems across fertility, but kind Body is unique in that

104
00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:56,960
Speaker 9: it is one of the fastest growing players in the field,

105
00:05:57,880 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 9: and its story shows some of the constant quences of

106
00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:05,000
Speaker 9: that rapid growth. Kind Body was pitched as a startup,

107
00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:08,280
Speaker 9: and their approach will be familiar to anyone who knows

108
00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:11,880
Speaker 9: about the saying move fast and break things. That approach

109
00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:15,280
Speaker 9: is mostly associated with the consumer tech companies, but the

110
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:18,920
Speaker 9: lack of regulations in the fertility industry made it relatively

111
00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 9: easy to try it there too. I wanted to know

112
00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,680
Speaker 9: what happens when a startup takes on one of the

113
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:30,279
Speaker 9: most intimate decisions in our lives, making a baby, where

114
00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:34,600
Speaker 9: the stakes are high, the customers are vulnerable, in people's

115
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:53,640
Speaker 9: dreams of starting a family hanging in the balance. To

116
00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:57,640
Speaker 9: understand kind body, first, you need to understand the woman

117
00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 9: behind the company, Gina. Gina, who is now in her fifties,

118
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:07,160
Speaker 9: has been in the fertility industry for nearly twenty years,

119
00:07:07,880 --> 00:07:11,040
Speaker 9: so she's a well known player. When Gina talks about

120
00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,600
Speaker 9: her career in fertility, she always starts with her own story.

121
00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 9: She declined an interview for this series, but here she

122
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 9: is telling it back in twenty twenty two in a

123
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:22,760
Speaker 9: conversation with reporter Kristin V.

124
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:25,960
Speaker 8: Brown at thirty eight, I was eating well, I was

125
00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:27,880
Speaker 8: working out all the time, and you have this false

126
00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 8: presumption that, oh, I'm a healthy person, I don't have

127
00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:33,440
Speaker 8: any issues with my fertility. So we tried on our

128
00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:35,560
Speaker 8: own for about the first six months, and then after

129
00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:37,400
Speaker 8: six months, so many of my friends had gone through

130
00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:40,800
Speaker 8: IVF and had success and had babies, and I was like, Okay,

131
00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 8: we'll just go through IVF. But I can remember how

132
00:07:43,680 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 8: like I was aghast at the I knew it was

133
00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:47,480
Speaker 8: going to be expensive, but even when he told me

134
00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:48,960
Speaker 8: how much it was going to cost, I was like, Wow,

135
00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:49,960
Speaker 8: that's really expensive.

136
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:56,640
Speaker 9: Before starting kind Body, Gina had founded another fertility startup,

137
00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:03,200
Speaker 9: an IVF referral network, which became known as Progeny. Was

138
00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:07,440
Speaker 9: a middleman between employers and fertility clinics, and negotiated the

139
00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:10,560
Speaker 9: price of treatments with clinics by buying in bulk, and

140
00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:13,680
Speaker 9: then sold those packages to employers, who offered them to

141
00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:17,600
Speaker 9: their staff and their health insurance plans. Gina was in

142
00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 9: on the ground floor of a quickly expanding market. Now,

143
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:26,640
Speaker 9: the science of fertility is relatively new, but the business

144
00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:30,960
Speaker 9: is booming. The upsurge is fueled by shifts in social norms,

145
00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 9: millennials putting off having kids, rising rates of infertility. One

146
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:40,199
Speaker 9: research firm I Mark placed the global fertility market at

147
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:44,200
Speaker 9: forty six billion dollars in twenty twenty four and said

148
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:47,160
Speaker 9: that it would more than triple in the next decade.

149
00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:51,680
Speaker 9: The demand has spelled opportunity for investors from venture capital

150
00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:55,040
Speaker 9: private equity who want to cash in on the lucrative

151
00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:59,760
Speaker 9: business of fertility, and Gina's company, Progeny, became one of

152
00:08:59,800 --> 00:09:02,520
Speaker 9: the biggest players in the industry and when public in

153
00:09:02,559 --> 00:09:08,400
Speaker 9: twenty nineteen. But by the time Progeny iPod, Gina had

154
00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:10,960
Speaker 9: left and was hard at work at her new company,

155
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:21,400
Speaker 9: Kind Body. With kind Body, Gina dreamed even bigger. Progeny

156
00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:26,240
Speaker 9: was just connecting company employees to medical providers. Kind Body

157
00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:30,080
Speaker 9: did that too, but it would also be the medical provider.

158
00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:33,360
Speaker 9: It would own the clinics, it would employ the doctors,

159
00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:35,559
Speaker 9: it would treat the patients.

160
00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:39,040
Speaker 8: What I learned after kind of being Mettleman with my

161
00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:44,240
Speaker 8: previous businesses is the only way to control for patient experience,

162
00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:46,680
Speaker 8: patient outcomes and cost is that you must be in

163
00:09:46,679 --> 00:09:49,040
Speaker 8: the provision of care. So today we are in the

164
00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,520
Speaker 8: care delivery business. At our clinics. You see, we have

165
00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:57,720
Speaker 8: our own physicians, medical assistants, nurse practitioners to really prioritize

166
00:09:57,760 --> 00:10:00,320
Speaker 8: the patient experience and reinvent family building care.

167
00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:04,760
Speaker 9: That point Gina made about controlling costs, that was a

168
00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:09,720
Speaker 9: big deal. Kind Body was promising to make fertility care

169
00:10:09,880 --> 00:10:15,280
Speaker 9: more accessible by making it cheaper. IVF is very expensive.

170
00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:18,840
Speaker 9: The average cost of one round of treatment is about

171
00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:23,680
Speaker 9: twenty three thousand dollars. That's according to fertility iq, a

172
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 9: platform that tracks prices and reviews for clinics. Most patients

173
00:10:28,440 --> 00:10:32,559
Speaker 9: end up doing two or three rounds before getting pregnant.

174
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:35,560
Speaker 9: Kind Body promised to make all of this more efficient

175
00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:39,440
Speaker 9: with its own medical record and patient portal software and

176
00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:42,920
Speaker 9: by building and running its own clinics and labs. Kind

177
00:10:42,920 --> 00:10:46,480
Speaker 9: Body said it could control every aspect of operations and

178
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:51,760
Speaker 9: ultimately offer fertility treatment at a cheaper price. It would

179
00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:55,240
Speaker 9: be part of a wave of startups them tech companies

180
00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:59,720
Speaker 9: catering to women's health. The company had plans to offer

181
00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:03,600
Speaker 9: and an unusually wide range of services. It wanted to be

182
00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:07,199
Speaker 9: the place where women would come for regular gynecology checkups,

183
00:11:07,559 --> 00:11:12,280
Speaker 9: but also for IVF, egg freezing, embryo transfers, and storage

184
00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:16,000
Speaker 9: for eggs, sperm and embryos. There was nowhere else that

185
00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:19,800
Speaker 9: offered this kind of one stop shopping for fertility services.

186
00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:25,440
Speaker 1: We are the doctors, we are the clinics. We are

187
00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:27,680
Speaker 1: your end to end family building solution.

188
00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:34,600
Speaker 9: Gina herself wasn't a doctor. Her expertise was in marketing.

189
00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:38,880
Speaker 9: Early on, other people in the industry questioned whether someone

190
00:11:38,960 --> 00:11:42,840
Speaker 9: without that medical knowledge, actually understood how to put something

191
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,760
Speaker 9: like this together. I spoke to a dozen investors and

192
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:50,360
Speaker 9: founders of large chains of fertility clinics about kind Body

193
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:53,520
Speaker 9: at the time, and they told me they were skeptical

194
00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:56,240
Speaker 9: that a startup could offer so many services at once.

195
00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:00,559
Speaker 9: But of course, if you're a startup founder, having the

196
00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:03,720
Speaker 9: incumbents tell you that you don't understand how things work

197
00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:07,079
Speaker 9: can kind of feel like a sign you're onto something big.

198
00:12:08,960 --> 00:12:10,920
Speaker 9: Here's Gina, So I.

199
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,360
Speaker 8: Get those criticisms. If you're the old guard or you're

200
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:18,880
Speaker 8: the legacy clinic and you've not changed in thirty years,

201
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,400
Speaker 8: that somebody comes and disrupts the business, I don't anticipate

202
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:23,840
Speaker 8: them to go away anytime soon.

203
00:12:24,920 --> 00:12:28,880
Speaker 9: Gina envisioned her new company as a consumer brand. She

204
00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:32,560
Speaker 9: was inspired by soul Cycle and Drybar. Kind Body would

205
00:12:32,559 --> 00:12:36,200
Speaker 9: have a millennial friendly aesthetic. Clinics wouldn't be tucked away

206
00:12:36,240 --> 00:12:39,559
Speaker 9: in a hospital. They'd be in storefronts, in shopping malls

207
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:42,800
Speaker 9: and on busy streets with lots of foot traffic, right

208
00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:45,559
Speaker 9: next to the barry's boot camps and the trendy juice bars.

209
00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:49,800
Speaker 9: Here she is on CNBC in twenty twenty one.

210
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,640
Speaker 8: We believe in this consumerism of healthcare, you have to

211
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:55,679
Speaker 8: bring care to the patient. There is a retail nature

212
00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:56,400
Speaker 8: to kind body.

213
00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:00,680
Speaker 9: It's funny because not everyone agrees that healthcare is like

214
00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:05,480
Speaker 9: any other consumer product. But for Gina, the experience of

215
00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:09,280
Speaker 9: being a patient was just as important as the treatment itself.

216
00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:13,079
Speaker 9: The lobby would have to be as carefully designed as

217
00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:13,880
Speaker 9: the exam room.

218
00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:17,240
Speaker 8: I think historically in healthcare you really didn't think about

219
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:20,640
Speaker 8: your patient as your customer, right, You didn't think about hospitality.

220
00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:23,760
Speaker 8: And we want to be intentional. How can we think

221
00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:26,400
Speaker 8: about the robes that are more comfortable? How can we

222
00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:30,920
Speaker 8: have cold water in the healthcare is not wired like that.

223
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:34,720
Speaker 8: Almost every other industry is. Restaurants are retail is think

224
00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:36,840
Speaker 8: about everything else is built around you.

225
00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,480
Speaker 9: Gina had this idea to house everything under one roof,

226
00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:45,520
Speaker 9: including the lab where eggs and sperm are handled and

227
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:51,920
Speaker 9: where embryos are actually made. Until this point, most fertility

228
00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:56,440
Speaker 9: clinics look like a typical doctor's office. Patients seeking IVF

229
00:13:56,480 --> 00:13:59,080
Speaker 9: treatment would usually go to a clinic that was operated

230
00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:04,480
Speaker 9: by a university health system like Cornell, Stanford, Northwestern, or

231
00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:10,199
Speaker 9: a smaller privately owned clinic. They aren't exciting vibey spaces

232
00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:15,040
Speaker 9: on busy streets next to restaurants and boutiques. This was

233
00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:19,160
Speaker 9: Gina's radically new idea. It would take a long time

234
00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:22,120
Speaker 9: to build a sort of clinic. The Kind Body wanted

235
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:26,040
Speaker 9: to start attracting patients early, so it started constructing what

236
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 9: it called mobile clinics. These were basically trailers like the

237
00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:34,239
Speaker 9: ones you would find on a movie set. The exteriors

238
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,680
Speaker 9: were painted with Kind Bodies signature pastel yellow with the

239
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:43,800
Speaker 9: message your fertility Understood in big bold letters. Anyone off

240
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:46,680
Speaker 9: the street could go inside and take a free hormone

241
00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:49,840
Speaker 9: test that measured roughly how many eggs they had left.

242
00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:55,680
Speaker 10: We're here in front of our third mobile pop up event,

243
00:14:56,280 --> 00:14:58,040
Speaker 10: and we're here talking to women about their fertility.

244
00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:01,440
Speaker 9: Here's an early Kind Body exittive back in twenty eighteen,

245
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:05,040
Speaker 9: talking about a mobile clinic. This video comes from the

246
00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:07,480
Speaker 9: website Well and Goods YouTube channel.

247
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 10: So in Van you will talk to our fertility specialists.

248
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:13,120
Speaker 10: A nurse will draw your blood and take a test

249
00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:14,920
Speaker 10: which is called the A and H test. We get

250
00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:17,000
Speaker 10: your results back and we send you a report that

251
00:15:17,080 --> 00:15:19,720
Speaker 10: fully contextualizes what you need to know and helps you

252
00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:21,320
Speaker 10: understand what your next steps might be.

253
00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:25,600
Speaker 9: The first mobile clinic opened up in Manhattan on the

254
00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:28,800
Speaker 9: corner of twenty fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, right near

255
00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:32,280
Speaker 9: Madison Square Park. Kind Body took the bus on the

256
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:36,160
Speaker 9: road to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Hamptons. The

257
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:40,600
Speaker 9: hormone test was a great promotional tool. The results gave

258
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:44,480
Speaker 9: women the feeling of empowerment and control. If results showed

259
00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:48,440
Speaker 9: eggs were dwindling, kind Body said, no problem, just freeze them.

260
00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:52,680
Speaker 9: No need to stop your career to have children early on.

261
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:57,720
Speaker 9: This was kind Body's message to women, particularly young women.

262
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:01,480
Speaker 9: Most women who seek IVS are typically in their late

263
00:16:01,520 --> 00:16:05,880
Speaker 9: thirties or forties. The kind Body wanted to reach them sooner.

264
00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:10,840
Speaker 9: In twenty eighteen, Gina told the Verge quote, what we

265
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,360
Speaker 9: want to do is help women live a life of

266
00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,640
Speaker 9: no regrets and have children when they want them, on

267
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:22,960
Speaker 9: their own time frame. End quote. This was a bold proposition.

268
00:16:24,040 --> 00:16:28,840
Speaker 9: Egg freezing does not automatically guarantee a future pregnancy. Sometimes

269
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:32,680
Speaker 9: eggs don't survive thawing, and even if they do, some

270
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:37,640
Speaker 9: might not fertilize. It's not a perfect science and it's

271
00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:41,840
Speaker 9: very new. Some experts at the time criticize Kind Body

272
00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:45,160
Speaker 9: for selling false hope and a misguided sense of security,

273
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,840
Speaker 9: but for others working in the field, kind Bodies mission

274
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 9: and messaging represented a welcome change for an industry that

275
00:16:54,800 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 9: seems set in its ways. We'll be right back. Many

276
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,320
Speaker 9: former employees I spoke to who joined kind Body in

277
00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:10,840
Speaker 9: the early years tell me they were drawn in. They

278
00:17:10,920 --> 00:17:14,840
Speaker 9: loved the mission, the beauty, the way the company presented itself.

279
00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:19,840
Speaker 9: One of those early employees was Tracy Sosa, a medical

280
00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,520
Speaker 9: assistant who's been working in healthcare for twenty years. She

281
00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:26,119
Speaker 9: was recruited in twenty twenty to work at Kind Bodies

282
00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:29,840
Speaker 9: Clinic in Princeton, New Jersey. When she started, the clinic

283
00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:32,919
Speaker 9: wasn't up and running yet, but Tracy had this sense

284
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:35,000
Speaker 9: that this company was different.

285
00:17:35,680 --> 00:17:38,040
Speaker 6: Once I googled and I researched and I looked, I

286
00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:40,840
Speaker 6: saw the aesthetics of it. I'm goosebumps right.

287
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:41,879
Speaker 4: Now just talking to you about it.

288
00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:43,159
Speaker 6: I was so excited.

289
00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:47,800
Speaker 9: Tracy accepted the job and together with her coworkers, she

290
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:49,280
Speaker 9: set up the clinic from scratch.

291
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:53,640
Speaker 6: We were unpacking boxes, we were decorating. It was there

292
00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:56,000
Speaker 6: and there, and we built that thing and opened it

293
00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:58,680
Speaker 6: thrush for I'd get right open, the three of us.

294
00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,639
Speaker 6: There was a lot of good things that were there.

295
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:05,800
Speaker 6: It was warm, the color of the practice, it was holly,

296
00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:09,280
Speaker 6: It was inviting. It wasn't cold, it wasn't sterile, it

297
00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:13,120
Speaker 6: was clean, it was crisp. You would want to go there.

298
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:16,400
Speaker 6: I was so excited. I was like, finally a place

299
00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:19,399
Speaker 6: is going to get it. It's going to pamper our patients.

300
00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 6: Here them give them not only just a medical pharmaceutical approach,

301
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:28,480
Speaker 6: but also a holistic approach thing for my body and soul.

302
00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:30,920
Speaker 6: I was drinking the kool aid. I was all about it.

303
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,760
Speaker 9: And all the work that Tracy and her colleagues had

304
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:38,560
Speaker 9: done to make the Princeton clinic look so inviting, it

305
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 9: was working.

306
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:44,440
Speaker 5: They were giving gifts. I think we got little water

307
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:47,240
Speaker 5: bottles and a couple, you know, little I don't know,

308
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:50,159
Speaker 5: maybe pans or whatnot. And it was obviously all women,

309
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:51,680
Speaker 5: which I thought was pretty cool.

310
00:18:52,359 --> 00:18:55,040
Speaker 9: This is Dina. She visited an open house at the

311
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:58,760
Speaker 9: clinic in twenty twenty. She and her partner b had

312
00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:02,199
Speaker 9: started treatment at another clinic in New Jersey, but they

313
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,640
Speaker 9: were thinking of switching because Dina's employer was now covering

314
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:07,119
Speaker 9: kind bodies services.

315
00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:10,960
Speaker 5: The women are great. I mean they were really upbeat

316
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,479
Speaker 5: and just really wanted you to know that they were

317
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,400
Speaker 5: going to take care of you and the options you had.

318
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,800
Speaker 7: Dina's reaction as soon as she got out of there

319
00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:22,080
Speaker 7: and called me, was like, all positive. This place is

320
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:24,920
Speaker 7: like totally different to the other place. It's very personal.

321
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 7: You weren't just a number and part of the masses.

322
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 7: So I was like, great.

323
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:37,440
Speaker 9: Dina and Be always knew they wanted to have kids.

324
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 7: That was something that was always on the cause for us.

325
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:42,159
Speaker 1: That's Be.

326
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:45,320
Speaker 9: She and Dina have been together for over a decade.

327
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,400
Speaker 9: Dina and Bee didn't want to share their last name

328
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 9: when discussing this part of their lives. Six years ago,

329
00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:54,199
Speaker 9: they decided to tie the knot and move to a

330
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,199
Speaker 9: suburb in New Jersey. It's a short drive away from

331
00:19:57,280 --> 00:19:59,000
Speaker 9: the school where Dina works.

332
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:03,520
Speaker 7: We took a little while in getting married, but we

333
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:07,200
Speaker 7: knew that as soon as we were married we planned

334
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:10,399
Speaker 7: to buy a house, and pretty quickly after we got married,

335
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,679
Speaker 7: we started the process of trying to have a family.

336
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:20,120
Speaker 9: They planned out how they wanted it to happen. They

337
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:22,879
Speaker 9: told me about it when we spoke last year. It

338
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:23,800
Speaker 9: was late in the evening.

339
00:20:24,680 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 7: We just each knew that we wanted to carry a child.

340
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:31,359
Speaker 7: I think initially we were planning on having them a

341
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:35,200
Speaker 7: year apart or so. We were like, great, Dina will

342
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,679
Speaker 7: go and she'll get pregnant, and then I'll go, like

343
00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:42,199
Speaker 7: a year or so later, and it'll be great. We

344
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 7: had no idea in the beginning what the journey was

345
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:45,639
Speaker 7: going to look like.

346
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:52,119
Speaker 9: Between the good vibes at the open house and the

347
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:54,720
Speaker 9: fact that Dina's job would cover a big chunk of

348
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:58,160
Speaker 9: a cost, they decided to switch from their previous clinic

349
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 9: to Kind Body. Soon after, Dina and B met Tracy,

350
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 9: the medical assistant who had helped open up the Princeton

351
00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:07,760
Speaker 9: clinic they were now going to.

352
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 6: They were lovely. They were literally our favorite patients.

353
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:14,000
Speaker 9: Dina and b spent a lot of time with Tracy.

354
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 9: She became like their guide and a trusted friend.

355
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,240
Speaker 6: You go on this journey with them, and because when

356
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 6: they start a cycle, you're drawing their blood every day,

357
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:25,360
Speaker 6: you're in the room with them when they're doing their ultrasounds.

358
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 6: You're in the room when they're doing all their pretesting

359
00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:31,000
Speaker 6: to get prepped for their cycles. After going through cycles

360
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:32,720
Speaker 6: with patients, you just build a bond with them.

361
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 7: When I went on.

362
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,400
Speaker 6: Vacation and went to Vegas, I got them a key

363
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 6: chain like I lie love beast too, women like I

364
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:40,160
Speaker 6: love them to death.

365
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:45,120
Speaker 9: For anyone going through IVF at any clinic, there's lots

366
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 9: of highs and lows. Dina and B experienced a lot

367
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:52,880
Speaker 9: of disappointment in the early stages. The first step would

368
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:55,119
Speaker 9: be for a doctor to retrieve eggs that are healthy

369
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,240
Speaker 9: enough to be turned into embryos. In Diana and Bee's

370
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 9: case with donor sperm, they both had multiple egg retrievals

371
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 9: with kind body.

372
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,199
Speaker 5: It's hard to I remember them calling and saying that

373
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 5: none of them ended up making it. We weren't getting

374
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 5: a lot of them that ended up being viable to

375
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 5: be implanted.

376
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, none of them were very successful at all.

377
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:20,080
Speaker 9: To be honest, the retrievals weren't yielding enough healthy eggs.

378
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 9: Dina and B were both in their early forties. Studies

379
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 9: show that after thirty five women see a decline in

380
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 9: the quantity and quality of their eggs. Still they kept trying.

381
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 5: I mean I thought the retrieval process was exhausting. I mean,

382
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 5: the injections it's a lot. It's a lot physically, it's

383
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 5: a lot emotionally. It messes up your body, it messes

384
00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:45,199
Speaker 5: up your head. And we didn't have success early on.

385
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,160
Speaker 5: So the amount of retrievals we had to do to

386
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 5: be able to get embryos was a lot. So, I mean,

387
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:52,960
Speaker 5: our process was very long. Was it two and a

388
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 5: half years, So a lot of retrievals, a lot of time.

389
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 7: It's just like you just lose use those years. You

390
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 7: lose that part of your life because the emotional roller

391
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 7: coaster like Dina's describing is just incredibly exhausting in terms

392
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:19,159
Speaker 7: of your relationship, your extended family, your physical body. The

393
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 7: hormones are insanely up and down, and that's just the drugs.

394
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 9: And when they managed to retrieve healthy eggs, the next

395
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 9: hurdle was combining those eggs with donor sperm to create

396
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 9: viable embryos.

397
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 7: To be implanted, we didn't have many embryos at all.

398
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,119
Speaker 7: I can't remember how many we were down to, but

399
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 7: it was not many to a point where every single

400
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 7: one was so precious and valuable.

401
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 9: Some embryos don't develop, others might be ruled out during

402
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 9: genetic testing. They both tried to have healthy embryos implanted

403
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 9: multiple times, but none of these resulted in a pregnancy.

404
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 7: I had two, you had three, Yeah, failed, so five

405
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 7: to all failed. So we didn't have many embryos. We

406
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 7: both had unsuccessful transfers.

407
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 9: IVF is hard, and it's not unusual for a woman

408
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 9: to go through two to three cycles or spend tens

409
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 9: of thousands of dollars on the process, but there were

410
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,440
Speaker 9: specific things about the way kind Body worked that Dina

411
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 9: and B said made things harder for them. Dina and

412
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 9: B were so laser focused on having a baby that

413
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 9: to this day they struggle with remembering the warning signs

414
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,679
Speaker 9: that everything was not okay for them at kind Body.

415
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 9: Only now those signs are coming into focus appointment reminders

416
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 9: with B's name instead of Dina's. Paperwork mix ups on

417
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,719
Speaker 9: the day of a procedure. For one thing, The clinic

418
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 9: near them in New Jersey wasn't the one stop shop

419
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 9: that Kind Body had been selling. Their Kind Body clinic

420
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 9: in Princeton didn't have a full time doctor on staff

421
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 9: or an operating room, and their IVF lab had yet

422
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 9: to be built. That made their medical assistant, Tracy feel uneasy.

423
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 6: So after the first six months or so, I was

424
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 6: like it was slowing on a doctor, like, what's going on?

425
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 6: As I slowly start to say to myself, Oh, this

426
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,880
Speaker 6: is not good. This patient can't have XYZ or they

427
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 6: have to go all the way into the city. It

428
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 6: just wasn't appropriate. You need a full time doctor there.

429
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 9: Tracy wasn't the only kind Body employee who was bothered

430
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 9: by this. Other staff members told me it led to

431
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 9: more mistakes because they were coordinating important procedures for patients

432
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 9: they didn't really know. A lot of information can be

433
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 9: lost in the game of telephone between clinics, and communication

434
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 9: can suffer at a company growing as fast as kind

435
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 9: Body was. But Dina and Bee didn't have a choice.

436
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 9: They were ready to do another transfer, and so they

437
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 9: had to go to kind Body's office more than an

438
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 9: hour away near Manhattan's Brian Park. So one day in

439
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 9: the spring of twenty twenty one, they headed into the city.

440
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:17,919
Speaker 7: So we had our transfer day, which is always you know,

441
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 7: a big X in your calendar, and it's super exciting

442
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 7: and you're all hype about the fact that you're about

443
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 7: to go and get pregnant.

444
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 9: For any couple going through IVF, the transfer day is

445
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 9: a big deal, but for Dina and b this day

446
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 9: had extra significance.

447
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 7: This was the first time we were going to try

448
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 7: transferring mind into Dina.

449
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 9: The plan was to do reciprocal IVF. It's a technique

450
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 9: in which one partner's eggs are used to create an

451
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 9: embryo that is then implanted into the other partner, So

452
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 9: Dina would get bees eggs.

453
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:00,719
Speaker 7: So I think being in a lesbian couple, it really

454
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 7: meant a lot for us to be as genetically connected

455
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 7: as we possibly could. So for me not knowing whether

456
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 7: I will be able to carry or not because I'd

457
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 7: not had a successful transfer at that point, it was huge, like, Okay,

458
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 7: if I can't carry because my womb was what did.

459
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 5: They call it, not hospitable?

460
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 7: Not hospitable? Yeah, how nice is that it was important

461
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,439
Speaker 7: for us genetically for Dina to carry my embryo that way,

462
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 7: in the future she may have been able to carry

463
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:38,439
Speaker 7: one of her own, but she would be able to

464
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 7: put it blonde cook my bon. So it was a

465
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 7: really big deal and we thought, if this turns out

466
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 7: to be a successful pregnancy, this would be awesome, like

467
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 7: a little piece of both of us in this new

468
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 7: baby super excited. It's like the epitome of everything we've

469
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 7: been building up to.

470
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 9: They traveled into Kind Bodies Brian Park for their appointment,

471
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 9: as they had with other procedures in the past. It's

472
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 9: not the most comfortable spot.

473
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 7: We get in the office. You're in these tiny rooms

474
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 7: because in the clinic in the city, I mean space

475
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 7: is short, right, You're like shuffling past each other. You

476
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 7: can't even open the door if someone stood there. Like,

477
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 7: this room is tiny. So we're in this tiny room.

478
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 7: They tell us, this is great, We're here to do

479
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 7: a transfer. Dina, get in the gown, get on the table.

480
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 7: Everything seems to be normal. So we do all that

481
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 7: and then nothing happens.

482
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 9: They waited for someone to come into the room and

483
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 9: tell them what would happen.

484
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 7: Next, and we're like, yeah, I was just sitting there

485
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 7: and we're like, okay, like this been a while case,

486
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 7: this has really been a while.

487
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 3: Now.

488
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 5: I know this sounds kind of crazy, but you also

489
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 5: have to like you can't pee.

490
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 9: When patients prepare for an embryo transfer, their to go

491
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 9: in with the full bladder. It helps doctors get a

492
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 9: clear view of the uterus on the ultrasound.

493
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 5: I remember this vividly because I had to go to

494
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,239
Speaker 5: the bathroom so bad, and I was like, this is

495
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 5: like I kept being like, we need them to come,

496
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 5: like they need to come now, but they wouldn't come,

497
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 5: and I'm like, this is strange, Like why are they

498
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 5: not coming in here right now?

499
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,959
Speaker 7: Over thirty minutes we were sitting there, for sure. So

500
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 7: we were sitting there, sitting there, sitting there, and it's weird,

501
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 7: and no one's coming in and telling us anything.

502
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 9: Then the doctor and embryologist walk into the room. The

503
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 9: mood shifts.

504
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 7: I don't even remember what it is they said exactly,

505
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 7: but to the effect of there's been I don't even

506
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 7: know if they admitted to it being a mistake, but

507
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 7: there's been a situation. Let's say there's been a situation

508
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 7: where the embryo you chose to be defrusted was not

509
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 7: and we defrusted a different.

510
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 2: Embryo coming up this weekend. In episodes two and three

511
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: of our series IVF disrupted the kind body story you

512
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 2: don't even refreeze chicken.

513
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 6: I didn't find out right away. It was like a

514
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 6: few hours into the day and then I was like, wait,

515
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 6: what did you guys just say? Like I think they

516
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 6: were trying to keep it as much hash as possible.

517
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 5: How can we establish ourselves so that we are building

518
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 5: a lab and like what is our goal?

519
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: Like these were just never conversations that were.

520
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 8: Had these air handling systems. They're not cheap.

521
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 6: I'm like, shitn just thinking about it, because that's something

522
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 6: that's just hammered into your like, oh my god, the

523
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 6: chance command heads that that.

524
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 5: Goes through.

525
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 9: IVF Disrupted. The Kind Body Story is reported and hosted

526
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 9: by me Jackie Devallos. The series is produced by Sean

527
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 9: Wen and Jilda de Carly, editing by Caitlin Kenney, Jeff Grocott,

528
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 9: and Joshua Breustin. Blake Maples is our sound engineer and composer,

529
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 9: fact checking by Anaga Robbins. Bloomberg's Senior executive editor for

530
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 9: Technology is Tom Giles. Our head of podcasting is Sage Bauman.

531
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 9: You can reach us at podcasts at Bloomberg dot net.

532
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 9: IVF Disrupted is a production of Bloomberg and iHeart Podcasts