Video Transcripts:

ASB Introduction

If you are listening to this video, you have likely been through a challenging fertility journey that didn’t reach your goal of becoming a parent. Atlantic Shared Beginnings is here to provide you with a new pathway to parenthood. My name is Stephanie Barlett, program director for ASB. ASB has high-quality embryos that are created from donor eggs and your choice of partner sperm or donor sperm. You may select the embryo program, the fresh egg donor program, or the frozen egg donor program. Our programs are unique because embryo creation is driven by you. You will have the option of creating an embryo by selecting your egg and sperm donors (or partner sperm), or you may choose a high-quality embryo that is available now.

Our programs allow you, the patient, to transfer your embryos at your chosen local clinic or our clinic here at Atlantic Reproductive Medicine.

We know that each family’s path to parenthood is unique, and we will work with you to find the best pathway that meets your needs. If you are ready to learn more about our high-quality embryos, please schedule a free consultation to see which of our programs is right for you.

I look forward to speaking with you to start your journey at Atlantic Shared Beginnings

Atlantic Shared Beginnings – The Process

Hello. My name is Stephanie Bartlett, and I am the program director for Atlantic Shared Beginnings.

Thank you for your interest in our program. I wanted to take a few minutes to walk you through the general process that recipients can expect as they navigate through their Atlantic Shared Beginnings journey.

Recipients will first start with their free consultation to review their medical history, discuss family goals, and review program pathways and pricing.

After the call, recipients will receive a detailed packet that outlines a specific program of interest and will receive limited access to view our donor pool.

Once ready to move forward, recipients will be granted full access to view our donor pool where they will see detailed information about the donors, including complete medical and family history, a vignette from a reproductive psychologist, expanded carrier screening, and childhood and adult photos. When viewing our available embryo profiles, recipients will see the grades and gender of those available profiles.

Its telehealth will be scheduled with one of our providers at Atlantic Reproductive Medicine to review past medical history and any past fertility cycles.

After completion of the telehealth, recipients will connect with one of our RNs and our third-party program to assist in navigating through compliance checklists prior to donor selection and embryo transfer.

Our entire third-party team, which is comprised of physicians, nurse practitioners, RNs and embryologists, are dedicated to helping our recipients navigate through the program seamlessly.

We look forward to working with you and creating your family with Atlantic Shared Beginnings.

Atlantic Shared Beginnings Egg Donor Screening

Hi. My name is Stephanie Bartlett, Program Director for Atlantic Shared Beginnings.

I thought was important to share with our recipients the vigorous screening process that our egg donors go through before they are approved to donate.

Our egg donor screening is a multi-step process that requires approval with each step. Atlantic Shared Beginnings follows ASRM guidelines and recommendations when screening potential egg donors for approval.

The first step entails our egg donor is filling out a comprehensive medical and lifestyle history, as well as a detailed family history vacation is reviewed by one of our registered nurses to see if the potential donor qualifies.

If the donor qualifies, they then have a thorough Telehealth with one of our nurse practitioners to review the medical and family history in depth.

The next step of the screening process is bringing the potential egg donor into our clinic for a physical exam and ovarian reserve testing. If the potential egg donor qualifies, they will then move on to a detailed visit with one of our reproductive psychologists

The last step in the screening process entails FDA infectious disease testing and expanded carrier screening. Once we have approved all steps in the screening process, the egg donor will be made active to donate in our egg donor database.

Atlantic Shared Beginnings takes pride in our highly qualified egg donors and we are so excited to share them with you.

ASB Donor Anonymity

Hi everyone. My name is Stephanie Bartlett and I am the Program Director for Atlantic Shared Beginnings. I wanted to touch on a very important topic for both donors and recipients and that is donor anonymity.

Here at Atlantic Shared Beginnings, all of our donors participate in a non-identified donation, also known as non-disclosure. What this means is that we will not release any identifying information pertaining to the donor to the recipients, and we will not release any identifying information pertaining to the recipients to the donor.

Egg donors discuss future contact and levels of anonymity during their psychological clearance and their wishes can be found in the psychological vignette within their profile, as well as embedded in application questions.

These are the wishes of the donor at the time of donation and cannot be enforced. Atlantic Shared Beginnings understands the importance of medical updates from the donor to the recipients. Because of this, we have partnered with EDC Nexus to facilitate those updates.

EDC Nexus is a unique registry that provides intended parents and their donor conceived families with annual updates relating to their egg donors personal and family medical history through a private and secure online database.

Egg donors are contacted on an annual basis by EDC Nexus and are encouraged to complete a questionnaire informing intended parents and donor conceived offspring of new developments related to their medical history and lifestyle updates.

All egg donors will be registered in EDC Nexus after completion of their donation cycle and recipients will be invited to join the platform once there is an ongoing pregnancy.

I hope you have found this video helpful in answering some of your questions regarding donor anonymity. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any additional questions or concerns.

ASB Frequently Asked Questions

Hi. My name is Stephanie Bartlett, Program Director for Atlantic Shared Beginnings.

Today, I wanted to go over some of the most frequently asked questions.

Q: Do I have to live in North Carolina to become a recipient of Atlantic Shared Beginnings?

A: No. We have recipients who reside all over the United States. We have even had some international cases as well. We have the option to ship embryos to your local clinic, or you can perform all of your monitoring at your local clinic and come to us for the embryo transfer.

Q: What is the 12-week pregnancy guarantee program?

A: In our 12-week pregnancy guarantee program, qualified recipients will pay their program fee and will receive up to three high-quality embryos to transfer to get to 12 weeks gestation. If a recipient has a negative pregnancy test after the first transfer or has a miscarriage any time before 12 weeks, the recipient can select another embryo at no additional cost. Recipients will get up to three embryos to get to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Q: How do I qualify for the 12-week guarantee program?

A: The first step is a telehealth visit to review your medical records in depth. During the telehealth, we will discuss the necessary compliances that need completed prior to enrolling in the program. With this program, recipients are required to come to our medical clinic in Raleigh, North Carolina twice. All other visits can be done at their local reproductive clinic.

The first visit to us will be for the saline ultrasound. This is a procedure where we will evaluate the uterine cavity to look for any abnormalities that might impact an embryo transfer. The second required visit is for the embryo transfer itself. We do require recipients who wish to qualify for the 12-week pregnancy guarantee program to complete an ERA cycle, also known as Endometrial Receptivity Analysis.

Q: Are you an egg bank?

A: No, Atlantic Shared Beginnings uses fresh donor eggs to create embryos. What this means is that you will select an egg donor to go through an egg donation cycle and the eggs will be fertilized with either partner sperm or donor sperm on the day of retrieval. Fertilizing eggs on the day of retrieval increases the success rates of developing embryos.

Q: What is a donor-donor embryo?

A: A donor-donor embryo is an embryo that is created using an egg donor and sperm donor. We have options where you can choose an egg donor from our database and a sperm donor from one of our partnering sperm banks to create a donor-donor embryo. We also have inventory of donor-donor embryos that are already created and are awaiting selection by you.

Q: What does shared program mean?

A: Atlantic Shared Beginnings is a shared program, which means that an egg donor will go through a donation cycle and her eggs will be split between different recipients. Recipients have the option of selecting a six-egg cohort or creating a donor-donor embryo profile. The remaining eggs are fertilized for the other recipient.

Q: Who creates the embryos that are available for selection?

A: With this program, the first intended parent will select an egg donor and sperm donor to create the donor-donor embryos. That intended parent will then choose how many embryos they would like to select. The remaining embryos then go to our available inventory to be selected by other recipients.

Q: What is the general time frame to get to transfer?

A: The time it takes for a recipient to get to embryo transfer varies greatly from recipient to recipient. We currently do not have a waitlist for our egg donors or donor embryos.

I am happy to answer any additional questions you may have as you consider Atlantic Shared Beginnings. Feel free to schedule a free consultation or email me and I would be glad to discuss how we can help you on your journey.