Fertility and Family Building Business Progyny and the social planning website for invitations Evite hosted an event in Los Angeles on Wednesday in which panelists discussed IVF options. Among them were family-building patient advocacy group RESOLVE, the first IVF baby born in the United States Elizabeth Carr, Progyny’s chief medical officer Dr. Janet Choi, and actress and IVF advocate fertility Kellee Stewart.
Listed on the stock exchange Progyny provides social benefits focused on family building, fertility and women’s reproductive health, including IVF, adoption, IUI and surrogacy.
Stewart sat down with MobiHealthNews at the event to discuss her involvement with Progyny and Evite, as well as her work advocating for the benefits of fertility and starting a family.
MobiHealthNews: Why did you decide to get involved with Progyny?
Kellee Stewart: Progyny actually invited me to turn on the orange switch on the Empire State Building for the first time during National Infertility Awareness Week. And so they came to me and I said, “Hello, I was looking for you, and I’m going to meet you in the biggest building in the world, you know, on top of the world!” So, that was monumental for me, and from that point on, we stayed connected with each other.
I am an award-winning fertility advocate thanks to RESOLVE, which started this trend. But when I froze my eggs at age 37, I threw myself an egg shower. And there are no showers for people going through IVF, adoption, surrogacy, or egg freezing, and I thought, “How can I help normalize the conversation about infertility and the different paths to parenthood?
So, I was on the Sherri Shepherd show talking about my egg shower, and I said there are no egg shower invitations on Evite. They heard it. Then Evite contacted me and said, “We want to help you change that.” So we teamed up and created Parenthood Journey.
Parenthood Journey is a new category of invitations on evite.com that features IVF showers, surrogacy showers, adoption showers, my own egg shower invitation that I designed, as well as rainbow baby showers. This is a separate category from baby showers because we want to create that space where people who are still on the journey feel seen, not triggered, and know that there is support and that we are millions trying to find our way. So when I partnered with Evite, I introduced Evite to Progyny and RESOLVE, and now we’re having our first fertility shower here.
MHN: What do you hope participants get out of the shower?
Stewart: I hope they understand access to care and are able to spread the message. We hope they continue to share their stories to raise awareness, because people suffer so much in silence, but when they hear a story that sounds like theirs or that of someone overcoming an obstacle, and it ‘s like, oh, I’m not the only one. This allows them to continue their journey or make choices.
And I hope, with abortion on the ballot, with the events that happened in Alabama and everything else, that we can continue to make our voices and our rights heard. As we see things being turned around and going back over 50 years, if we don’t continue to hold events like this, speak out and mobilize together, and shake hands with others who are going through this journey, then we will not be able to create the change we seek and deserve.
And one of the things I really wanted to do was call my friend Elizabeth Carr. Elizabeth is the first baby born via IVF in the United States. I called her and asked her to be in the shower, and she’s right there, and she’s going to be on the panel. So she’s literally part of the story, even though I call it “her story,” and she represents, her parents represent, and her birth represents hope for all of us. So, 41 years ago, someone underwent an experimental trial and came out one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. So we are fighting here to keep these rights among us.
MHN: what would you like MobiHealthNews should readers know about the IVF movement?
Stewart: Be aware that there are infertility insurance companies. If it’s not covered by the person you work for, go to HR and ask them why. Because it is available. And that’s the problem. Sometimes we ask the question, “Hey, do you have infertility insurance?” »
“No.”
And then we stop the conversation there. “Why not?”
So what I hope people take away from this, for Progyny in particular, is that you continue to poke that bear and say, “Well, why not?” And if you don’t get an answer that speaks to your parenting journey, you have to keep fighting for it wherever you work. We don’t need to stop it at no.
I hope people will also benefit from this event: concrete ways to empower themselves within their community, their employer, their neighborhood, and even their family. You know, being triggered, being asked, “When is the baby coming?”
Sometimes we have to say, “Well, you know, that’s none of your business. I’m working on it. But Progyny is a great insurance company, and it’s available and more businesses need to access it.