Content warning: We will be discussing infertility and IVF during this episode. If those topics are sensitive for you right now, we totally understand. Feel free to skip this week’s episode. Take care of yourselves, first and foremost.

When Sami Jacobson decided to start trying to have a baby, she was 33, and, anxieties assuaged by a doctor friend, she figured, “it’ll just happen.” But then… it didn’t.

Now, at 37, she and her husband are in the middle of one of the least-discussed fertility interventions — something that New York Magazine termed “the last fertility taboo” back in April: egg donor-assisted IVF.

According to the CDC, about 12 percent of all IVF cycles in the U.S. involve donor eggs. For the uninitiated, this means that eggs are retrieved from the donor (the same process as egg freezing) and fertilized with sperm to create embryos, which are then transferred to the expectant parent or gestational carrier’s uterus. It seems inevitable that these fertility interventions will only continue to increase in popularity, as technology improves and as women continue to have fewer children later in life. And yet, it’s not a subject you hear widely discussed — even as the topics of fertility and IVF have become commonplace on social media.

When Sami and her husband Mike were first advised that this was a route they may need to go in order to start a family, Sami looked around for stories like hers. And though they existed, they were few and far between. She barely had any friends who had required any kind of IVF, let alone donor-assisted.

“This shift was incredibly hard for me to metabolize,” Sami told us, “and it was the first time I felt this, like, sense of being kind of broken.”

Something core to the mission of this newsletter is creating a community where women’s lived experiences are taken seriously. In that spirit, we wanted to dig into Sami’s personal experience — the practical steps she’s had to take, the emotional journey she’s been on, and the ethical considerations she and her husband have had to grapple with. We also wanted to zoom out and talk about what the relative silence surrounding donor-assisted IVF is all about, especially when it comes to cisgender women in heterosexual relationships.

It was a deeply emotional conversation, but also a joyful one. Biggest thanks to Sami for having such a vulnerable, honest, complex discussion with us. And thanks in advance to this community for creating a safe space for her to do so. Hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Xo

More to read and listen to about donor-assisted IVF:

• “Biohacked: Family Secrets” podcast

• “The Last Fertility Taboo” by Rina Raphael, The Cut

• The landmark University of Cambridge study we reference

• “Building Your Family” podcast

• “Let's Talk About Egg Donation: Real Stories from Real People,” by Marna Gatlin and Carole Lieberwilkins Mft

• We Are Donor Conceived

You can find our previous Maybe Baby episodes here. XoShare Rich Text

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