The decision was made to board a plane and head out west to Perth to try for a baby, which resulted in a first-cycle success. With roughly 6 weeks to go before the due date Pia shares of her pregnancy journey that included brutal morning sickness not to mention a gender reveal that went horribly wrong and left her in the hospital for a couple of days. To find out more about this episode please visit https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-71-from-melbourne-to-perth-to-have-a-baby/

Kenn Israel who lives between Uzbekistan and California has over 3 decades of experience in dietary supplements, functional food, and natural products. He is the founder and manager of Innovation Nutrition Consulting LLC, in other words, he is the full bottle when it comes to the importance of understanding this innovative field of expertise and I tracked him down to share his words of wisdom to our community. We speak about a large number of fertile vitamins and supplements on the market, we explore options for those experiencing Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome and what they can take to restore balance. What Vitamins do you have to stop taking once pregnant that could become harmful? How Do you identify and pick the best prenatal vitamin? What's the difference between folic acid vs folate? What are other key active forms ingredients that actually make a prenatal effective? All this and more a must listen to those who are serious about their fertility and the baby's health. For more information about this episode and to source all of the vitamins and supplements mentioned on this podcast please visit. https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-70-fertility-vitamins-and-supplements/

Wendy Kramer is the Co-Founder of the Donor Sibling Registry which was formed in 2000 because there was a gap in the market that was starting to emerge and curious people were seeking answers or seeking connections. She was that parent back in a time when doctors told their patients to lie about their child's origin to go against the grain. Transparency was key in her mind and her son Ryan first asked about his origin at the age of 2 which set the ball rolling on how she was going to prepare for this road ahead. Over the past 2 decades, Wendy has dedicated her life to donor-conceived people, she shares her stories and the studies that have taken place within her 89,000 community, and she continues to produce educational resources in a working week that consists of 70 hours plus. In this episode, she shares her vast array of knowledge and shares her thoughts on where the sperm banks are failing us. For more information about Wendy Kramer and the Donor Sibling Registry visit this episode's link. https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-69-the-donor-sibling-registry/

Stef Kozaczuak mother of 4, the former Californian, now living on the East Coast found out she was donor-conceived via a 23 and me test at the age of 32. It was a test her partner bought for her to take during a Black Friday sale which was to lead to many more Black Fridays ahead, as her DNA was holding secrets that only her parents knew about previously and that they still remain in denial about relinquishing. Peter the father who raised her was also a part of an Evangelical Church as a minister, where many forms of abuse were carried out during her childhood years, making her story come from a very dark place. She has triumphed like the true Queen she is and now has become an advocate for the donor-conceived. For more information on Stef and this episode please visit https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-68-donor-conceived-queen/

Ties Van Der Meer 44, is the chairman of the Donorkind Foundation in the Netherlands. His story is unique in the fact that not only is he donor conceived himself, but he also followed in his donor's footsteps and became a sperm donor. He shares his upbringing dynamic that involved his mother separating from her partner at just 3 years old and being raised with an adopted brother from Columbia, it becomes a tale of searching for family. He shares that he is aware of 18 donor children from his contributions to the clinic and how he wishes not to have any more children, even though his wife may wish to have children one day, and what might be alternative options for her. In recent times the Netherlands has had its biggest civil court case involving Dutch sperm donor Jonathan Meijer who fathered hundreds of children and the Donorkind Foundation found itself at the forefront of all this. We look at the court outcomes and discuss this story in the lead-up to the Netflix release. For more information about this episode visit. https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-67-donorkind/

Pete O'Irish from Ohio was your typical American donor-next-door kind of guy. A Grad school student looking for that extra income to score himself some pizza and beer. This very cliche story of coming across a sperm donor advert in a student flyer that lures men in with the promise of anonymity and a 10-family limit was and still is an attractive proposition as a fair trade-off to enhance the quality of life during these tough studying years.\ Everything was going to script until Pete read an article around 2005 predicting anonymity to be dead with new technologies of DNA testing coming through. Lo and behold his father signed up to Ancestry and was tracked down, with the threat of the cat being released out of the bag, Pete spilled his most well-kept secret to his wife that was none the wiser, and from there his thought process evolved, to where he has now become a part of some of these donor-conceived peoples lives to date he has 18 children accounted for and he explains navigating those relationships as everyone has different expectations from each other. For more information about this episode visit this episode's dedicated page. https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-66-the-well-adapted-90s-clinic-donor/

Strap yourself in for a 4-hour marathon with Michelle Carlon 32, from New South Wales she has a lot to say and a story to tell that will keep you entertained throughout. To begin we looking into Genetic testing at the clinics and how they're not giving customers copies of their results and therefore not telling them what gene mutations they may have. We then move on to Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and the dangers that these clinical drugs can impose on women. The second half of this episode gets deeply personal, Michelle shares her story of a failed relationship after the tremendous IVF toll, and the unexpected pregnancy of her child to a new partner, that relationship didn't last and she is now trying to negotiate to have a 2nd child with her fiance who is very skeptical after everything she has already been through and would hate to lose her through her pregnancy risks. We delve into her pregnancy journey where she was told the terminate her child at 23 weeks and then at 30 weeks another unexpected huge curve ball is thrown at her, where she had to hold on from giving birth or risk losing her child, everything that could have gone wrong during this pregnancy did so. After going through that intense story we finish our conversation chatting about egg donation. To find out more about this episode and information on Michelle please go to the podcast information page for this episode: https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-65-elevit-your-game-talking-mthfr-gene/

Aayize Diaz 30, based in Miami Florida is a gay talented rapper who came onto the American donor scene a number of years ago, yet due to poor lifestyle habits and fondness for Mary Jane, it took him 3 years to achieve his first pregnancy. He decided to tone down his consumption of weed and got 4 quick pregnancies he is now on his way to helping contribute to 11 lives born from his contribution. At the start, he was carelessly throwing his seed around to any takers as he has become more educated and has learned to refine his donating to people who live locally and that are willing to give him some limited involvement with the children. Aayize shares some fascinating stories of smoking weed with his recipients before the point of insemination, unusual places he has donated, and his first-ever sexual encounter with a woman being a 3some while trying to create a baby. We debate whether gay sperm is more popular than anti-vax sperm plus much more. For more information on this episode and where to contact Aayize visit: https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-64-let-it-come/

David Starlyte lives a nomadic lifestyle that currently has him residing in Port Douglas in Far North Queensland. Many would view him as a shaman healer, that focuses on coaching in the arts of soul mentoring and non-duality consciousness healing, he takes me on a spiritual journey in the episode and enlightens me with his views on life, and dissecting our instinctive nature and situations he has been confronted with thus far in his donor pathway to date. David has also had some clinical experience donating to a lady in Israel and then in around 2016 while he was living in Perth, he visited two separate fertility clinics in the state and donated enough sperm to potentially help 5 families at each clinic, we are led to believe in Australia there are strict monitoring systems in place, yet when we dissect this real-life event, we realize it’s all sugarcoating, and businesses will run as businesses are set up to do and that’s for profit. For more information about this episode or to contact David visit: https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-63-the-spiritual-messiah/

Shane Wagner the Melbourne Native has donated to a handful of families in Victoria, he is currently relocating to Darwin where there is currently a donor shortage. Despite some interesting negative experiences he faced so far in his donor journey, he describes his overall experience to date right up there with some of his life's most memorable moments, and that if he was to have done this at the clinic it could not possibly come close in levels of fulfillment. Scott explored the clinic option before turning his back on it, he looked at the $50 compensation offered for a donation as a bit of a joke. Being a single man he shares his encounters with a single woman and how one circumstance found him in a relationship that ultimately didn't work out. He shares with us his concerns about privacy and respecting boundaries as well as some interesting stories. For more information about Scott and this episode visit: ⁠https://ivfdonationworld.com/episode-62-cu-in-the-nt/