Infertility consultant serves as a link for families

Rhonda Levy EDITH LEVY PHOTO

Infertility could be a problem for you, your friend, your co-worker, people who are Jewish, non-Jewish, straight, gay, secular or religious. All united by a single hope: that medical science will help them bring home a baby.

According to Infertility Awareness Association of Canada, one in six Canadian couples struggles to conceive.

Rhonda Levy, a former high-finance lawyer, is founder and CEO of Empowered IVF. She is a Toronto-based infertility consultant who conceived her twin boys using in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

Empowered IVF helps build families throughout the world with assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Canada and the United States.

Levy endured three rounds of artificial insemination and four of IVF with her chosen facility, at a cost both emotional and financial.

“I got married at the age of 33 and immediately began trying to become pregnant. After seven or eight months, when nothing was happening, I started seeing doctors. They began with artificial insemination; I did get pregnant but miscarried. I did not get pregnant again. I moved onto IVF,” she said.


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Seeking out the right fertility clinic is virtually a guessing game. “Government agencies in both the U.K. and the United States require clinics to report their success rates – how many pregnancies or births they produce per treatment – which are then published,” Levy explained.

However, in Canada there are no published success rates in a centralized registry.

“I essentially took a blind leap of faith and capitulated to medical authority,” she said.

Levy soon realized she needed to become more empowered and became her own best advocate.

“I parked myself at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine library and took it upon myself to sit there night after night, weekend after weekend, devouring studies so I could understand what was cutting-edge in the world of reproductive medicine, and who the leaders in the field were.

“The fertility clinic where we did our fifth IVF cycle was the first one that we selected in a truly methodical and empowered way.

 “After the birth of my sons [now 18 years-old], a fire was lit inside me, a fire that inspired me to turn what had been a crisis into an opportunity to help others become more informed consumers of reproductive medicine,” said Levy.

Rabbi Levi Gansburg, founder and spiritual leader of Chabad on Bayview told The CJN: “Jewish law has much to say about this topic and rabbis should be involved to guide couples through this journey, both halachically and emotionally.

“Rhonda’s work is necessary in the Jewish community, as most people who are struggling with infertility need somewhere to turn. A crucial step in this process is having an infertility specialist readily available,” Rabbi Gansburg said.

“There are myriads of issues when it comes to infertility, from a halachic point of view. Issues relating to IVF can range from oversight at fertility clinics to ensuring the entire process is done within the framework of Halachah and Judaic sensitivities.

“There are various labs around the world where they allow a rabbi in to oversee the storage of these embryos and have them placed in a secured area. This ensures there is strict assurance that no mishaps can occur both in storage and in handling something this sensitive,” Rabbi Gansburg said.

Peter, a father of three, including one set of IVF twins, explained how instrumental an infertility consultant was to his family.

“After a couple years of wasted effort trying to navigate this whole world of infertility on our own, Rhonda became something of a guardian angel. She was not influenced one way or the other by certain clinics. She did her research, and then provided us our best options.”

Levy said research is crucial. “As a patient in this world of IVF, you need to become very discerning in your choices. My goal is to help avoid unnecessary pain, heartache and financial strain.”

Empowered IVF assists clients with IVF, male factor infertility, egg donation, gestational carriers (surrogacy), gay surrogacy, reciprocal IVF for lesbian couples, pre-implantation genetic screening, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, egg freezing (elective and medical) and embryo donation.

People get confused about the possibilities and how to make choices that are best for them. Hannah, 37, turned to Levy after being told by two different fertility clinics that she had a 30 per cent and a three per cent chance of success with IVF.

“I needed someone like Rhonda on my side. I didn’t know what questions to ask to know what the real chances are – not just of getting pregnant, but of taking home a baby,” Hannah said. “Having statistics and information matter. Knowing what questions to ask to make the best decision possible matter.”

 “Helping others overcome challenges as they are trying to build a family – what can be more important that?” Levy said with pride.

Visit www.empoweredivf.com.