It’s that time of year again, and we’d like to give thanks for what we’re grateful for here at New Hope Fertility Center.

First and foremost, we’d like to thank our patients — both past and present. It is your patience, resilience, and ongoing journey to become parents that makes our job so worthwhile.

Secondly, we’d like to thank RESOLVE, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies — without your guidance and influence, the fertility community could not move forward in making IVF safer and more accessible to those in need.

Thirdly, thank you to our online community — your willingness to share personal infertility stories and firsthand advice and experience allow others battling infertility realize they’re not alone in their struggle.  You prove that strength truly does come in numbers.

And last but not least, thanks to our expert staff at New Hope Fertility Center!  Without you we wouldn’t be able to share in our patients’ triumphs over infertility and help our friends in the fertility community when in need.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

We hope our friends, family, and patients traveling to see us in New York are safe and regaining some normalcy following Hurricane Sandy.

As many of you are aware, the East Coast is predicted to experience more harsh weather with an approaching nor’easter causing rain, heavy winds, and dropping temperatures. While Mayor Bloomberg has closed parks, playgrounds and beaches and some evacuations ordered, we want to assure those of you who have appointments that they will still be honored.

New Hope Fertility Center is open 7 days a week, 365 days a year — and this includes staying open during inclement weather.

If you have any questions regrading your appointment or about your travel to our center in Columbus Circle, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 212-517-7676 for more information.

Stay warm and stay safe!

There is nothing like a storm of a century to bring a city together. While we know that there are still many without power or heat (and in some cases without homes) and that the effects of Hurricane Sandy are still being felt in a variety of ways throughout the northeast, we are happy to see the gradual recovery as it happens across many realms. We are also always happy to hear news of people and places that have found ways to weather the storm, and in many instances, to weather it together.

Some of you may have seen this recent article in the Huffington Post about safe embryos, and frozen eggs and sperm from the NYU Fertility Center, who was able to do 11 egg retrievals already in our Columbus Circle facilities. We feel incredibly lucky to have been so unaffected by the storm and that we were able to keep our Columbus Circle doors open not just to our patients, but for other clinics and their patients.

We hope for a speedy recovery for the rest of the city — perhaps we can all soon be back to operating “business as usual”.

We recently came across some interesting videos about in vitro maturation (IVM) and its existence as a “new technology” in the field of assisted reproduction.  We were surprised, however, to discover some experts in the fertility field claiming the IVM treatment as new, considering the father of IVF, Robert Edwards, first used this treatment in 1965.

IVM is the process by which eggs retrieved during fertility treatment are matured outside the woman’s body (in vitro) and implanted in an effort to help her conceive.  One of two arguments among fertility experts when it comes to choosing IVM over IVF is to avoid ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), which is associated with the fertility medication used during conventional in vitro fertilization treatment.  The second is reduced cost compared to IVF, since the patient does not use or pay for large amounts of fertility medication since the egg is matured in vitro.

New Hope Fertility Center has been offering minimally invasive and cost effective IVF techniques for ten years, which not only compares to IVM in preventing OHSS and reducing cost, but offer the woman a treatment that is closer to mother nature.  When we retrieve the few eggs produced during our Natural Cycle (one egg) and Mini-IVF™ (2-3 eggs) treatment, we transfer the subsequent embryos (suggesting single embryo transfers to all of our patients) and let nature do the rest.  Those who argue IVM to be the more favorable option versus Natural and Mini-IVF™ treatments are not considering that the best environment in which an egg or embryo to mature is where it would mature in nature — the woman’s uterus.

For more information on our Natural and Mini-IVF™ treatments, which eliminate the risk of hyperstimulation associated with hormone injections, visit us on the web.

Whether you’re experiencing trouble conceiving or are currently pregnant, there is no argument against the benefits of maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle.  Diet and exercise are not only linked to a stronger brain and more sound mind, but also contribute to keeping hormonal balances and sperm and egg production at optimal levels (source: HuffPost).

Below find New Hope’s top health & exercise tips of the week.  Hopefully you will find them helpful and manageable, even with a hectic schedule!

1. Can’t make it to the gym for 20-30 minutes during your day?  Try sneaking in just 5-10 minutes of movement into your schedule throughout the day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.  Take a walk around the block with your friend or significant other before bedtime.  Do 10 minutes of stretching while you watch the morning news.

2. Choose whole foods over processed foods.  A general rule of thumb when it comes to purchasing highly beneficial foods is the less ingredients the better.  Simply put, if you don’t know what an ingredient is on the nutrition label, don’t buy it.  Processed foods contain toxic chemicals that aren’t healthy for you or your future child!

3. Be sure to give at least 10 minutes of quiet time to yourself by the end of the day.  Have a loved one or relative take the kids for a walk to allow you to catch up with yourself.  Take a bath before bed, or read a chapter in your new book.  Reducing stress hormones reduces infertility-related stress and can help women who are currently pregnant produce a calm environment for their baby.
4. Stay positive.  With the amount of media channels available today, we can become overwhelmed by the facts, myths, and fibs concerning what’s best for you and your current or future child.  Crowding out the critics who say “you waited too long” or “you need to stop stressing” with positive daily affirmations, you can help yourself curb infertility-related negativity.
5. Last but not least, stay hopeful.  We wouldn’t be called New Hope Fertility if we didn’t add in that one!