Nashville Patient Delivers Healthy Baby After Genetic Screening
If you ask Emily Beard of Nashville what was the best Christmas present she has ever received, she’ll emphatically tell you it was the December 2015 delivery of a healthy baby boy. After spending the majority of her 30s just trying to sustain a full-term pregnancy – only to have multiple miscarriages – Beard found success with the help of preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) and the Nashville Fertility Center.
“I just needed someone to stand by me, fight along with me and cheer me on,” says Beard, who had been trying to have a baby with her husband, Chuck, for five years. The couple suffered through four miscarriages and an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy but weren’t ready to give up their dream of a family. That “someone” who rescued them was fertility specialist Abby C. Eblen, M.D., and the Nashville Fertility Center staff.
Impact of Miscarriage
“My ob/gyn had tested me for a number of minor things that might have caused me to miscarry, but there were no red flags,” Beard says. In the meantime, she felt devastated and isolated because she did not think people could fully understand what she was experiencing.
“This was so different from other types of losses, after which you can openly mourn, and it’s so much more personal,” she relates. “The instant you find out you’re pregnant, you build hopes and dreams for this child you longed for, only to have it all just vanish.”
Finding the Answer
Beard says she hadn’t really considered going to a fertility center. “We knew that we could get pregnant, and that is what kept us from pursuing fertility treatments or adoption in the first place,” she notes. “I just wanted to know more about why my body was naturally terminating each pregnancy.”
Then she learned about her options at Nashville Fertility Center, which included in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques and having her embryos genetically screened before uterine transfer. The center harvested 18 eggs, which Beard thought was a good number, and fertilized nine.
To her surprise, only one of the resulting embryos was found to be chromosomally normal. But that was the trick – healthy Avett Otis Beard arrived last Dec. 26. “He is beautiful and perfect and the light of my life!” she says.
Caring Physician and Staff
Beard can’t say enough about the care and support of Dr. Eblen and the staff at Nashville Fertility Center. Dr. Eblen even followed up with her after delivery, knowing the couple’s previous struggles and miscarriage history.
Beard says PGT was very much worth the cost. “After everything else we had been through, this journey and the help we received were just what we needed,” she notes. “Paying a little extra for peace of mind was absolutely worth it!”
Find Out More
Visit the Nashville Fertility Center website to learn more about overcoming fertility, pregnancy and miscarriage issues. The fertility center team has been providing advanced reproductive health care to patients in Tennessee and surrounding states since 1991.
