Jewish Chicago Highlights Path to Parenthood Partnership

News Coverage

Jewish Chicago Highlights Path to Parenthood Partnership

Matthew Rissien and Brittany Silberman, and baby Henry make three.

Jackie Valfer Einbinder, a labor and delivery nurse, couldn't escape a painful irony: She and her husband, Isaac, were having trouble bringing their own baby into the world.

"'What are they doing that I'm not doing?'" Jackie recalled thinking. "'I must be doing something wrong.'"

But the Wheeling couple, who have known each other since third grade Hebrew school, weren't doing anything wrong. After consulting a reproductive endocrinologist, they learned that Jackie had a recurrent ovarian cyst. Their doctor recommended a course of fertility procedures.

The stress brought on by the daunting medical process was compounded by concerns over financing the treatments. "There's just so much you can do with insurance," Jackie said. "I was paying out-of-pocket. We had just bought a house. It was hard to navigate."

Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks with fertility expert Dr. Eve Feinberg about a controversial ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos are now considered children.

Alabama’s Supreme Court has ruled that embryos are children and anyone discarding frozen embryos could face wrongful death charges. So where does this leave fertility doctors and their patients in the state? And could this ruling have national implications? For this special episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta turns to IVF expert, Dr. Eve Feinberg from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She explains how embryos are handled during the IVF process and why the ruling is contentious for fertility care providers. Also, CNN Correspondent Isabel Rosales shares how some families and fertility clinics in Alabama have responded.

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