Fertility Answers

Are you a "fertile Myrtle" or someone who will have trouble getting pregnant?

Unfortunately, this information is not tattooed on your body for you to know off hand. And many women don't think about their fertility until they feel ready to start a family. It's at this time that you may be desperately searching for information about whether you are fertile or not.

But there are physical signs of fertility throughout your cycle that you can look for. In addition, your doctor can conduct medical tests for fertility that look at your hormone levels, ovaries and uterus.

👉 Learn about the important physical signs you can look for throughout the month as well as more sophisticated testing that can be done to assess your fertility at this link: https://www.fertilityanswers.com/how-do-you-know-if-you-are-fertile/

⭐We're Hiring!⭐

We're looking for a friendly, dependable, and organized individual to join the administrative team in our Baton Rouge office. If you enjoy helping people, thrive in a fast-paced environment, and take pride in creating an exceptional patient experience, we'd love to meet you!

We offer competitive pay, excellent benefits, paid time off, and opportunities for growth in a supportive team environment.

If you have the qualifications to apply, please send your resume to [email protected].

More and more people are using GLP-1 medications to help them lose weight, manage diabetes, or to regulate another chronic illness. With so many possible benefits of this seemingly wonder drug, is there also a relationship between GLP-1 medications and fertility? Learn how GLP-1s can indirectly affect both female and male fertility at our blog link.

GLP-1 Medications and Fertility: What You Need to Know - Fertility Answers Uncover the potential effects of GLP-1 medications on fertility, and learn how weight loss can influence reproductive health.

Happy 🎉 to these Lafayette based Fertility Answers team members! We appreciate all you do to help our patients build their families!!

🧬Happy Embryologist Week!!🔬

New and junior embryologists have a steep learning curve and must complete many, many hours of training and on-the-job tasks before they can even start working with embryos. One of these early, basic tasks is learning how to prepare the culture dishes that eggs and embryos will grow in during their first days. These dishes are prepared in the sterile environment of the IVF lab. Each dish contains a special medium that provides the perfect environment for embryos to grow. Then they must be equilibrated in the incubator and brought to body temperature before they can used for eggs and embryos.

One of our newest junior embryologists is Katerina Geno who graduated from SLU in 2023 with a BS in Integrative Biology with a concentration in Zoology. Before joining Fertility Answers, Katerina worked for the world's largest Bovine IVF project.

Fun Facts about Katerina: She lived in East Africa as a child which led to her career today working in the field of Embryology after she learned about how IVF plays a huge part in the conservation of critically endangered species. Katerina has two rescue animals: a dog named Wrangler and a rabbit named Belle who she spends all her free time with!

🧬Happy Embryologist Week!!🔬

Have we mentioned that embryologists are highly trained scientists? This is definitely number one on the list, but they also need other personal skills to be good at their job. Seven key traits all successful embryology technologists must have:

✔️Empathy
✔️Actively Listening
✔️Communication Skills
✔️Attention to Detail
✔️Patience
✔️Emotional Strength
✔️Flexibility and Adaptability

The best embryologists have the ability to switch between their analytical mind when working in the lab and their emotional heart when dealing with patients. Embryologists are an integral part of the journey a family takes to have a baby when they turn to IVF. This a great career choice for people who enjoy science-based work, but also love to work personally with patients.

Embryologist Mary Straughan is an SLU graduate with a BS in Integrative Biology. Mary joined our Ovation Fertility IVF lab in 2023 as a lab assistant and is now a mid-level embryologist. Since then, she has added many different skills to her skillset, including frozen embryo transfers (FETs). She also loves getting to interact with the patients even for a short portion of the process.

Fun facts about Mary: She participated on a college rodeo team her first two years of undergrad in roping and tying goats. She also grew up on a farm with her own cows and horses. She loves to travel and plans to add new stamps to her passport this upcoming year.

Because we can’t see an embryo with the
naked eye, they can be quite a mystery to patients as
they begin an IVF cycle. Our expert embryologists care
for your eggs and embryos throughout their stay in our
IVF lab, but because the lab is behind the scenes,
we're sure you have lots of questions!

⭐How are embryos created in the IVF lab?
⭐What stages do they go through?
⭐How do our embryologists grade them?
⭐How do they get frozen?
⭐What happens during an embryo biopsy?
⭐What is a mosaic embryo?

👉 Find the answers to these questions and more in
our blog link in bio.

IVF Lab Q&A: All Your Embryo Questions Answered - Fertility Answers Because we normally can't see an embryo they can be quite a mystery to us. Here we try to answer all your embryo questions.

We ❤️ our Embryologists!

Our amazing Fertility Answers/Ovation Fertility embryologists are the backbone of a fertility clinic, caring and nurturing your embryos from fertilization to transfer. They are also pros at embryo biopsies for genetic testing and cryopreservation of those embryos so they can be saved to use later. Without these capable, smart and dedicated lab professionals, Fertility Answers would not have the amazing success we have today.

Today we'd like to recognize Whitney Gaspard, PhD, who works in our Lafayette Ovation Fertility IVF Lab. A native of Arkansas (we won't hold that against her!), Whitney received her BS in Animal, Dairy, and Poultry Sciences from LSU. She fell in love with Louisiana and a Cajun boy and never left! She went on to earn her MS and PhD in Animal and Dairy Sciences with a concentration in Reproductive Physiology and Biotechnology from LSU and moved across the Atchafalaya to be part of our Lafayette-based IVF crew.

Fun facts about Whitney: She has an almost 5-year-old IVF baby herself! She admits that going through IVF as an embryologist was a little surreal, but she loves that she had an insider's view of the entire process. Whitney also has a creative side and in graduate school, she ran a small business designing and creating handmade jewelry.