Fairfax EggBank, the premier frozen donor egg bank, announced today that Shady Grove Fertility (SGF) has expanded its patients’ donor egg options to include Fairfax EggBank frozen donor eggs.
SGF, home to one of the largest egg donor programs in the country, is proud to welcome the new partnership with Fairfax EggBank to provide their patients with a multitude of choices for building their families including fresh and frozen donor egg offerings.
SGF intended parents may now choose donors from the Fairfax EggBank Egg Donor Database. Frozen donor eggs provide flexibility and peace of mind to intended parents.
SGF intended parents can rely on Fairfax EggBank for:
“We are thrilled to welcome Shady Grove Fertility patients to the Fairfax EggBank family,” said Emily Dodson, President of Fairfax EggBank. “Our best-in-class customer service and seamless collaboration with clinic partners ensure all Fairfax EggBank intended parents are supported in their donor egg journey.”
“It’s our continued mission to make parenthood a reality for as many people as possible,” said Michele Purcell, MHA, RN, Director, Specialty Programs at SGF. “As home to one of the largest egg donor programs in the country, our partnership with Fairfax EggBank further expands options for intended parents, so that they can build the family of their dreams.
Fairfax EggBank (FEB) is the industry leader in frozen donor eggs. Our unmatched donor portfolio and service excellence make us the trusted choice for clinics and patients around the world. Partnering with 450+ clinics in the United States and internationally, we offer the world’s largest distribution network for frozen donor eggs. The FEB commitment to quality leads to exceptional success rates. Every FEB donor is recruited and screened by experienced FEB staff. Our scientific team implements the most stringent quality control standards in the industry so that patients can trust that their FEB eggs will yield the best outcomes.
We take pride in providing intended parents with compassionate care and options to help build their families. FEB is a proud supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community. Visit fairfaxeggbank.com or call 888.352.5577 to learn more about building your family with Fairfax EggBank.
SGF is a leading fertility and IVF center of excellence with more than 100,000 babies born from 30+ years of continuous innovation and patient-centered fertility care. With 48 locations, including new locations in Texas, as well as throughout CO, FL, GA, MD, NY, PA, TX, VA, DC, and Santiago, Chile, SGF offers patients in-person and virtual physician consults, delivers individualized care, accepts most insurance plans, and makes treatment affordable through innovative financial options, including 100% refund guarantees. SGF is among the founding partner practices of US Fertility, the largest physician-owned and physician-led partnership of top-tier fertility practices in the U.S. Call 1-888-761-1967 to schedule a new patient appointment or visit ShadyGroveFertility.com for more information.
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Debbie Villafaña, Egg Donor Program Director, Fairfax EggBank, will join a panel of experts on donor egg IVF at Men Having Babies 2022 West Coast Surrogacy Conference & Gay Parenting Expo on May 14th. The panel will discuss “Considerations for Egg Donation: Understanding the process and impacts of locating and selecting an egg donor.”
“Fairfax EggBank is a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, and we are enthusiastic sponsors of the West Coast Men Having Babies conference,” said Villafaña. “Navigating the options available to build a family for gay and trans individuals or couples can be overwhelming. It’s important to choose a supportive team that will work with you through each step of the process and take your family planning goals into consideration. I am looking forward to discussing donor egg IVF during our panel discussion and being on hand throughout the conference to answer any questions attendees may have.”
Trends in Frozen Donor Egg IVF
“In the last few years, frozen donor egg use has grown substantially,” continued Villafaña. “Frozen donor eggs from an egg bank can minimize many of the stressors of the donor egg IVF process, with the primary benefit of being able to plan your family on your timeline. We take a lot of the work and expense out of planning around a fresh donor. The medications and donor travel have already been handled, so the costs are more affordable, as well.”
January 5, 2022- (Fairfax, VA) Fairfax EggBank announced that it is expanding its Scientific Team to support the company’s overall growth and development. Under the newly appointed leadership of Wes Edmonds, Ph.D. HCLD as Scientific Director, two additional positions have been added to provide more support to our IVF clinic partners and their embryology labs.
Olga Pilshchikova, MS, TS (ABB) joins the team in the newly created role of Embryology Relations Director. In this role, Pilshchikova will be the primary contact for Fairfax EggBank IVF distribution clinic partners. She will provide guidance for labs using Fairfax EggBank donor eggs and will be a valuable resource to consult on the proprietary state-of-the-art freezing and warming protocols required by each receiving clinic. Pilshchikova will play an important role in ensuring Fairfax EggBank quality assurance policies and procedures are rigorously enforced.
Pilshchikova holds a bachelor’s degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in chemistry, and a Masters in Reproductive Clinical Services from Eastern Virginia Medical School. She has nearly a decade of experience in clinical embryology and more than 5 years of experience in commercial donor oocyte banking.
“Olga joins our team with a wealth of experience,” said Edmonds. “She has strong relationships with clinics across the country and a keen understanding of advanced techniques in egg freezing. Her deep institutional knowledge is a valuable addition that will allow us to deepen our existing relationships while creating new opportunities for growth.”
Fairfax EggBank is actively recruiting skilled embryologists to join the growing Scientific Team that includes leaders with extensive clinical, laboratory, and academic experience.
“Fairfax EggBank embryologists will help facilitate all scientific areas of our business,” said Edmonds. “This includes embryology, oocyte vitrification, oocyte warming, regulatory affairs, specimen handling during the shipping process, and ensuring the quality of our product. They will have the opportunity to travel in their role to train the lab staff at partner clinics in the Fairfax EggBank proprietary procedures for warming oocytes, and as a resource for troubleshooting.”
To apply, visit our careers page here. Resumes can be sent to the email address indicated on the careers page.
Fairfax EggBank is the premier frozen donor egg bank in the United States with clinics across the country and around the world.
By Michael Neibauer – Managing Editor, Washington Business Journal Jun 15, 2020, 5:00am EDT
Emily Dodson is executive director of Fairfax EggBank, a national provider of frozen donor eggs destined for IVF treatments.
How has the coronavirus affected how Fairfax EggBank does business? All of our teams at Fairfax EggBank quickly adapted. We are a close group, and we were able to get our business operations up and running from home by mid-March to ensure everyone’s safety. We monitored what was happening globally and prepared in advance of the stay-at-home requirements. Those who can work from home have been extremely productive.
Fairfax EggBank is considered an essential business. With minimal disruption, our clinical operations have been updated with new procedures and protocols for the safety of our staff and our donors. Reducing the number of people in the building allowed us to safely continue with clinical operations. Our lab is already a sterile environment, and we took steps to ensure we were doing more. We alternated days for our lab staff to ensure safe distancing protocols were observed. All of our employees were able to get tested for Covid-19 through the company. We did not furlough our employees, and we have remained fully staffed throughout. New donors were posted to the website to keep up with demand, and our donor portfolio was the highest it has ever been in our history.
May was on target for our expectations for recipients purchasing donors, and June is showing great promise in just the first week. As soon as clinics began accepting appointments for donor egg IVF patients, Fairfax EggBank recipients continued building their families, and they were excited to reserve cohorts. Our dedicated teams were available to help these individuals who have struggled with starting a family.
Can eggs be safely frozen indefinitely, if clients put parenthood on hold? As a donor egg bank, all of our donor eggs are frozen and can remain in storage until they are ready to be used. This is one of the benefits of choosing a frozen donor egg over a fresh donor: intended parents can plan according to their schedule without having to coordinate with a donor’s cycle. Given our current situation in this pandemic, choosing frozen donor eggs has an added benefit: Minimizing the number of people in a clinic improves the safety of a patient and the number of people that need to be on hand for the procedure, which limits exposure to the staff. Clinics have shown increased interest in using frozen donor eggs, recommending them to their patients
More generally, when the economy is down, do you see a decline in potential donor recipients? Despite everyone’s attention on buying sanitizing wipes and toilet paper through the first month and a half of this pandemic, we still had strong interest from recipients in securing their cohorts. The recipients could reserve a cohort and keep it in storage while they were waiting for their clinics to reopen. And we have seen them follow-through. As soon as we saw clinics making plans to re-open, we also saw a surge in additional recipients, and an increase in recipients who want to purchase multiple cohorts.
How did you find your way to this business? I had “life bootcamp” in the professional world within the fashion industry. It was so competitive and cutthroat, it was every man for himself. You had to roll up your sleeves and develop a strong work ethic, for which I am grateful. In that world, you gain a perspective when you see so many brands, and you see how they develop over time, those that succeed, those that don’t and understanding what worked. I was able to use that experience on the brand side and expand it on the marketing side. I was ready to change industries.
Healthcare was important to me, and so much of healthcare needs to be explained to the consumer in a way that’s easy to understand. I found a leadership position with a minimally invasive women’s surgical practice in Maryland that was poised to expand nationally and internationally. Marketing leads when business development is dependent on consumer knowledge. I brought that growth to this industry by using my hard-earned experience in New York. Women’s health and advancements in reproductive medicine are important to me. As a mom, I want other parents to know that there is hope in growing a family they so desperately want. I saw the relationship between helping women overcome severe gynecological disease to finally becoming parents. Choosing this industry was a natural step for me.
What is an “FDA-compliant donor? According to the Food and Drug Administration, an FDA-compliant donor is a donor who has been screened and tested for risk factors, and clinical evidence of relevant communicable disease agents or diseases. The donors are deemed FDA eligible during screening, and each retrieval is deemed FDA eligible separately. In addition, we have our own criteria that must be met. At Fairfax EggBank, all of our donors are reviewed by our team of experts before they are approved and included in the program and throughout their participation.
How many eggs does the EggBank currently have in storage? Typically, we have between 200 and 250 donors available. Each donor active on the website will have a minimum of 1 cohort, but for many of our donors there are multiple cohorts available. Each cohort has a minimum of 6 eggs. We ship out cohorts every week, so our inventory is constantly changing.
What was your first job? I worked for the fashion director at a Hearst publication, who is now the fashion director for Amazon. I requested samples from major designers and helped develop fashion features.
Fairfax EggBank Offers Extended Storage for Donor Cohorts to Assist Through The COVID-19 Pandemic
Fairfax, VA (April 15, 2020) – To alleviate the strain of the delays in IVF treatments for donor egg parents due to COVID-19, frozen donor eggs will allow clinics to resume business immediately when they reopen. The flexibility of frozen donor eggs allows recipients to begin treatments on their schedule.
“Recipients can reserve their cohorts now, with extended storage options available so that they can prepare now for becoming parents when the time is right for them and their clinic,” said Rita Fields, Scientific Director Fairfax EggBank. “Dealing with infertility is challenging in the best of circumstances. Having peace of mind in a stressful and evolving situation like this virus can help hopeful parents cope with an uncontrollable situation.”
As the reproductive industry tries to balance protecting the health of their patients and continuing to help them fulfill their plans to become parents, pauses in IVF treatments, including those using donor eggs, have caused delays that are compounding a time-sensitive process.
Once IVF clinics reopen for business, additional time will be needed to coordinate cycles between egg donors and recipients. Donor egg patients who choose fresh donor eggs must coordinate cycling with a donor and aligning their cycle or that of their gestational carrier, which will continue delays.
Fairfax EggBank frozen donor eggs will allow intended parents and clinics to begin coordinating transfers immediately.
“We are a resource to reignite the industry immediately after the quarantine is lifted,” said Emily Dodson, Executive Director, Fairfax EggBank. “We have worked out accommodations to allow hopeful parents to reserve a cohort from a donor and keep it in storage for up to six months for free. Our operations have adapted to the quarantines in all of the states where we have partner clinics and continue to assist recipients of donor eggs and their clinics through their changes in their daily operations.”
Fairfax EggBank, the trusted choice for frozen donor eggs, provides a diverse selection of pre-screened, FDA-compliant donors to help recipients build their families. Our Fairfax EggBank Donor Database showcases one of the largest repositories for frozen donor eggs in the United States.
Fairfax EggBank works closely with all of our donor egg recipients through each stage of the process and is a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. Our commitment to donor quality and service excellence makes us a premier, yet cost effective, solution for donor egg recipients. Fairfax EggBank benefits from our in-house experts with over 30 years of experience in safe and successful reproductive tissue banking. www.fairfaxeggbank.com
Phone: 888.352.5577
Direct: 703.280.1636
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