Fertility Health in Kansas City

The female reproductive organs make a beautifully complex system. Unfortunately, it doesn't always function smoothly. Even aging alone significantly impacts fertility, especially after 35. Our experts dedicate themselves to treating multiple causes of fertility challenges in women.

Ovulation Dysfunction

To become pregnant, a woman needs her ovary to release a viable egg during ovulation. When this doesn't happen, we can attribute female infertility to ovulation dysfunction. If an egg is released only sporadically or not at all, as is the case with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), the ability to get pregnant is greatly impacted.

Uterine Conditions

Several uterine conditions can create barriers to pregnancy, including endometriosis, fibroids, pelvic adhesions and cysts.

Tubal Conditions

Fallopian tubes that are blocked, damaged or inflamed can prevent sperm from reaching the egg or a fertilized egg from entering the uterus.

Other Causes of Female Infertility

We also treat women suffering from recurrent miscarriage, secondary infertility (the inability to conceive and deliver a child following the birth of one or more biological children) and unexplained infertility.

Our skilled surgeons and reproductive endocrinologists can correct these issues with in vitro fertilization (IVF), intrauterine insemination (IUI) or minimally invasive fertility surgeries.

If you've tried to get pregnant on your own with no success, it may be time to evaluate your fertility and seek treatment options that can help female infertility.

Approximately 40% of infertility cases stem from male factor infertility. We see couples facing infertility and offer treatment options for both partners.

Often, male infertility has no symptoms. To make an accurate diagnosis, we look for infertility risk factors, including congenital defects, impotence, erectile dysfunction, varicoceles or past cancer treatments. We also perform blood work and a semen analysis to check for sperm abnormalities like low motility or reduced sperm counts.

In most cases, we can overcome male factor infertility with treatments like intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilization (IVF) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). We can also perform treatments using donor sperm.

We also provide guidance and options for male patients looking for fertility preservation before cancer treatment.

1 in 8 couples experience infertility, and working with a fertility specialist often provides them the best chances for conception. In many cases, in vitro fertilization (IVF) can restore their hope for pregnancy.

We try to utilize the simplest, most cost-effective infertility solutions available. If options like inducing ovulation or intrauterine insemination (IUI) fail, we may recommend IVF as your next step. Our compassionate staff will guide you through the entire process, from stimulation and egg retrieval through embryo transfer and, hopefully, to a positive pregnancy test.

Egg freezing has multiple benefits. Women not yet ready to start their families can freeze their eggs to use later. Women with infertility can use frozen donor eggs to become pregnant. Hopeful parents can use frozen donor eggs with a gestational carrier. And people who are facing a health crisis can freeze eggs before any treatments that may affect future fertility or the quality of their eggs.

We never know what the future holds — but egg freezing gives you a chance to preserve a moment in time when your ovaries are producing healthy eggs.

Advances in cryobiology have increased the odds of successful pregnancies with frozen eggs. We have high success rates with frozen eggs, embryos and sperm.

The Process

First, our fertility experts will thoroughly assess whether the procedure is right for you. We’ll ask about your medical history and reproductive health, order blood tests, perform a physical exam, and assess your likelihood of success.

After testing for any infectious diseases that would prevent the use of the cryopreservation storage facility, you will begin a 10- to 14-day series of medications or injections to help your body increase its egg production — similar to what IVF patients undergo. We’ll monitor you closely to ensure your body responds to the treatment.

When your body is ready for the egg collection stage, you’ll come to our fertility clinic for a minor procedure that takes about an hour, followed by time to recover from the mild sedative. Our experienced fertility specialist will remove approximately eight to 12 eggs, and together with our skilled embryologist, will assess which eggs are mature and best for cryopreservation.

We then utilize a state-of-the-art vitrification process to preserve your eggs. An improvement over the slow-freeze method, the vitrification technique reduces the water in your eggs before freezing, preventing damage from expanding ice crystals. We place the eggs in a solution that functions as “antifreeze” for your eggs. Vitrified eggs thaw better and experience higher success with fertilization.

The vitrification process is also highly effective with embryos and sperm. When an egg is fertilized, the resulting blastocyst (embryo) is flash frozen until needed. It can remain viable for as long as ten years. Sperm can be saved using a similar method.

Your eggs will be safe and secure for almost a decade. They’re kept in high-quality storage containers with fail-safe liquid nitrogen refrigeration and backup power supplies.

It’s important to consider what you wish to do with your eggs if you do not need or want them in the future.

When you determine that the time is right for you to become a parent, we will retrieve your eggs and begin IVF for you or your gestational carrier, introducing sperm into the thawed egg and preparing the embryo for implantation.

Our goal is to use surgical techniques to achieve the best possible success rate for natural cycle conception or subsequent fertility treatments like ovulation induction, IUI and IVF.

Fertility surgery is a proven choice for addressing problems that interfere with embryo implantation, ruin the endometrial lining or block the fallopian tubes. Female infertility surgery also provides access to the fallopian tubes or uterus to correct anatomical barriers to pregnancy.

Abdominal Laparoscopy

With laparoscopic fertility surgery, two to three tiny keyhole incisions in the abdomen and pelvic area allow us to diagnose and treat causes of female infertility, such as endometriosis, blocked fallopian tubes and fibroids.

Approximately 42% of women who have fibroid surgery get pregnant without additional fertility treatment.

Intrauterine Hysteroscopy

Hysteroscopy doesn’t require incisions. Our expert specialists will dilate the cervix and use a telescopic tool to view the uterine cavity.

Hysteroscopy is used to diagnose and treat uterine septums and polyps, test the fallopian tubes’ patency (openness) and remove small fibroids inside the uterine cavity.

Some situations require more access and view of the pelvic cavity. Open surgery, called abdominal laparotomy, is sometimes necessary to remove large fibroids or pelvic masses that can’t be removed with a laparoscopic procedure.

Your diagnosis will determine the course of action, but we may recommend fertility surgery to diagnose and repair these causes of female infertility:

• Blocked fallopian tubes
• Ovarian cysts or endometriomas
• Endometriosis
• Fibroids
• Hydrosalpinges (damaged fallopian tubes)
• Pelvic adhesions
• Uterine polyps
• Septums and scarring of the uterine cavity

We offer advanced fertility treatments and donor services that help hopeful parents benefit from donated sperm or oocytes (eggs) to achieve pregnancy.

We usually recommend donor reproduction when fertility testing reveals insurmountable problems with egg quality (usually due to maternal age or premature menopause), or sperm volume, motility or other causes of male factor infertility.

Our in-house, physician-run donor program prioritizes your privacy and safety and adheres to the strictest state and federal standards. Our in-house donor selection process involves meticulous screening, safeguards and checkpoints.

Without donor oocytes and sperm, many women would never experience their goal of carrying a pregnancy, and men would sacrifice their dreams of having a biological baby.