Acupuncture at PFC provides on-site Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) services, making your experience at PFC as complete and stress-free as possible. In addition to Acupuncture, we also offer cupping and abdominal massage, as well as lifestyle and nutritional counseling from a TCM perspective.

After 10 years of publishing newsletters, many with personal stories from our own employees, we have decided that it is time to do personal stories on our own physicians. So this is the first of our five physicians’ own stories we will be sharing with our readers over the next several issues. We hope you enjoy these stories and get to know our PFC doctors a little better.

I was born in Wahiawa, Hawaii in 1957, two years before Hawaii became a state. My mother was a Nisei Japanese woman, born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, where I hope, if I live long enough, to retire someday. My father was a Texan, raised on a dry land cotton farm in the Panhandle of Texas. He was adopted so I don’t know his genetic and ethnic background, but we suspect perhaps Welsh-Scottish. My parents met in Hawaii during WWII. I grew up the youngest of four children. I have two older sisters, with whom I am very close, and I had an older brother I loved very much but lost to kidney cancer two years ago. My mother never got to graduate from high school as she had to help her father in his general store, but she was a remarkably intelligent woman with a life-long thirst for knowledge. She received her G.E.D. at age 42; in another time, she could have been a very accomplished career woman. I was very lucky to have her for a stay-at-home mom. My father finished high school and joined the Navy just before WWII. He never went to college, but worked for the US government all his life in civil service for the Army. He rose to quite a high rank by the time he retired, due to his diligence and competence. We lived in Hawaii until I was 8 years old, then we lived in Okinawa, Japan during the Vietnam War (1965-1973). After that, my father was stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. It was good for him to return to his home state after 35 years on islands, but hard on my mother and me, who had always lived on tropical islands with Asian culture. I graduated from high school in Central Texas and, not knowing what I wanted to do, enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, because it was inexpensive and close to home. This was a stroke of luck because I received a wonderful education there for very little money, and it paved the way to medical school. I worked all kinds of low paying jobs to help pay my way through college, as my parents didn’t really have much money. I entered the university as an English major, as I loved literature, but quickly realized there would be no work in that field. I took a biology course my freshman year and absolutely fell in love with it. I considered being a biologist, a veterinarian (I love animals!) and eventually realized I wanted to work with people, not animals and not at a research bench. I went to medical school in Dallas, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. This school has an incredible reputation for excellent research (they are always in the top 2-3 medical schools in the nation to receive NIH grant money), a well-developed program of philanthropy that supports their mission, and most of all, the best teachers one could have. I feel truly blessed to have been able to attend that wonderful medical school. During medical school, I had a job (always working!) in a research lab that was doing research on how the genes that make FSH work. That experience exposed me to reproductive endocrinology early in my career. I was even able to publish a few papers during medical school. Small stuff, but it felt great at the time.

During medical school, I discovered I liked many different specialties, but really liked caring for women. It was natural for me to go into obstetrics and gynecology. I stayed at Southwestern because their teaching hospital is Parkland Memorial Hospital, an incredible training ground for residents. During my four years there, I delivered thousands of babies, performed or assisted about 600 Cesarean sections and did all kinds of gynecologic surgery. It was very hard work, but gave me a sound foundation and a lot of confidence that I could do most anything. I remained interested in Reproductive Endocrinology, although at the time, in vitro fertilization was just beginning to develop around the country and wasn’t the major emphasis in the field. Back then, the specialty was more about taking care of menopausal women, doing surgery for infertility (especially endometriosis, because at the time, we thought surgery helped fertility for these patients, something we now know isn’t really true) and doing microsurgery to put the tubes back together for women who had previously had their tubes tied and now wanted to be pregnant again (we now treat this with IVF). I decided that rather than going into practice in general ob/gyn, I would continue two more years of training to become a Reproductive Endocrinologist.

After 17 years in Texas and 8 years at Southwestern, I knew I wanted to go somewhere else and gain new experiences and exposure to different teachers. I only applied to a few fellowship programs and was fortunate to be accepted to my first choice: the University of California San Francisco. During my fellowship there, I met and was taught by the best mentor one could have, who is now my close friend and partner, Dr. Eldon Schriock. At the end of my fellowship, I was incredibly fortunate to be recruited by him and the department to stay on as a faculty member. While there, we instituted many new techniques into the infertility program such as ICSI and PGD. We doubled the size of the IVF program. We also taught many of the Reproductive Endocrinologists that now practice in the Bay Area, including our own Dr. Isabelle Ryan. While at UCSF, we almost merged with Drs. Carl Herbert and Philip Chenette, who were in private practice in San Francisco, but due to a variety of reasons, we were unable to realize the merger with them within the UCSF system. We got to know them very well, though, and we knew we could work together.

Dr. Givens was born in Hawaii in 1957, 2 years before Hawaii became a state.

Since I finished my fellowship, I knew I wanted to be part of a world-class fertility center that could provide the best care for our patients. For many reasons, during the late 1990s, this was becoming more difficult to do within the University. In 1999, when the previously existing Pacific Fertility Center came up for sale, Dr. Schriock and I got together with Drs. Herbert and Chenette and took the opportunity to realize our dream. We were able to recruit Dr. Ryan to join us. It has been a challenging but very exciting 10 years at PFC but now we are all able to say that the dream has become a reality. I am getting to do what I love to do every day.

On a personal level, I met my husband Michael when I was at UCSF. We were so sure about each other that we married 7 months after we met! I was a little older by then and at first we struggled with the idea of whether we would try to have a family. Since neither of us had any family living close by and my professional career (as well as his business) was very time consuming, we realized we would be stressed-out parents living the day-care life. We finally decided to live child-free. I only regret not having adult children to be proud of and having grandchildren to spoil. We now live in Marin and our children are our two dogs that I adore and spoil way too much. I love gardening, boating, cooking, reading and travelling. I don’t really have a passion for any particular hobby, just a passion for my work. But someday, as I said, I hope when I retire to return to Hawaii. Even though we left there when I was young, it is a big part of my family’s history and culture. I feel most at home with the aloha I feel when I am there. I would love to volunteer at an animal shelter after retiring. I still sometimes wish I had gone into veterinary medicine, but I think I will enjoy it more as a volunteer and since I have the best job in the world, that will have to wait for another lifetime.

— Carolyn Givens, M.D.

Imagine a website that allows you to search for the very latest information on fertility. Well, it’s here and it’s called fertilitywire.com.

PFC is proud to present fertilitywire.com as a completely unique website that offers real-time and fresh information on fertility and infertility related topics. It’s a resource for people engaged in the process of becoming pregnant through fertility treatments or people studying this field who want to explore it.

And, it’s a unique resource in that it’s powered by a type of search called “browsing or universal search,” which is how we’re able to pull together all of the content for any given search term you see. You are able to see, in one place, the latest fertility related news, blogs, tweets, videos, images, articles and books.

We are excited by the positive feedback we have been receiving about fertilitywire.com. Here is one testimonial that sums up the experience very well:

“This website has a friendly approachable tone. It also covers so much, by the time I was done navigating, fertility issues seemed not intimidating but manageable and that there is a world that one could enter, (your center) and not be a stranger. At the same time, it seems like there is hope; if not here and now–it is being developed right around the corner.”

— Michael Lynn, PFC Patient

Visit fertilitywire.com. We hope you find everything you are searching for!

We are excited to introduce a new website FertilityWire, http://fertilitywire.com.  This site is separate from our current website www.pacificfertilitycenter.com.

FertilityWire will provide access to a wealth of fertility information, news, and social content. Please take a moment to check out this exciting new resource. You can let us know what you think in the comments section.

Enjoy!

-Robb Mayberry, Director of Development

Pacific Fertility Center is pleased to announce the launch of our in-house mind-body medicine program. We are offering on-site acupuncture and mind-body groups to further support your treatment choices.

Over the years, Pacific Fertility Center (PFC) patients have elected to receive acupuncture treatment in combination with IVF and other fertility treatments. These treatments have been provided at outside facilities. We now offer acupuncture on-site, to minimize the stress of visiting numerous providers during your treatment cycle. We recognize that family building choices are diverse and want to support you throughout your important, personal decisions on your journey to parenthood.

This new service offers the expertise of acupuncturists who specialize in reproductive care. Our acupuncture team will work in close communication with the physicians of PFC. The result is a program that supports you with safe and convenient treatment. This exceptional new team is comprised of four licensed acupuncturists (LAc) who hold Masters of Science degrees in Traditional Chinese Medicine from accredited schools in California.

The medical team at Pacific Fertility Center is proud to provide this new service. While current studies do not show improved pregnancy rates with the combination of IVF and acupuncture treatment, we look forward to collaborative research studies to clarify these important questions. Together, we are launching exciting research projects that will investigate the scope and effectiveness of combined acupuncture and assisted reproductive technologies. Fertility Flash will provide readers with more information as the research program develops.

We hope you will enjoy getting to know the acupuncturists and take advantage of these new treatment options.

Pacific Fertility Center continues to offer the Mind/Body@PFC Workshop. At the workshop, our experienced, Alice Domar-taught instructors help patients learn healthy, positive ways to relax and decrease the symptoms of stress during their fertility treatments.

It is our hope that these offered services will provide a more comprehensive approach to your journey through fertility treatment with us at PFC.

Learn more about the acupuncture program at PFC

In late October of this year, our first patient who underwent embryo transfer with embryos created from vitrified and warmed donor oocytes has successfully delivered. The baby was born at term and appears to be perfectly healthy.

Three other pregnancies are ongoing and are expected to deliver in 2008. We congratulate our new parents and the parents-to-be who have participated in this ground breaking program.

PFC has ended enrollment of patients into this program, but expects to continue research efforts with respect to oocyte vitrification.

AFA 2007 Family Building Award to be Presented to Dr. Philip Chenette
Pacific Fertility Center is proud to announce that Dr. Philip E. Chenette will be honored, along with five other physicians, with the Family Building Award at the American Fertility Association’s glamorous Kokopelli Ball in New York City on November 5, 2007. Brenda Strong of the cast of Desperate Housewives will present the award.

Joe Conaghan, PhD, HCLD, Named Chair of the College of Reproductive Biology
Pacific Fertility Center’s Laboratory Director Joe Conaghan, PhD, HCLD, has been elected as the Chair of the College of Reproductive Biology (CRB). CRB is a special interest group within the American Board of Bioanalysts (ABB). In addition to his new responsibilities, Dr. Conaghan remains an active member of the ABB Board of Directors from whom embryologists and andrologists receive their certification and licensure.

All PFC MDs Selected as 2007- 8 Best Doctors*
Left to right: Front Row: Carolyn Givens, MD, Isabelle Ryan, MD Back Row: Philip Chenette, MD, Eldon Schriock, MD, Carl Herbert, MD

We are proud to announce that once again all physicians at Pacific Fertility Center have been singled out by their peers as *Best Doctors (see www.bestdoctors.com) .

Our doctors are internationally recognized specialists in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. They have completed top-level medical education, published groundbreaking professional papers, and held positions on the faculty of leading research universities. They continue to participate in reproductive research. All MDs are Board Certified by ABOG as Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Specialists. Our state-of-the-art laboratory has one of the most highly trained teams in the country.

*Continuous peer-to-peer surveys help bestdoctors.com identify specialists who are considered by fellow physicians to be the most skilled in their fields and most qualified for reviewing and treating complex medical conditions. The polling process is anonymous and confidential, qualitative and quantitative. It provides detailed profiles of each physician, including his or her practice, research programs and diagnostic and treatment procedures. They survey doctors in more than 400 subspecialties of medicine.

Invitation to Tour the New PFC Offices

Changes are happening at Pacific Fertility Center! If you have stopped by our office location at 55 Francisco Street lately, you’ll notice that things may not look quite the same at PFC. We recently went through a major change by relocating our administrative offices and Egg Donor Agency from the third floor to the fifth floor. What does this mean to you? By moving to the fifth floor, we have been able to consolidate all our team and deliver comprehensive services from one floor instead of two floors. The embryologists from the laboratory, the nursing staff, and administrative staff will now be able to communicate in a more timely and efficient manner. In addition, to providing a more comprehensive team approach and improving communication, relocating the organization to one floor has reduced confusion for those visiting the facility. By being on the fifth floor, patients have one site for service and immediate access to care. The move has also helped organize the PFC team for future growth and services. Overall, this move will assist PFC in providing quality patient care. If you are interested in touring our facility, please contact our New Patient Guides to arrange a day and time. You can contact the New Patient Guides by calling 415-834-3095.

In April of this year, Dr. Carolyn Givens attended the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society in Palm Springs, California. This is a meeting attended by approximately 200 infertility specialists, embryologists, nurses and other fertility professionals.

At the meeting, Pacific Fertility Center’s study entitled “Outcomes of Natural Cycles vs. Programmed Cycles for 1390 Frozen Embryo Transfers” was presented by Dr. Givens in an oral presentation in the scientific portion of the meeting program.

Following the presentation, Dr. Givens was awarded the Society’s Practicing Physician Award for the best scientific presentation by a physician in full time private practice. Congratulations to Dr. Givens!

As a patient undergoing fertility treatment, the many months of testing, uncertainty and waiting had begun to take its toll. Dividing my life into two week increments no longer had the same hope and anticipation that defined my first few months of trying to conceive. Seemingly harmless questions from friends and relatives, like “So…any good news to report?” had become annoying questions that received a snappy response.

Attending the Mind/Body workshop was a valuable experience on many levels. We began the day with a tasty breakfast and coffee while we introduced ourselves and spoke briefly about our own experiences trying to conceive. PFC instructors Peggy and Allison presented the research on the stress/infertility connection, and spoke about the isolating nature of infertility. Because the topic of infertility is not openly discussed in social situations, the person or couple going through treatment often lacks social support.

Next, we were introduced to relaxation techniques, which Allison and Peggy call “Minis” because they are short and easy to incorporate into daily life. We lay on yoga mats in a darkened room and slowly counted our breaths, letting go of the tension in our arms and legs. We were led through some basic tai chi moves, and then ended with a guided relaxation that put me immediately to sleep.

After a delicious lunch the discussion moved to the cognitive distortions that frequently emerge during stressful periods and cause people to magnify their problems. Peggy and Allison led us through some cognitive restructuring steps, which can help identify a true thought versus a magnified and distorted fear.

Questioning negative thought patterns is a difficult but extremely helpful way to take some of the blame off of myself and ease the level of stress I was feeling. Hearing that others had the exact same thought patterns as I did was also extremely reassuring and made me feel as though I was not alone in my challenging journey.

The next part of the day was my favorite. We learned a variety of yoga postures that can easily be done in a desk chair or in front of a computer. My co-workers may think I look funny, but I have been contorting myself at my desk ever since, and found that it truly does relieve the physical stress of staring at a computer all day, and provides me with a nice mental break before I start a new task.

After another guided relaxation session, which again left me in a deep sleep, we convened as a group to review the day. Peggy asked us to think about what brings us joy, and how we incorporate those things into our lives. As I looked around the room, most people were smiling as they wrote down the things that bring them joy – everything from pets, partners and family to bubble baths, traveling, and good food.

As we finished the day with questions, answers and good-byes I left feeling refreshed from my mini-naps and excited to have some tangible skills to utilize whenever I find myself too stressed to relax. From our very first discussions over breakfast to our final activity, I felt the isolation of my own stressed out perspective melting away. I’m grateful that I attended the Mind/Body workshop, both for the feeling of community and the concrete relaxation skills I came away with.

The Mind/Body Workshop was an invaluable experience. I came away feeling like I had:

• Gained tangible relaxation and yoga skills that I can use in my daily life.
• Decreased feelings of isolation and anxiety.
• Finished the day feeling calm, centered and ready for my journey to parenthood!

Erika Linden

Infertility can cause extreme feelings of stress and isolation. From diagnosis to treatment, the stress of infertility can affect every area of life including marriage, job, and family relationships. Pacific Fertility Center’s Mind/Body Workshop is designed to address the emotional and physical strain caused by infertility treatment and the far-reaching effects it has on one’s life. These workshops are run by Pacific Fertility Center’s Peggy Orlin, MFT and Allison Chamberlain, RN, who were both trained by Alice Domar, PhD, a Harvard Medical School expert and pioneer in the subject of the mind/body connection to fertility. The next Mind/Body Workshop will be held on September 8th. Please call 888-834-3095 for class information, fees and your registration form. This one-day workshop is a loving and supportive environment in which you can gain self-awareness and practice techniques that will give you strength as you travel on your journey.

- Allison Chamberlaine, Mind/Body Instructor and Clinical Coordinator The workshop provides people with a safe space to learn relaxation techniques and to connect with others that know how difficult the infertility experience can be.

- Peggy Orlin, Mind/Body Instructor and Marriage and Family Therapist