Featured in the AllPaths Magazine, 2025 Volume 1
For Annie and Gene Carelli, two pharmacists living in Philadelphia, the path to parenthood was not a straight line. After tying the knot, they decided to wait a couple of years before starting a family. Like many, they assumed that conceiving would be a natural and straightforward process. However, after almost a year of trying, they realized they needed to consult a specialist.
The couple underwent testing and were diagnosed with idiopathic infertility—another term for the frustratingly common ‘unexplained infertility.’ With no apparent causes or issues identified, they were advised to try fertility treatment, starting with intrauterine insemination (IUI).
Annie and Gene went through nine arduous rounds of IUI, which, while less time-intensive individually than IVF, added up to over a year of treatments. When each round of IUI proved unsuccessful, they moved on to in vitro fertilization (IVF).