In this episode we welcome Carrie Van Steen, a parent through IVF and professional in the fertility field. Carrie details her personal family building journey, which began more than two decades ago and was not the straightforward path she had always envisioned. After initial testing failed to find issues, Carrie’s gut instinct prompted her to push for more comprehensive testing, revealing that she and her husband had a less than 5% chance of achieving pregnancy even with IUI, meaning IVF was their only option. Following an unsuccessful first IVF cycle which depleted their savings, she experienced a devastating chemical pregnancy that triggered anxiety and depression. Success finally came with her last two embryos, only after a polypectomy and D&C treated polyps that had previously gone undetected. Carrie notes that she did not truly exhale and release the worry and stress until her daughters were actually in her arms.
Carrie’s own fertility journey started about a year after she entered the industry, initially working as an executive assistant for the president of a fertility company. Her professional role gave her close insight into the field, leading her to quickly advocate for more testing when her early attempts to conceive were unsuccessful. Driven by a desire to pay it forward every single day, Carrie found herself embedded in the fertility world even after her own family was complete, watching the industry “explode” in the early 2000s.
Carrie now works daily to pay it forward as the Manager of Patient Experience & Clinic Success of BUNDL Fertility, a multi-cycle IVF refund guarantee program that she helped launch. The program allows patients who qualify to purchase a money-back guarantee, returning 100% of their money if they are not successful. Carrie stresses that this option provides patients with financial control in a journey where they often feel they have none over their bodies or outcomes. She offers critical advice to listeners: advocate for yourself, understand that no two IVF cycles are alike, and be kind to yourself regardless of your emotional state during treatment, offering her own story as an example of the importance of community, communication, and self-advocacy in family-building journeys.
Carrie Van Steen is the co-creator and manager of Patient Experience & Clinic Success for BUNDL. With 23 years of professional experience in this field, 3 of those were spent as patient. Carrie lacked insurance coverage for her IVF cycle, and she needed 3 transfers to ultimately find her way to a successful outcome. She has paid it forward ever since and uses her own experience to not only connect with the patients she counsels, but also the staff at the clinics to help them understand the patients journey from a different perspective.
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