When Mariela finally got pregnant in August 2017 after trying for three years, she knew exactly what she was going to name her little boy. “Aramis, from ‘The Three Musketeers,’ ” the Long Islander tells The Post. “Because it was going to be just the three of us — me, my husband and him.”
Unfortunately, Mariela (who declined to share her last name for privacy reasons) miscarried. It was a devastating loss after a harrowing journey toward pregnancy, which included diagnoses of endometriosis and hypothyroidism, at least three rounds of in vitro fertilization, two surgeries and two different fertility clinics. In three years, she and her husband spent about $50,000 on fertility treatments.
With the clock ticking, Mariela, 41, is now turning to ovarian rejuvenation — a new medical procedure sought by women making last-ditch attempts to conceive.
Ovarian rejuvenation — an umbrella term for a handful of similar procedures — is an unregulated, experimental fertility treatment to spark the release of eggs. Proponents claim that with these procedures, infertile women — even those who have entered menopause already — may be able to get pregnant.
In two of the more popular methods, the ovaries are either pricked to send blood rushing to the area or injected with platelet-rich plasma made from the patient’s own blood, a process thought to decrease inflammation. Some doctors use both procedures, while others use just one.
Ovarian rejuvenation is an unregulated, experimental fertility treatment to spark the release of eggs.
The theory goes that these treatments will excite the ovarian follicles, in which eggs mature, spurring eggs to be released and, hopefully, fertilized.
“[It] wakes up these dormant eggs with the hope that they grow as follicles and mature and collect in the system and be fertilized,” says Dr. Zaher Merhi, a reproductive endocrinologist who has been performing ovarian rejuvenation for a year at New Hope Fertility Center in Midtown. The center currently charges $1,750 for the one-time procedure, with IVF starting at an additional $7,000 a cycle. He thinks the best candidates for the procedure are women under 40 who are in early menopause, which is about 1 percent of the population. Of the women who Merhi’s treated in that category, he says the procedure has worked about 20 percent of the time.
But many doctors aren’t sure it works, period.
“Until there’s better controlled data and safety data, I have a hard time charging money and potentially putting women at risk for something that does not have much evidence behind it,” says Dr. Eric Forman, medical and lab director at Columbia University Fertility Center in Midtown. “There could be a serious bleeding complication; there’s infection risk; there’s anesthesia.”
Forman would rather see women pursue motherhood in more tried-and-true methods: embryo or egg donation, which he describes as “effective” and “safe”; or adoption.
More often than not, women who try ovarian rejuvenation do not get pregnant. That was the case for Jill, who declined to share her last name for privacy reasons. She knew going in that her chances were slim.
The 29-year-old from the suburbs of Chicago and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for the past decade. For her, taking part in an ovarian rejuvenation clinical trial was a final effort before officially deciding to use a donor egg.
‘I have a hard time charging money and potentially putting women at risk for something that does not have much evidence behind it.’
“It was something different,” she tells The Post. “It was kind of like my husband and I had decided [that ovarian rejuvenation would be the] last hurrah. [After doing it,] we have tried everything that was cutting edge.”
Others are clinging to the small chance of hope that this new treatment gives them. One woman, a 40-year-old patient of Merhi, who wished to remain anonymous, uprooted her entire life from North Carolina to move to New Jersey to be closer to his care. “I’m a poor responder to IVF medications,” she tells The Post, of her excitement to try a new medical opportunity. But it hasn’t been without pain, “I couldn’t walk for three days [after],” she says.
All this trouble will be worth it in the end, she says. “We believe in God more than science,” she says. “I hope that God blesses us with a baby so it’s worth the journey.”
Mariela, the hopeful mom-to-be from Long Island, is now wading into a new and even more experimental form of ovarian rejuvenation. After her physical therapist recommended treating joint issues with stem cell injections, Mariela had an idea: having stem cells injected into her ovaries.
It’s not completely unheard of, Merhi, her doctor, says, because of the regenerative qualities in stem cells. “If you put [stem cells] in the ovary, we’re hoping they become ovarian cells that keep producing [eggs],” he says of the theory.
Mariela connected her physical therapist with Merhi at New Hope. In June, in an experimental process, stem cells were taken from her stomach tissue and then injected into her ovaries, making Mariela one of the first ever stem-cell ovarian rejuvenation patients. She paid the same $1,750 for this type of ovarian rejuvenation. Her hormone levels improved significantly. Merhi then retrieved eggs, which were used to create four embryos, two of which were implanted. Although the unique procedure did not result in a pregnancy, Mariela isn’t giving up yet.
“I did not know I was this strong and I did not know I was this stubbornly positive,” she says. “I feel like I deserve that miracle of having something growing inside of me.”