NEW YORK, NY (Sept. 19, 2005) – Hundreds of families gathered yesterday to celebrate the children they conceived with the help of the Center for Women’s Reproductive Care at Columbia University Medical Center.  A reunion and carnival was held on Columbia University’s Morningside campus to commemorate the fifth year of this successful program to help an extremely diverse patient population achieve parenthood using advanced fertility techniques.

Former patients and their children mingled with the physicians and staff for a wonderful afternoon of live entertainment, games, face-painting, and children’s crafts.  For many, it was the first opportunity to reconnect with the center since delivering their babies.  

Columbia University established the first in vitro fertilization program in New York City more than twenty years ago.  Today, the Center is performing more than 1,000 In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) cycles per year and, despite specializing in difficult cases, its success rates meet, and often exceed, national outcomes averages.

“This celebration was a proud day for me, and every doctor, nurse, embryologist and staff member of the center,” said Mark V. Sauer, M.D., director of the Center and professor and vice chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  “My colleagues and I decided to hold this reunion to honor our patients’ fortitude, courage, discipline and passion to pursue a common dream: a child.”

About the Patients
The wide diversity of former patients who gathered at the reunion represent the mission of the center – to help as many patients as possible find ways to achieve pregnancy.  Patients include men and women from varying socioeconomic levels, races and ages.  Many are survivors of cancer or are living with serious infectious such as HIV or hepatitis.  Nearly one out of five families were told by other physicians that they would never conceive and some have tried to have a family for years without success.

Erin and Jeff Cooper’s quest to begin their family began nearly six years ago.  After several unsuccessful Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and IVF treatments at another treatment center, the couple from Marlboro, New Jersey sought treatment at the Center for Women’s Reproductive Care in 2002.  After another failed IVF, the couple decided to freeze their two remaining embryos and instead adopted their older daughter, Hailey Brooke.  Shortly after Hailey’s arrival two years ago, they decided to implant the two embryos in hopes of having a second child.  In December 2004, their daughter Madyson Rose was born.  

“After trying to have children for so many years, the gift of having Hailey and Maddie has changed our lives,” said Erin Cooper.  “Dr. Sauer helped us understand that we had many options available to us if we were not able to conceive, and the staff shared our joy in the adoption of Hailey just as they did the birth of Maddie.  We are forever grateful to the great care they gave us – always taking time to sit and talk about concerns despite the busy practice and truly getting to know us. They gave us our family.”

Part an academic center, physicians at the center are salaried, full-time faculty members of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.  The center is unique in its affiliation with an academic medical center and because it accepts most insurance.  The Columbia University Center for Women’s Reproductive Care accepts the following insurances upon verification: Cigna, HealthNet, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Oxford, Aetna/US Healthcare, Pompco, GHI and United HealthCare. It is located in midtown Manhattan at 1790 Broadway, near Columbus Circle.

The center offers IUI, IVF and other advanced fertility treatments, including: blastocyst embryo transfer, embryo cryopreservation, oocyte cryopreservation, frozen embryo transfer and ovulation induction.  It also has one of the largest and most successful egg donation programs in the country.  In addition, the center offers care for male infertility, reproductive surgery, micromanipulation techniques and extensive patient support services.

To learn more about the center, its faculty, staff and services, visit http://www.columbiafertility.org


Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, medical education, and health care. The medical center trains future leaders in health care and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, nurses, dentists, and public health professionals at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the School of Dental & Oral Surgery, the School of Nursing, the Mailman School of Public Health, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions.  With a strong history of discovery in health care, Columbia University Medical Center researchers are leading the development of novel therapies and advances to address a wide range of health conditions. www.cumc.columbia.edu