Danielle Wade became well-known on Instagram for her posts about fashion and beauty products, but in the past four years, her feed has evolved after experiencing infertility.

“I found it to be very helpful and very therapeutic, actually, just talking about it because hiding that part of my life and just posting these beautiful photos in beautiful clothes and perfect makeup just didn't seem as genuine when I was struggling going through this process of trying to conceive,” Wade said.

Now, the lifestyle blogger and content creator says she's known as a woman who helps other women thrive during infertility.

“I've learned more people in my personal life have gone through infertility because I started talking about it,” Wade said.

Wade says she quickly realized there weren’t many other women who look like her being open about infertility. She wanted other Black women trying to conceive to know they’re not alone.

“Black women tend to report infertility issues at a higher rate than white women or non-Hispanic women," Wade said. "However, they're also the least likely to be able to access the care and treatment that they require to support and assist them in that process of going from having infertility to actually being able to successfully get pregnant.”

Dr. Yashica Robinson is an OBGYN and the owner of Alabama Women’s Wellness Center. She says there are many reasons disparities exist for Black women facing infertility.

“People of color are experiencing fertility at two-times the rate of their white counterparts,” Dr. Robinson said.

“The environmental stressors we know that plays a significant role in how our bodies function and our ability to carry our pregnancies to term," Dr. Robinson said. "Other contributing factors would be pre-existing medical conditions, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and our ability to access health care and optimize these health conditions prior to pregnancy.”

Infertility treatments are also very expensive, making them difficult to access.

“For those of us who don't have private insurance and we obtain our insurance through the government, then it doesn't cover those treatments at all,” Dr. Robinson said.

Dr. Robinson says physicians won’t even offer treatment as an option if they don’t feel it’s accessible to the patient. She says that assumption is sometimes made just through racial biases.

Lilly Marcelin is the founder and executive director of Resilient Sisterhood Project. It's an education and advocacy nonprofit that aims to empower women of African descent regarding common, but rarely discussed, diseases of the reproductive system that disproportionately affect them.

“So if you go on our website you’ll find a lot of well-researched information about complications with fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, breast cancer, cervical cancer,” Marcelin said.

She says she felt inspired to create the nonprofit after talking with many Black women about their experience with reproductive health issues and attempts to seek care.

“Some of them revealed to me that as soon as they stepped in, just the way that they were received or looked at, they felt that somehow there was an assumption about can they afford to pay,” Marcelin said.

That reason is why Wade searched for a Black physician.

“I actually was specifically trying to find a Black fertility doctor, male or female, just kind of wanted to see if I could get connected with someone who looked like me, maybe better understood my health history and what specific experiences I was having in this process, dealing with health care, dealing with infertility," Wade said. "And I had no luck with that.”

Wade is currently in her first round of in-vitro fertilization. It’s the next step for her after four years of trying other methods. She plans to continue being transparent with her Instagram followers about her exhausting journey of trying to conceive.

“I want to be normal to talk about loss when it comes to infertility and miscarriages and stillbirths," Wade said. "I want it to be normal to talk about all the creative ways you have available to you to have babies. I want it to be normal for all insurances to cover all infertility treatment.”
 

LOS ANGELES —

Two California couples gave birth to each others' babies after a mix-up at a fertility clinic and spent months raising children that weren't theirs before swapping the infants, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles.

Daphna Cardinale said she and her husband, Alexander, had immediate suspicions that the girl she gave birth to in late 2019 wasn't theirs because the child had a darker complexion than they do.

They suppressed their doubts because they fell in love with the baby and trusted the in vitro fertilization process and their doctors, Daphna said. Learning months later that she had been pregnant with another couple's baby, and that another woman had been carrying her child, caused enduring trauma, she said.

"I was overwhelmed by feelings of fear, betrayal, anger and heartbreak," Daphna said during a news conference with her husband announcing the lawsuit. "I was robbed of the ability to carry my own child. I never had the opportunity to grow and bond with her during pregnancy, to feel her kick."

The Cardinales' complaint accuses the Los Angeles-based California Center for Reproductive Health (CCRH) and its owner, Dr. Eliran Mor, of medical malpractice, breach of contract, negligence and fraud. It demands a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages.

Yvonne Telles, the office administrator for the center, declined to comment on Monday. Mor could not be reached for comment.

The two other parents involved in the alleged mix-up wish to remain anonymous and plan a similar lawsuit in the coming days, according to attorney Adam Wolf, who represents all four parents.

The lawsuit claims CCRH mistakenly implanted the other couple's embryo into Daphna and transferred the Cardinales' embryo — made from Daphna's egg and Alexander's sperm — into the other woman.

The babies, both girls, were born a week apart in September 2019. Both couples unwittingly raised the wrong child for nearly three months before DNA tests confirmed that the embryos were swapped, according to the filing.

"The Cardinales, including their young daughter, fell in love with this child, and were terrified she would be taken away from them," the complaint says. "All the while, Alexander and Daphna did not know the whereabouts of their own embryo, and thus were terrified that another woman had been pregnant with their child — and their child was out in the world somewhere without them."

The babies were swapped back in January 2020.

Mix-ups like this are exceedingly rare, but not unprecedented. In 2019 a couple from Glendale, California, sued a separate fertility clinic, claiming their embryo was mistakenly implanted in a New York woman, who gave birth to their son as well as a second boy belonging to another couple.

Wolf, whose firm specializes in fertility cases, called for greater oversight for IVF clinics.

"This case highlights an industry in desperate need of federal regulation," he said.

Breaking the news to their older daughter, now 7, that doctors made a mistake and that the new baby wasn't actually her sister "was the hardest thing in my life," Daphna said.

"My heart breaks for her, perhaps the most," she said.

Since the mix-up came to light, both babies have been returned to their biological families. All four parents have since made an effort to stay in each other's lives and "forge a larger family," Daphna said.

"They were just as much in love with our biological daughter as we were with theirs," Alexander said.