MERRIAM, Kan. — Dr. Dan Gehlbach at Advent Health in Shawnee Mission says infertility services are expected to be more utilized and in demand.
The walls of the Advent Health Fertility Center, the newest clinic in the Kansas City area, are filled with photos of successful families with children who are using IVF and infertility services.
They demonstrate the thousands and thousands of parents Gehlbach helps each year.
"It is a struggle, and we're there with them in the good times and the bad," Gehlbach said.
Nationally, he says 1 in 7 couples struggle with infertility.
Care is now provided at the newly opened Advent Health Fertility Clinic.
"I’m actually one of the families on the wall, so I have a personal attachment to the journey these families go through," said Goldie Bjornstad, a nurse practioner at Advent Health Fertility Center. "We do a general evaluation with all of our patients and focus the treatment based on their needs. As far as initial appointment, we're looking at factors that could potentially impact their fertility and really giving them a plan so it gives them hope."
Hannah and Craig Knoeber are also on the wall, having received care from Gehlbach.
"When we were first faced with infertility, it was very much unexpected," Hannah Knoeber said. "We never have felt like a checklist, not once; we very much felt like someone who was faced with something we weren't expecting. But this team is really good about listening to you. Fertility is very much not a 'one box checks all.' He really considers both sides of that patient-provider relationship. When you are in the depths of it, nothing makes sense until one day it does."
Hannah Knoeber said the clinic is very intentional about thinking of both parents when treating them.
"Sometimes, it can be very isolating as a couple; it has been a challenge," she said. "The thing is that this team is going to consider both partners. You often think of the woman who bears the brunt of the infertility, and that’s not always the case. When we came to Dr. Gehlbach, we were very quickly able to pinpoint a source of our infertility — it’s not what we expected, it’s something that just happened."
Gehlbach talked about why that's important.
"Easily half of the couples we see, there is a male factor that is a part of it — the partner is a big part of the whole evaluation," Gehlbach said.
Their daughter, Marlowe, is now three years old.
"Everyone is different, every story is different, but the goal is commonly the same, and that's what we are trying to reach, and we did reach it," Hannah Knoeber said. “You now have a resource locally that is going to fight the fight with you; he is someone who has dedicated his entire life to your hope and your dream."
Gehlbach expects infertility services will be in more demand as childbearing age is delayed, but he says whether it's insurance companies adapting egg banking or the many treatments they offer, there is so much hope.
"We came here to Advent Health because it offered so much more to our patients because it’s a journey, and we will be there to help them through it," he said. "Infertility is becoming more treated. So many of our treatments are so much more effective and safer, and we rarely see twin pregnancies these days. All of the things that were difficult to treat in the past, we have better treatments for."
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KSHB 41 reporter Megan Abundis covers Kansas City, Missouri, including neighborhoods in the southern part of the city. Share your story idea with Megan.