Alabama IVF patient forced to seek care elsewhere, Doctor calls situation “devastating”

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Gabrielle Goidel and her husband have been trying for more than two years to start their family, after marrying in 2021. Goidel tells News 19 that since their fertility journey started, she’s had three devastating miscarriages, all within the span of one year.

In November of 2023, the couple officially started their IVF journey at a clinic in Alabama. Goidel said she was excited to start her first round of shots in mid-February.

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Then, the unexpected happened.

“I started my shots on Friday the 16th of February, which is the same day Alabama’s Supreme Court made the ruling that embryos were children,” Goidel told News 19.

Goidel’s family is one of many in the state who are feeling the impacts of the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that now classifies embryos as children. The decision came out of a lawsuit brought by two couples seeking damages for the accidental destruction of several embryos at a Mobile reproductive health clinic.

To Goidel, it’s yet another obstacle in the way of her dream of having a child. Her clinic is one of several in the state that have either closed their doors or cut back on fertility services.

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“It’s just devastating, It feels like a loss,” she told News 19. “When I found out that my clinic was closing, it felt very similar to the way that I had felt in miscarriage. I have been so hopeful for this process, I created a mindset that ‘this is going to work’ because when you struggle with infertility, that’s kind of the mindset you have to have moving forward, and it felt just like it had been ripped away” she said.

Goidel and her husband relocated to Auburn, Alabama last year for a work opportunity. Now, with the uncertain future of fertility in Alabama, Goidel turned to doctors in other states.

“I decided that I was not going to let their ruling stop me. So I just started calling clinics and I got a lot of no’s,” she added.

After many “no’s” she finally found a doctor to say yes, in her home state of Texas.

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“He was one of the only doctors that would take me,” she said of Dr. Wright Bates.

“She was well into the process and had already done about a week’s worth of shots and was told she’d have to stop or harvest the eggs and not fertilize them. Eggs don’t freeze as well as embryos, and so you’re essentially dramatically reducing your chance of pregnancy,” Dr. Bates said.

Dr. Bates is a board-certified specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology and a subspecialist in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.

He currently works in Texas, but is a graduate of Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama, and spent many years practicing at UAB in Birmingham, Alabama.

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He said when he first learned the news of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling he felt “a sense of sadness.” “One, because I knew how many lives it would impact, and two also a sadness that there’s that level of misunderstanding of human biology and reproduction and that someone could make those claims that essentially an embryo was a child,” Dr. Bates said.

He said in the days that followed the news he received messages and calls from many former colleagues in Alabama, and “sadly a few former patients”.

“Probably the hardest call I received was from a former patient who was actually crying on the phone that she had done IVF and been unsuccessful, and she said how hard it was on her to have the [Alabama] Supreme Court say they’re [Embryos] the same as children when she doesn’t have children. She had had embryos, but they did not become children” Dr. Bates told News 19.

Dr. Bates said he hopes the matter is quickly resolved in Alabama for both the sake of patients and providers.

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“I hope that reasonable folks in Montgomery will come to the conclusion that this needs to be fixed,” he said.

But of course, for many patients, including Goidel, time is of the essence.

“Every day that goes by is another cycle that a woman might not be able to go through IVF. It’s another egg, several eggs that she might lose, and a lot of these things are so time-sensitive that even closing a clinic for the two weeks or three weeks that it might be closed is hurting so many patients,” Goidel said.

Goidel recognizes that she feels privileged she was able to travel to another state and find a doctor to continue her care, but said it wasn’t easy.

“I’ve been so lucky to be able to come to Texas through the support of the community and my family. We didn’t necessarily have the means, but people kind of pulled together behind us, and not every woman is going to be able to be that lucky,” she said.

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Goidel said she initially had no plans of sharing her fertility journey with her family, let alone the whole world, but felt like it was important to get it out there.

“So I initially did not want to tell anybody, I barely wanted to tell my family that I was going through IVF, It’s so personal. We had been through a lot of hurt, and women who have gone through miscarriages know that sometimes the disappointment in losing a baby and having to tell everybody about it is really hard, and so I did not want to go through that type of loss again and have to explain why this process, which is doesn’t work out all the time, didn’t work out for me in the end,” she said.

“It is just very personal and so I didn’t want to tell anybody, but when I heard this ruling, I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell everybody how wrong it was because it is important and they’re taking away families in Alabama that they just something that’s so precious and dear, they are ruining that opportunity for people. I wanted to tell everybody that this is the wrong decision, that IVF should be protected, and that deserving mothers should be able to have their children that they would love,” Goildel added.

In Montgomery, many lawmakers are working on legislation to restore rights to families, but nothing has passed yet. Tuesday, Governor Kay Ivey told the AP, that she anticipates a bill will be on her desk “very shortly.”

Until then, Goidel said she feels “for so many women who this was their last chance that these were their last embryos or their last eggs, their last cycles, that they could go through this and they lost that opportunity.”

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