'I never thought I'd feel joy like that.' Mady Gordon's legacy of life
The guests range in age from 9 weeks to 26 years. As dozens of them arrive, Madeleine Gordon – her friends know her as Mady – greets each with a heartfelt welcome.
To a little girl: “Hi sweetheart.”
To a teenage boy: “You’ve gotten really tall!”
To the parents of an infant: “Isn’t she beautiful.”
To practically everyone: “I’m so glad you are here!”
It is a Sunday in August, and Gordon is indeed glad families have accepted her invitation to gather at the Transept in Over-the-Rhine for photographs and an ice cream social. But what especially gladdens her heart is that the guests of honor are here – alive in this world.
Without Mady Gordon, 88 people might not be here at all.
Twenty-eight years ago, she and her husband founded a nonprofit to help defray the costs of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, for infertile couples in the Cincinnati area who demonstrated financial need. Every two years, she brings together the people who were born with the help of the Madeleine Gordon Gift of Life Foundation.
“When I walk in there,” said Gordon, who is 78, “I have to fight back tears. It takes my breath away. It’s the greatest joy I’ve ever known in my life.”
Gordon's sorrow fuels Gift of Life foundation
The height of her joy and the depth of her sorrow are inextricably linked.
For 15 years, she and her husband tried to get pregnant. “It was something I wanted so badly,” she said, sitting in her two-story condominium a week before the gathering of families. When she was a Realtor, she specialized in properties with stunning river views, like the one she now enjoys from her home on the edge of Eden Park. Before that, she was a high school literature teacher.
When she and her husband were unable to conceive, they began working with local infertility experts. Still unsuccessful, they tapped their financial resources to seek help from top specialists on the East and West coasts.
Gordon diligently followed their directions to inject fertility drugs at prescribed times. Once, while on her way to see a specialist at Yale University, she ducked into a restroom in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. Drug addicts were shooting up, saw her needle and asked, “Hey lady, what are you on?”
“I’m trying to have a baby,” she shot back.
Her only pregnancy turned out to be ectopic – the fertilized egg was growing outside the uterus – and ended at 3 months. It was a devastating disappointment.
“It took two doctors to say, ‘Mady, it’s time for you to stop trying.’”
When she was approaching age 50, she listened as her rabbi urged people to find their passion. She thought about how hard she had tried to get pregnant.
“What if I couldn’t have afforded it?” she said in a recent interview. “Wouldn’t it be awful to live your life knowing you possibly could have had a biological child, but you simply could not afford it?”
In 1995, at her 50th birthday party, she encouraged friends to contribute to the newly formed Gift of Life Foundation. It continued to be her priority after she and her husband divorced a few years later.
Foundation partners with medical providers to make IVF more affordable
From the outset, the foundation partnered with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Today, partners also include the Institute for Reproductive Health and Bethesda Fertility Center.
Married couples are selected for the program based on medical information and financial need. The medical partners write off one-third of the cost of IVF. The foundation and the couple each pay one-third.
When Gordon founded Gift of Life, it was believed to be the first foundation of its kind. Today, other grant programs exist for couples who need help to pay for IVF.
“Mady’s a visionary,” said infertility specialist Dr. Michael A. Thomas, professor and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Cincinnati. He has been working with Gordon’s foundation from the start. “She saw a need and wanted to fill it. She is dedicated to helping people have a child – people who would never have been able to without her.”
Nationally, an estimated one in five couples experience infertility, said Dr. Sherif G. Awadalla, medical director of the Institute for Reproductive Health. About half of infertile couples need IVF, a process that involves collecting eggs from the ovaries, fertilizing the eggs in a lab and then placing an embryo in the womb to develop.
"There’s good data to show that most (infertile couples) don’t even come for care, because they’re worried it’s too expensive and they don’t have insurance coverage," Awadalla said.
IVF has a higher success rate compared to other infertility treatments but comes with a higher cost. Locally, the cost for one IVF cycle is about $10,000, doctors say. With medications and optional genetic testing, the total can approach $20,000.
To raise money for the foundation, Gordon mails several thousand cards to prospective donors every other year around the holidays. She hand-writes every thank you note. She reads every couple’s application. And she interviews applicants, assisted by members of her advisory group, made up of several Gift of Life mothers.
“Mady is the heart and soul of the program,” Awadalla says.
Children born with foundation's help become family
On the day she welcomes guests to the ice cream social, the vibe is part birthday party, part family reunion.
“It’s just amazing seeing how many people are here,” says 23-year-old Cassidy Neal. The Hamilton resident was Gift of Life baby No. 5 when she was born in 2000. She married two years ago, and last December she gave birth to a daughter named Mayven, marking the first time someone born with the foundation’s help had a baby.
Emily and Dan Wilson, who live in Adams County, tried for 10 years to have a baby. After Gift of Life helped pay for IVF, Emily suffered a miscarriage in August 2022. Emotionally, physically and financially drained, they decided to take a break before beginning another round of IVF.
As it turned out, another round wasn’t necessary. Two months after the miscarriage, Emily showed Dan seven home pregnancy tests. All positive. “At 36 years old, I never thought I’d feel joy like that,” Dan says.
Snug in her mother’s arms, the Wilsons’ 9-week-old daughter, Ellie, lets out a great yawn. She is No. 88, the most recent Gift of Life baby.
But not for long. Expectant mothers are carrying babies 89, 90, 91 and 92.
Before ice cream and cake are served, Gordon holds a mic and thanks everyone for coming. Thanks them for being good parents.
“I was thrilled when baby No. 1 was born,” she tells the crowd. “And now I think I’m going to live to see baby 100.”
Baby No. 1, Katie Mulhollen, is here. The 26-year-old graduated from Loveland High School and earned degrees in chemical engineering and French from the University of Dayton. She is a civilian engineer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. She is the only child of Tina and John Mulhollen.
In the mid-1990s, doctors told the Mulhollens IVF was the only way Tina could get pregnant. And the only way they could afford IVF was through Gordon’s foundation.
After Katie’s birth, the Mulhollens’ bond with Gordon grew. Over the years, the couple invited her to their daughter’s birthday parties and Irish dance competitions.
“She’s always been Aunt Mady,” Katie says. “I didn’t realize until I was 12 or 13 that she wasn’t biologically my aunt. Really and truly, I consider her family. I know my parents are eternally grateful to her.”
Other parents have shown their gratitude to Gordon by inviting her to baby showers, baptisms, sports events, horse shows, graduations and more.
In the years since Katie was born, Tina and John Mulhollen’s business has flourished, and they have financially supported the Gift of Life Foundation. To further pay it forward, Tina will lead the foundation when Gordon steps down. That’s not expected to happen anytime soon, though.
When it’s time for a group photo, a delightful, slightly chaotic scene unfolds. As parents and other loved ones watch, those born with the foundation’s help assemble on a stage – infants and toddlers and preschoolers and elementary-age kids and middle schoolers and teens and young adults.
Sitting front and center is the woman who never had children of her own, energized by her ever-expanding extended family. She holds Johanna, who is baby No. 86, in her right arm, and Ellie, baby No. 88, in her left.
And as the camera shutter clicks, Mady Gordon beams with joy.
More information
For more information about the Madeleine Gordon Gift of Life Foundation, visit gordongiftoflife.org. The website includes information on how to make a tax-deductible donation, eligibility requirements couples must meet to be considered for the program, and how to apply.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Mady Gordon's Gift of Life Foundation helps families afford IVF
