When Challie and Lina were ready to grow their family again, they already knew how fertility treatment worked. What they were searching for this time was a clinic that felt different. Hear why they chose Illume Fertility and what LGBTQ+ family building can look like when you find the right fit.
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Challie grew up in Westchester County and spent most of her 20s and 30s in Brooklyn, New York, where she eventually met her wife, Lina.
When the COVID pandemic unexpectedly hit in 2020, the two of them made a somewhat impulsive decision: they left the city, bought a house in Brookfield, Connecticut, and began to build a life there. It turned out to be one of the best calls they ever made.
Settled into their new life in Fairfield County, Challie and Lina began thinking about expanding their family from three to four. For a same-sex couple, that meant seeking out fertility care from the start.
It is a logistical reality that many LGBTQ+ couples navigate before they ever set foot in a clinic, and finding the right team to walk through the journey with them is its own meaningful decision.
Challie and Lina had been through this before, with their first pregnancy achieved through a fertility clinic convenient to Challie's job in Manhattan at the time. They knew what to expect from the treatment process. What they were hoping to find the second time around was a clinic that felt less transactional and more affirming.
Challie came to this journey with a clear sense of agency. "I had my first baby at 40 after getting my MBA," she says. "I think a lot of women are having babies much later these days!"
She's right. According to the CDC's National Vital Statistics System, the mean age at first birth rose from 26.6 in 2016 to 27.5 in 2023, with birth rates declining among women under 30 and rising steadily among those 35 and older.
For women with advanced degrees, that shift is even more pronounced. The average age at first birth for women with a bachelor's degree is now 30.3, and for those with a doctoral or professional degree, it's 33.1, more than five years older than the national average.
Advances in fertility treatment have played a real role in making that possible. From egg freezing, which allows women to preserve their eggs at peak quality and return to family building on their own timeline, to IUI and IVF, today's options give women more control over when and how they start a family than ever before.
For many, delayed family building isn't just a cultural shift. It's a choice made possible by science.
Finding a New Fertility Clinic
Challie and Lina discovered Illume Fertility through a combination of proximity and online reviews, the way many patients do. But what turned their practical choice into a confident one was their first meeting with Dr. Alexander Kucherov.
"It was that initial Zoom conversation with Dr. Kucherov that solidified that we had made the right decision," Challie says. "Walking me through the differences between the options available to me at Illume and the experience I had at my previous clinic was a total game changer."
His clear focus on education, rather than pressuring her to proceed with treatment, was a signal to Challie that Illume would treat her as a whole person, not a number.
She and Lina decided to move forward with Dr. Kucherov as their primary physician, exploring donor conception options together before landing on IVF as the right next step.
Challie went through one egg retrieval cycle. When the results came back, there was a single viable embryo. She and Lina had already made a decision about what this would mean. If the transfer didn't work, they would move on and embrace life as a family of three.
It was a private, clear-eyed resolve that required a kind of emotional honesty most people don't arrive at easily. The couple had thought it through, made peace with their boundaries, and stepped into the transfer carrying both hope and acceptance in equal measure.
On the morning of their embryo transfer, Challie texted every friend who had been through their own fertility journey for support. Thankfully, that transfer worked, and the couple is now excitedly expecting their second baby boy.
Photos: Challie, Lina, and their first baby, Damian.
Since Challie and Lina had been through fertility treatment before, they came to Illume with something most first-time patients don't have: a frame of reference.
What the couple found at Illume wasn't just a clinical upgrade. It was a different feeling from the moment they walked in. Every person they encountered, from front desk staff to clinical providers, brought the same energy to their care.
"It was so pleasant the second time around," Challie reflects. "From the receptionists, to the blood draws, to the doctors and even the acupuncturists, the entire team at Illume is professional, encouraging, and positive."
For a same-sex couple navigating fertility treatment, that kind of environment isn't just nice to have. It's the difference between feeling like a patient and feeling like a person. Challie and Lina noticed the change immediately, and it stayed consistent throughout the whole process.
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For LGBTQ+ patients, choosing a fertility clinic isn't only about credentials and success rates.
It's also about finding a care team that understands your family structure, respects your preferences, uses affirming language from the first interaction, and doesn't require you to spend emotional energy educating the people who are supposed to be caring for you.
The demand for inclusive family-building care continues to grow as the number of LGBTQ+ individuals and couples pursuing parenthood has significantly increased in recent years.
Same-sex cis female couples building families through donor conception typically have several paths available to them, including IUI with donor sperm, traditional IVF, and reciprocal IVF, a process in which one partner provides the eggs and the other carries, allowing both to participate biologically in the same pregnancy.
One of the biggest remaining barriers for LGBTQ+ patients is archaic insurance policies.
Fertility treatment coverage has historically required a clinical diagnosis of infertility, typically defined as failing to conceive after 6 to 12 months of unprotected sex, a definition that excludes same-sex couples or single parents who need a donor to build their family.
Connecticut's fertility insurance mandates have helped improve access for patients in the state, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) updated its definition of infertility in 2023 to explicitly include LGBTQ+ individuals and same-sex couples, a meaningful step toward closing the coverage gap.
And while significant progress has been made, awareness and advocacy remain vital to increasing the accessibility of fertility and family-building services for LGBTQ+ patients.
At Illume, we are proud to have been at the forefront of LGBTQ+ family building in the Northeast since 2004. Our Gay Parents To Be resource hub was created specifically to support LGBTQ+ patients through every stage of the family-building process.
"Since this is my second pregnancy, I've felt a little calmer overall," Challie says. "But it's the voices and support of all my female friends who have been through their own fertility experiences and challenges that make me feel part of a larger community."
Challie's advice for fellow fertility patients is grounded in something that's often hard to do: releasing the desire to control what you can't. "Don't put pressure on yourself," she says. "Everything happens for a reason and in due time."
For anyone who wants to feel less alone on their path to parenthood, she recommends Dr. Berlin's Informed Pregnancy podcast, a resource she has returned to many times throughout her family-building journey. It covers a wide range of women's experiences through pregnancy and delivery, told in voices that feel real and relatable, rather than clinical.
For Challie and Lina, the next chapter is already in motion.
Their second baby is due in August 2026, and they are doing their best to prepare their blissfully unaware toddler for the impending arrival of his new little brother. "We can't wait for them to meet each other and form a beautiful sibling bond," Challie says.
Her final message to other LGBTQ+ couples exploring fertility treatment is simple: the right clinic is out there, and finding a good fit makes a real difference. You deserve a doctor who explains your options, a team that treats you with warmth, and an experience that doesn't feel like an afterthought. Don't stop looking until you find it.