We are excited to introduce Lindsey B, our new case manager at AsiaWest and Intend! Lindsey is a native Pacific Northwester, having been in the area her entire life. Lindsey has a background in IVF, as a former lab technician and trained as an embryologist. Lindsey loves outdoor activities, playing instruments, and baking sourdough bread.
Hello Lindsey! Can you start by telling me where you're from originally, your background - that kind of thing?
Yeah! I'm actually from here [Portland, Oregon]. I was born technically in Seattle, but my parents moved to Vancouver, Washington very soon after that, so I was pretty much born and raised here, and I haven't gone too far. I lived in Portland for a while, and I went to school down in Corvallis. I love it here. I feel like Pacific Northwest is where I'm supposed to be, so I haven't strayed too far - I'm a native!
Oh, I love Portland too! Yeah, that's where I grew up as well.
Oh cool!
So you went to school in Corvallis - what did you study?
I went to Oregon State, and I studied - technically I got three degrees, so it was a Biology degree with a focus in Genetics, and then I minored in Chemistry. So I did a lot! I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do at that time. For a while I considered genetic counseling, but I sort of learned about it pretty late in the game, so I figured I would take some time, work, and maybe go back to it. I never ended up doing that, but I did a lot of science classes.
Oh that's cool. Were you interested in science from a young age?
Yeah! I always wanted to be a marine biologist - that was my dream when I was little.
Cool! And I know that you worked in IVF before coming to AsiaWest/Intend - can you tell me a little more about that?
Yeah, so I was hired originally as a lab assistant and a lab technician at Kind Body over in Vancouver, and I was just basically like running the blood hormone instrument, doing semen analysis, preparing sperm samples - things like that.
But I was interested in embryology too, so after about a year I ended up kind of starting training for embryology - they decided to kind of move me up at that point. So I did training for about a year and a half. So right before I came here, I was a junior embryologist, and I was starting to do quite a bit of the lab work actually. I had pretty much learned everything except for ICSI, which is like the injection of the sperm, and then biopsy which is the genetic testing.
I was doing that for a while and it was fascinating, but I also was hardly getting any patient interaction at all and I didn't realize that was something I liked until I worked at a clinic where I was interacting with patients. And even that little bit of interaction that I was getting, I just loved it so much. And so over time I just kind of realized that being in the lab wasn't totally for me, even though it was super cool. I decided to try to find something a little more involved.
Yeah that's fair! So was your job mostly you would get the samples and then you would be analyzing them in the lab - that was mostly what you would do?
So as the lab technician, yeah. I would get the sperm sample, basically do a semen analysis, and then if it was needed for like an IUI or IVF, I would prepare it. There's a couple of different ways that you can do that. But then when I was a junior embryologist, I was doing egg retrievals - so looking through the fluid and finding the eggs.
Woah!
Yeah! I could go so into it - there's a whole process, but you have to strip the cumulus cells off the eggs. So I was doing that, and then doing maturity checks, doing fertilization checks like the following day after - things like that. I had started training to do transfers - like drawing up the embryo in a catheter, freezing and thawing, there's like so many things.
Yeah there's so many things that one can do and so many steps.
Yeah, I think also for me I had done a lot of lab work prior to that - I worked in a tiny little biotech company for a while. I was the only technician there. And then I did clinical lab work. And I thought I knew the high stakes that lab work involves, but man embryology is something on a totally new level.
Oh my gosh the pressure sounds extreme!
Yes. It was very, very high pressure and I'm pretty good at high pressure situations, so it was okay for a while, but after a while just all of those things combined I was like I don't know if this is quite right for me. But it was fascinating! And now I have a really cool background to come at this job with because I know kind of everything that goes into this process and how to read those lab reports that we're receiving at the end of it all.
True! I feel like that's the hard part to get trained on. Now you already know that, so that's helpful! So when you were thinking about pivoting, were you purposefully looking for something that was in the kind of IVF/embryology field?
Yeah, I still really loved fertility. It was so rewarding and I absolutely loved being able to see these journeys that these patients are going on, and like sometimes they would bring a baby into the clinic and it would almost make me cry! Like every time I loved it. So I really didn't want to stray too far away from that, and I knew that there were a lot of other areas in fertility that I could also get that same type of rewarding feeling. So I did pretty specifically look for things like surrogacy, or egg donation, or case management - anything like that was really what I wanted, so I was so happy to find AsiaWest!
Yeah that's great! And I guess you haven't started fully, but from what you know about case management, what part of the job are you most excited about?
I think I'm most excited about, like I was saying, building relationships with donors and intended parents, and like really feeling that I can be part of this journey with them and help them in such a way that is a little more than.... when you're in the lab you really only see patients the day of their retrieval. That's the first time you meet them, that's the last time you talk to them. And you only talk to them for like twenty seconds! So having more of a first hand role in helping people through their fertility journey is something I'm so excited about.
That is a very cool part of it. Just hearing people's stories and their journeys - it's all different, but it's super rewarding.
Yeah, because at the end you know that if it works out - which fertility is such a wild ride for so many people - but when it does work out it's like the greatest feeling in the whole entire world.
Do you have any particular memory or story from when you were working in IVF that just really stands out to you?
I think the first time I saw an embryo transfer was I think my first week of work. I had told them that I was interested in embryology, so they had me come and watch. And I watched this embryo transfer with pretty much no prior knowledge at all, and I got to watch them thaw the embryo, do the transfer, and then at that time I was running the instrument for the blood tests so I was the first one in the clinic to see that this patient was pregnant!
Wow!
And I was just standing and watching the instrument, just waiting for the result. So I was the first one to know and we called the patient all together in the room and told her. And then I was a pretty early hire in that clinic, so she was one of our pregnancies ever for that clinic, so it was just amazing. The energy that everyone had - everyone was so, so happy for her. And then she did bring the baby in, so it was kind of like a full circle for me. But yeah! That was the moment I think I realized fertility was the field for me.
Wow I mean you were really there from start to finish.
Right? Like you look at this baby and you're like, I saw you as an embryo.
So what do you like to do in your free time outside of work?
Oh my gosh I have so many hobbies! Okay I'll try to pare down the list a little bit. I really like hiking and skiing - those are kind of my number one and two.
Pacific Northwest!
Yes of course - anything outside. I play three instruments in a community band actually. I was in marching band in college - fun fact!
Wow, that's cool!
I make sourdough bread...
Oooo that's fun!
Reading... I'll stop there... film, photography! Okay now I'm done.
You're just a woman of many talents!
Yeah!
That's great honestly. I feel like I tried to get into the bread baking during the pandemic, but I was really bad at it for some reason. I don't know why - it just didn't click with me.
It's hard to get going! I had to try twice before I got a starter that worked for me. But I also started during Covid like everyone else, and I just kind of kept at it so I'm still keeping at it!
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