Grateful Couples Enjoy Fruit of Hospital's Labor (The Inquirer)

Everyone wants to hug Martin Freedman.

And even though it's a wickedly hot afternoon, and the only breeze is coming from the bee's wings, Freedman is a man who's going to get squeezed.

"He's been there for us," Rose Gittleman said of Freedman, an infertility specialist at Abington Memorial Hospital's Toll Center for Reproductive Sciences.

Gittleman and her husband, Curt, were among about 50 couples who celebrated at a party Saturday as Abington's Toll Center marked its 500th birth since opening in 1991.

The picnic was a chance for the families to show Freedman, center director Jay Schinfeld and the rest of the center's doctors and nurses the fruit of their labor.

Tyler and Joshua Gittleman slept placidly in matching jungle-print baby carriers. The 7-week-old twins rested between their parents, who said the treatment at the clinic provided them with two miracles. Rose Gittleman said she suffered a series of reproductive problems before becoming pregnant with the twins. The couple lost their first child to cancer.

"Every surgery, when I woke up he was right there holding my hand," she said of Freedman.

Patients said that after years of heartache trying to conceive, the Toll Center doctors made them feel comfortable, safe and, most important, hopeful.

Although multiple births are common when in-vitro fertilization is used, the number of single births is rising, Freedman said.

The doctors here credit new technologies and breakthrough research for their facility's success.

"I wish I could say we batted a thousand, but we don't, and you share that disappointment when you tell them they aren't pregnant," Freedman said.

Cathleen Statts, surrounded by her husband, John, and their two children, said that until she met Freedman, she had given up hope of ever giving birth.

"Can I get a hug?" Statts asked Freedman, her green eyes full of tears.

Her son, James, was born six years ago following treatment at the Toll Center.

"It took us 10 years," she said, while daughter, Laura, 3, hid behind her mother's flowing tan skirt. Laura also was conceived after the couple had treatments at the center.

"When I got the call that I was pregnant, it was like magic," said Statts, who remembered being at work when a nurse called to tell her the news.

"I dropped to my knees and prayed," Statts said. A framed photograph of Freedman stands on her dresser, she said.

Freedman, his over-the-collar, curly hair wet from the heat, said providing a homey atmosphere during what is often a frustrating and frightening experience, had become a trademark of the Toll Center.

"People send you the pictures and it's touching to see them (the children) grow when you first saw them as little follicles," Freedman said,

But advances are needed in insurance coverage, said Schinfeld. Now, few companies will cover infertility treatments.

Couples at the Toll Center who already have conceived have donated money and unused medicine to couples still waiting, said Schinfeld.

"They want everyone to have the same chance they had," he said.

The daily injections, fertilization procedures too numerous to count, and 10 years of false hopes were all worth it every time Janet Giovinazzo looks at her young son and daughter.

Giovinazzo became pregnant for the first time at age 39 when she was a patient under Schinfeld's care.

"When I found out I was pregnant, I called my mom who thought she was never going to have grandchildren, and we both just sat on the phone and cried," said Giovinazzo.

Many of the parents said support and understanding from families and employers was essential for the time-consuming process to work. Giovinazzo is a first-grade teacher at Chestnut Hill Academy, where administrators held her job while she left work for more than a year.

Before coming pregnant, Giovinazzo said, even a walk down the baby supply aisle of a grocery store would break her heart.

"All of our friends had kids to come home to, and we didn't," said Giovinazzo, with both of her children sitting on her lap.

The struggle that she and her husband, Robert, went through to build the family they have today is evident in the everyday routine, she said.

"Like when I see him pick these guys up and hug them like he doesn't want to let go.