Written by: Julia Gytri
In fertility care, the loud moments are the numbers. Eggs retrieved. Embryos created. Beta levels rising or falling. The numbers are how the field measures itself, and often what an intended parent remembers most.
But ask the nurses who walk beside intended parents what they carry from this work, and the answer almost never starts with a number. It starts with the silence between the numbers. The call before the call. The pause before the result. The moment they remind you to keep breathing while a screen loads.
That silence is the quiet half of this journey, and the people who hold it, day in and day out, are the nurses.
For National Nurses Week 2026, our team at Fairfax Egg Bank asked a handful of the nurses we admire most, nominated by our own coordinators across the country, to get to the heart of why they do what they do. While they are responsible for some big successes in helping people build families, their honest answers may surprise you.
That’s because their responses don’t sugarcoat anything. They don’t promise certainty, or pretend the journey is shorter, lighter, or more linear than it is. What they offer instead is something rarer in modern medicine: witness. Steady, attentive accompaniment through the part of the journey no protocol can manage on its own.
Here’s what they wanted people to hear.
Each of these nurses carefully ushers the day-to-day of an intended parent’s donor egg journey from the first nervous phone call through donor selection, transfer, and beyond.
Between them, they hold over a century of experience translating the most personal medical decisions a person can make into a path that a family can actually walk. Rachel Leto, who has been in the field for 18 years, described the core of the role by noting that, “This family building journey has so many unexpected twists and turns, and a big part of [our] job is to help navigate that with the patients.”
Their names may not prominently appear in your clinic’s brochure. They are, however, almost certainly the reason you’d remember your experience.
Ask any donor egg nurse what people miss about this specific area of practice, and the same answer surfaces in different words. It’s the weight of it.
Cristina Vidal, RN, Third Party Nurse Coordinator at Stanford Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Health (and celebrating an extraordinary 27 years in the field this year), said it most plainly that she wishes “more people understood the emotional weight that comes with this work. Behind every message, every lab result, every call, there’s a person hoping, grieving, or holding on. As nurses, we carry those moments with our patients, we celebrate quietly with them, and we also feel their disappointments. It’s a balance of clinical precision and deep empathy that often goes unseen.”
That balance of clinical precision and deep empathy captures the work in one sentence. And nothing simply powers down at five o’clock.
Rachel Leto has a quiet ritual that captures this sentiment. “I sometimes have to play my part of the conversation over and over in my head before I can make those [challenging] calls,” she admits, “whether it’s a negative pregnancy test or a poor cycle outcome. It weighs heavily on me and is not just ‘another call’ to make.”
A nurse rehearsing difficult news with the utmost human-to-human empathy isn’t part of any standard medical workflow. It’s the kind of care that doesn’t show up on an AI-powered dashboard, the kind that cannot be rushed, faked, replicated, or automated by anything other than a highly skilled, deeply attentive, emotionally intelligent human being.
Ashley Krajewski, IVF Nurse at Atrium Health Fertility Center, named the inner texture of that care directly when she told us that “…there are so many unseen emotions involved — grief, hope, fear, trust, and vulnerability. Behind every cycle is a deeply personal story, and behind every donor is someone making an incredibly selfless contribution to help others build their families.”
Natalie Sofia, RN, BSN, of Dominion Fertility (who has spent an impressive 23 years in this field) said something equally important to anyone living inside the journey right now when she highlighted that “…we focus so much on the end result, but the day-to-day realities can be daunting. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. It’s a long process. It’s okay to ask questions.”
Julia Weaver, RN, BSN, Third Party Lead Nurse at CCRM NoVa, named a particular dimension of that weight that almost no one outside the field talks about: how isolation itself can become part of the diagnosis. “Many patients come to us feeling completely alone, as if everyone around them can do something they can’t,” says Julia. “That sense of isolation can be just as difficult as the medical journey itself.”
The people on the other end of the phone feel it too, and they’re trained to carry it with you.
Perhaps the most shocking thing our nurses told us was that, despite the field’s hard-won progress (e.g., refined protocols, modern vitrification, Fairfax’s own Blastocyst Guarantee, and the strong alignment we keep with our partner clinics), the one thing everyone needs to remember is to remain cautiously optimistic at the outset. Even in a field where science has made leaps and bounds in a short span of years, there is no such thing as a “works-every-time” process.
Monica Campanella, Fertility Nurse at Spring Creek Fertility, names it clearly. “There are no guarantees,” she says. “You can do everything ‘right’ and still face setbacks. So much is outside your control, and every path to parenthood looks different. But you are not alone; infertility is far more common than people realize.”
Jamie Walsh, RN, BSN, Third Party Lead Nurse at CCRM New York, who walked her own IVF journey before becoming a nurse, came from the same place of honesty. “This process isn’t an exact science, and there can be uncertainty along the way. But in my experience, I’ve never had a recipient express regret about their choice.”
While many quantitative promises and guarantees can be made in this day and age, donor egg care can’t promise a particular outcome on a particular timeline. Nothing can. What it can promise is that the people who choose this path tend to look back and recognize it as the right one, even when the road there did not look like they thought it would.
Cristina frames it profoundly when she says, “I am not in control of the outcome, but I am called to show up with compassion, guidance, and love.”
When a care team is willing to say that out loud, something important happens for an intended parent. The pressure to manufacture certainty drops. The relationship becomes real, not a performance of confidence on either side. And the work shifts from delivering a guaranteed result to delivering constant, attentive presence along the way, whatever the result may be.
In our experience at Fairfax Egg Bank, that is the work that actually carries people through.
Julia shared a story from early in her career that illustrates this at its hardest edge: what it looks like when “no guarantees” means the unimaginable, yet a family chooses to keep going anyway. “Early in my career,” she tells us, “I cared for a patient whose first child was affected by a rare X-linked disorder. She and her partner came to us to grow their family through embryo creation and preimplantation genetic testing. During her treatment, her son sadly passed away. Nothing can replace that loss. But she continued forward with incredible strength. Over time, we were able to help her welcome two healthy children. When she shares photos of their smiling faces, it’s a meaningful reminder of the impact of this work and why it matters.”
There is no protocol that prepares a family for what that mother walked through. There is only the question of who walks beside them. Julia (and every nurse we honor in this article) is the answer to that question.
If 100% absolute, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt certainty isn’t on the table, what is?
Natalie said the moment she knew this work was her path was the first time she got to be part of a patient’s experience from end to end. “My first time being a part of a patient’s journey in its entirety — from being their first point of contact, to patient education, to providing the emotional support and encouragement to keep moving forward — was profound,” she recalls. “And I knew at that point, it was the path for me.”
That start-to-finish presence is what intended parents notice most, and what every nurse on this list builds her practice around.
For Kelsey McGinnis, RN, BSN, Third Party Coordinator at Women & Infants, that begins at one of the most charged early moments of the journey: the donor selection conversation. “Every patient has a different story and a different reason for needing to use a gamete donor. I wish more people were aware that needing help with fertility can be more common than they might expect.” What she’s pointing to is the recognition that has to come before any clinical conversation can do its job: this isn’t a default path or a backup plan. It’s a deeply considered decision with its own context, history, and grief. Kelsey also named what makes the donor selection moment unique: the rare appearance of excitement after a long stretch of disappointment. “Every time I help a patient through the process of selecting a donor, I feel my patients’ excitement to build their family, and that feeling reinforces my desire to work in this field.”
If you’re an intended parent, that moment is sometimes the first time in a long time that you’ve allowed yourself to feel even a small amount of forward-leaning hope. The nurses know it, and they hold space for it.
For Ashley, that hope takes shape when years of disappointment finally meet news worth celebrating. “One of the most meaningful moments in my work is when a patient who has been through multiple unsuccessful IVF cycles with their own eggs, or has experienced recurrent pregnancy loss, finally sees a positive pregnancy test after transitioning to donor eggs. After so much heartbreak, disappointment, and perseverance, being able to witness renewed hope and a long-awaited success is incredibly powerful.”
Notice the verb she chose: witness. Not deliver, not provide. Witness.
“Our role goes beyond coordinating care; we’re here to listen, to guide, and to help you feel less alone in the process,” stresses Christine Johnson, RN, BSN, Specialty Services Clinical Lead at Shady Grove Fertility. “You don’t have to navigate this on your own.”
Monica opens up about her own experience, letting us know that she’s “…also walked parts of this journey personally, so [her] heart simply goes out to every patient [she has ever had] the privilege of working with.”
These aren’t replacements for clinical excellence. They’re what clinical excellence becomes once a nurse has been doing this long enough to know that the protocol is necessary, but not sufficient on its own.
The other thing every nurse mentioned is that the relationship doesn’t end at retrieval, transfer, or discharge to your OB.
Christine told us about a recent moment that still stops her in her tracks. “I was at Target and happened to run into a couple who had been my patients over 12 years ago. They introduced me to their children, and the wife said, ‘You made our family!’ I’ve been fortunate to experience moments like this before, but seeing the children — now nearly teenagers — really struck me. It made me reflect on how long I’ve been in this field and the lasting impact on each family. It’s a powerful reminder that this career is about so much more than the day-to-day roles.”
Twelve years later, in the cereal aisle. You made our family.
Monica, recalling a couple she walked beside through an eight-plus-year journey that included a stillbirth, told us that “…even after every setback, they kept showing up with courage and hope. Their strength keeps me grounded and reminds me why this work matters: to meet people with patience, compassion, and steady support when it’s hardest. We still keep in touch.”
“The best compliment I can get from a patient is one where the outcome is not what anyone had hoped for but they thank me for being there for them throughout the process,” says Rachel. “This keeps me going when things get heavy, knowing that patients appreciate you in the good times and not so good times.”
And Julia confesses that the moments that keep her grounded aren’t the medical milestones at all, but “the small, everyday conversations. […That’s what stays] with me — talking with patients about their day, what they’re watching, or a trip they’re looking forward to. Because they’re with us for an extended period, we get to know them as people, not just patients. Those seemingly ‘mundane’ moments are a quiet but important reminder of who they are beyond their treatment.”
These are the small, durable things that don’t make it into a clinic’s annual report, but that absolutely shape the experience of becoming a parent through donor eggs.
If you are reading this somewhere in the middle of your donor egg journey, or at the beginning, deciding whether to start at all, there are a few things the collective voices of these nurses want you to take with you.
You don’t have to navigate this alone. The people on the other end of your phone are not delivering a product to you. They are trusted with what Jamie calls “two of the most important aspects of our patients’ lives — their future children and their financial investment.” They do not take that lightly. “If you’ve come this far, it speaks volumes about your commitment — and the love you already have for the child you’re hoping to welcome.”
That love is real. And it is, in the end, the thing that no clinical protocol can produce, but every good nurse will protect.
If you’d like a no-pressure conversation about whether donor eggs are the right next step for your specific circumstances, our team offers a private, no-cost Fairfax First Consultation with someone who knows the answers to the questions you’re facing. (If you’re earlier in your fertility-language journey, our NIAW 2026 myth-and-reality guide might be a useful next read.)
If you are a fertility nurse, coordinator, RE, embryologist, or program director reading this, thank you. Most of what does give donor egg care its success rates happens in your offices, in your inboxes, on your phones, and in the calls you rehearse before you make them.
Christine Johnson, when asked what keeps her going on the hardest days, named something we want to honor here: “I’m fortunate to work alongside a team who understand both the emotional and clinical weight of this work.” That collegial care for one another is a real part of what makes the work sustainable. It’s also increasingly what we hope donor banks and partner clinics can offer each other.
If your clinic and Fairfax can do more together to support that work, our Clinical Partnerships team is set up exactly for that conversation. If you missed it, our companion piece for this Nurses Week, The Hidden Heart of Egg Donation, which centers on our donor-side coordinators, pairs naturally with this one for sharing with prospective donors and intended parents alike.
With deep gratitude, this National Nurses Week, we spotlight the outstanding careers of Monica Campanella, Christine Johnson, Rachel Leto, Kelsey McGinnis, Ashley Krajewski, Natalie Sofia, Cristina E. Vidal, Julia Weaver, Jamie Walsh, and honor every nurse whose work makes growing families possible.
Julia Gytri is a multidisciplinary writer and healthcare advocate bridging the arts and public health through a hybrid career rooted in education, communications, and collaboration. Her mission is to improve the standard of care for those living with rare, stigmatized, and/or under-researched conditions through storytelling in every project she undertakes.
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