Partnership provides aid for women of color
“Thank you so much for the gift of hope,” Bingham-Guanilo said through tears as her husband, Yuri Guanilo, stood behind her.
The grant program was launched by New York-based reproductive health and fertility provider Kindbody in partnership with Fertility for Colored Girls, a
Thanks to the grant program, three women, including Bingham-Guanilo, will receive in vitro fertilization treatment and one woman will be able to freeze her eggs, Kindbody and Fertility for Colored Girls said in announcing the winners this month.
The grant program emerged this year amid protests against police brutality that put the spotlight on racial injustice and inequities.
Black women are more likely than white women to experience infertility and less likely to seek treatment, which for many is financially unaffordable, said Edwards-Dunn, who after years of battling infertility with her husband, Earl Dunn Sr., gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh, now 6.
The challenges of infertility are also often not discussed in the African American community, and Edwards-Dunn has worked to change that and to help remove the unwarranted stigma often associated with infertility.
The grant initiative was launched in support of Black, Indigenous and other people of color. It received more than 320 applications, she said.
The response “speaks to the need, one, that this is a huge issue, but it also speaks to the need (for) resources for Black women and couples who are struggling with infertility at two times the rate of our Caucasian brothers and sisters,” she stressed.
“So many Black women are not able to move forward with treatment, even surgeries, because they don’t have health care. They don’t have the financial wherewithal to pay $15,000 to $20,000 for an IVF cycle or $6,000 to $7,000, for an (intrauterine insemination) cycle or to pay $8,000 to freeze their eggs.”
For people who say, “Why don’t you just adopt,” there’s often not money for that.
“Adoption can easily cost upward of $30,000,” Edwards-Dunn said.
Edwards-Dunn, who runs Fertility for Colored Girls out of her home, also is a church administrator and executive minister of community engagement and transformation at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
She previously worked in Cabrini-Green as a health education coordinator. She taught pregnancy prevention classes to young people and also was director of community education at Planned Parenthood. She holds a bachelor’s in chemistry, master’s in public health, a master’s of divinity and a doctor of ministry degree.
Bingham-Guanilo and her husband have been trying to have a baby for the past few years. They’ve endured two miscarriages, the latest this past spring. They previously considered IVF treatment, but the overall cost was a financial hurdle, she explained.
“I’m very thankful,” she said. “I recognize that not a lot of women have these resources available to them.”
Carmia Marshall-David, 44, another grant recipient who will receive IVF treatment, wrote in her grant application, “as a black woman, I recognize fertility assistance is not as accessible, harder to attain due to the systemic racism that thrives at the core (among other things) of the health care system in the United States. Everything from conceiving to giving birth is more challenging.”
Marshall David said the two organizations provide an opportunity to create new life and build families.
“I hope that we are chosen as the recipient of the grant, but if not, I feel just as excited that another black, brown, or woman of color (will) have a chance at motherhood,” she wrote.
Marshall-David said after learning she would receive a grant, “I kind of felt my whole life flash before my eyes.
“Everything changed in an instant. I was like, ‘Oh my God. Is this really happening?’ I was so overwhelmed with joy.”
Through the grant program, Kindbody said it’s seeking to help those with historically disproportionate access to women’s health care and create more parity in fertility and family building care.
“With everything that was happening this past year with Black Lives Matter, we really wanted to do something real and not just put a statement out there that we supported the movement, but really do some things to make a difference,” said Rebecca Silver, a spokeswoman for Kindbody.
Kindbody plans on initiating a second large donation so it can continue to provide cycles to those in need, Silver said.
Kindbody is not only donating the fertility treatments but open to hearing what else they can do to ensure they are culturally sensitive and welcoming to Black women and other women of color, Edwards-Dunn said.
Kindbody has its own clinics in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Princeton, and partners with other clinics in the Chicago area where it plans to open its own a site in the next two years, Silver said. The organization is also working to partner with employers to provide fertility coverage to their employees, and based on the response, will donate fertility treatment cycles to Fertility for Colored Girls, she said.
Fertility for Colored Girls, founded in 2013, has 14 chapters across the country, including in Detroit, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and New York. The organization’s chapters hold support meetings and prayer circles where women share their experiences and receive information, encouragement and support. It has a Hope it Forward program that encourages individuals to donate their unopened and unexpired medications to fertility clinics to be used by women who can’t afford them.
Bingham-Guanilo, who serves as peer leader with the organization, said it’s important for women to be educated on infertility issues and treatment options at younger ages and that they not be afraid or ashamed to talk about their situations and to ask for help.
Since its founding, Fertility for Colored Girls also has partnered with Fertility Centers of Illinois, which enabled women to receive free IVF treatments. It partnered with Merck KGaA’s biopharmaceutical business, EMD Serono, to give women access to more than $107,000 worth of free medications, Edwards-Dunn said. Thanks to the partnership efforts, Fertility for Colored Girls has helped award a total of more than $250,000 in grants to assist women and couples in becoming parents, Edwards-Dunn said.
“We have helped 200 women and couples to become parents,” she shared.
“It’s a very fulfilling experience,” she said. “I know the pain personally that they experience. Whenever we are able to help provide resources for women or couples who going through (this journey) I get so much joy because I see now these women have an opportunity to seek to build the families of their dreams.”
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