What is The Fertility Consultants?
When you get that infertility diagnosis and don’t know where to turn, The Fertility Consultants are here to help. We will listen to your story, and help design the best path for your journey to have a baby. Whether you just need a fertility clinic in your area, or you need some extra people to help (i.e. egg/sperm donor, surrogate, legal aspects), we will help you determine what your unique challenges are, and guide you to a path to parenthood that works for you.
Who is Mary Fusillo?
“I still remember, finding out that our insurance was not going to cover IVF, and we were going to have to delay until we could find the money, and at the time, every hour counted.
I was distraught. I thought my dream of having a family was going to go poof. I was very fortunate and was able to make it happen, but that’s not the case for everyone.”
Mary is a wife, a mother of twins through IVF, an avid traveler, an entrepreneur, and a research junkie. She is passionate about fertility and helping others.
She is one of the nation’s leading experts on third-party reproduction.
How Did She Get Started?
Mary Fusillo was born March 7th, she attended St. John’s School in Houston, TX. UT- Austin, BS Journalism emphasis on public relations, worked in SF and LA as a journalist. Then, she decided to do something different. She got a diploma in Nursing and Bachelor of Science in Nursing followed by a Masters in Public Health and a Nursing degree at USC and UCLA. From there, she worked in the ER department at LA County/USC Medical Center. Before moving to St. Louis, and becoming the trauma educator at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. She then became the Director of Emergency Services at Lutheran Medical Center in St. Louis before returning to Houston to be the director of critical care at Park Plaza Hospital. She then moved to Methodist Hospital in Houston as Assistant Director of Emergency Services, while attending Texas A&M for a Masters of Architecture and Land Development, just for fun. She also got married, had her beautiful twin boy and girl via IVF at 38 years old. In 1999 she started at a prominent IVF clinic as the Nursing Director and started their donor egg program. Then she moved to DC and became the Clinical Infertility Nursing Director at one of the largest fertility clinics in the country. Followed by becoming the Third Party Parenting Nurse Education at a major fertility pharmacy company.
Then in January 2007, Mary woke up on New Year’s day and said, “I have got to do something different.” She was ready for a change. She wanted to create a donor egg business that focused on the medical aspects, psychological aspects, and was very patient-friendly. She wanted people to be able to feel confident that the egg donor was who they thought she was and thoroughly vetted. She wanted people to have a partner to help them navigate the trials and tribulations of egg donation. Having to give up your own genetics and having to find another woman to be your stand-in is very difficult. Doctors even used to pick the donor for you! Mary wanted to create a different type of company, a company where people could pick their own genetics, their own donor. Just like when you pick a spouse, this is your decision, and while the egg donor is a stand-in for your genetics, it might be what your aspirations were. Who says you can’t “move up?!”
So, in 2007 she started The Donor Solution. On August 14, 2007, the website went live and she started recruiting donors, and the company had its first match in October 2007. She had only 19 donors at the time. After feeling like The Donor Solution was doing well, Mary launched 3 Sisters Surrogacy in 2012, because she saw a need for people who needed both donor egg and surrogacy. Since 2012, 30-40% of 3 Sisters Surrogacy’s journeys are with people who used our egg donor as well. In 2018, Mary started Family Solutions International as a bridge to the international community, as a way to increase our presence in the world. Then in 2020 she decided to merge all the companies together under one umbrella.
In fall of 2019, Mary started a PhD program in bioethics, over her 21+ years in fertility and 30 years in healthcare, she was constantly confronted with moral and ethical issues. From how old is too old to have a baby to the use of posthumous sperm. Even now, a single embryo transfer is fraught with issues of people wanting twins. She decided to get her PhD in bioethics because she wanted to understand the ethical aspects of the biological field more, and felt there needed to be an ethicist who had a very deep background in infertility.
In addition to her fertility experience, Mary is also an avid traveler. In 2018 she took a sabbatical to Motevideo, and had an epiphany. She felt that with all the striving and work and education and degrees, she finally had “enough”. She felt content. She decided she wanted to be able to bring that gift of clarity to others. To show a way to get that clarity and understand what is important to you and what you want the next stage of your life to be like. It didn’t need to be six weeks in Uruguay, it could be a week or two somewhere nice to get away and get that clarity.
To Mary, traveling allows her to visualize what it would be like to live a life in that place. If you go to Rome, you look at the houses, and think, “I wonder what it’s like to live in that house, and go to the grocery store, and look at the Colosseum every day.” To live with history and to see the way the world has evolved. How everyone lives the same, but in vastly different places. Everyone goes to the grocery store, everyone looks out their window, but some people see the stairwell next door and some people see Il Duomo… She also did a stint in Belgrade, which really just made her happy that she didn’t live in the Societ era. Mary likes to experience living a different life, that fantasy life. To experience the similarities, but also the vast differences. Though sometimes, she likes to just go to the beach and lay on her butt in the sand.
Credentials
Degrees
- Bachelor of Science in Journalism with an emphasis on public relations from the University of Texas – Austin
- Bachelor of Science in Nursing
- Diploma in Nursing
- Masters in Public Health from the University of Southern California
- Masters in Nursing from the University of California – Los Angeles
- Masters of Architecture and Land Development – Texas A&M University
Awards & Memberships
- Board of Houston and Phoenix Symphonies
- Board of Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts
- National Board member of RESOLVE (2002-2005)
- Member of ASRM, ESHRE, SEEDS
- Invited Keynote speaker at ESHRE in Rome in 2010
- Won several awards at ASRM
- Session Chair at the 2006 and 2007 International Conference on Egg Donation
- 2007 ASRM Abstract presentation
How Can She Help You?
Fertility Consultants specialize in finding a solution for you. In Mary’s words, “I’m not here to diagnose you, that’s your doctor’s, but I’m here to use my expertise to help figure out the best way forward for you.”
With her depth of experience and thirst for knowledge, Mary brings a well-rounded edge to the fertility journey to better help her clients through this tumultuous process.
Book a complimentary consultation with Mary today!