The Chick Mission: Amanda Rice & Tracy Weiss

The Chick Mission idea "hatched" when Amanda Rice, three time cancer survivor, was told that by her insurance company that her fertility preservation coverage was denied. Chick Mission strives to ensure that cancer patients have a fertility future by educating the community about preservation options and working directly with healthcare practices to provide monetary need-based grants to cover the cost of preservation.

To learn more about their work visit www.thechickmission.org.

Talia: So you're both survivors; you were both told that you needed to freeze your eggs if you wanted to have the opportunity to have biological children following your cancer treatments; and you were both told by your insurance companies that fertility preservation was considered elective, and therefore would not be covered. I want to get into both of your stories, because I think that they both shed light on the general misinformation that surrounds fertility. So Amanda, you were diagnosed with cancer three times before your 40th birthday…

Amanda: So I was diagnosed in 2014, for the first time, and had a very easy life before that. As far as my health and my body went, there were no broken bones, there were no surgeries. So to hear the words that I had cancer was just shocking, especially think we're all under the impression that a lot of cancer is hereditary cancer -- and that is not the case, the vast majority is just random. This was a lot to take in. And then hearing about the treatment plan and the impact of treatment on my ability to become a biological mother one day was incredibly overwhelming. So to hear from my insurance company that this was elective, was just maddening and really frustrating. You're already dealing with so much in one moment in time, and then you have to learn the cancer lingo and the fertility lingo and navigate insurance, or lack thereof -- and that just made me furious. So that was kind of me in a nutshell, three battles with cancer in about four and a half years. And I spent $60,000 on egg freezing. 

Talia: So I don't understand why insurance wouldn't cover these costs. It's not like you elected to have your eggs frozen, you were told that you had to if you wanted the chance of having biological children…

Amanda: The idea that it was considered elective just blew my mind, and they were really just leaning on an excuse.

Talia: What do you mean by that?

Amanda: When you're dealing with an insurance company, they have an explicit list of rules to qualify for benefits. So their definition of infertility was vastly different than what a cancer patient is dealing with. So their definition is if you're under 35, you have to be trying to get pregnant for 12 months without success to be deemed infertile.

Talia: That's crazy. You didn't even have 12 months, you were starting chemotherapy in just a few weeks.

Amanda: So that's what drove me so crazy. How could someone think that this was elective when you've got about two to four weeks to make this decision and go through egg freezing, and it does take about 10 to 14 days to go through that cycle. So as much as I called back and said you must not understand what I'm talking about, you must not have been dealing with a young adult with cancer before, may I speak to your supervisor -- may speak to someone else…I was just hoping somebody on the other line would understand what I was dealing with. And I never got there, and that was just devastating.

Talia: So how much, for our listeners who don't know, would a cycle of fertility preservation actually cost?

Amanda: fertility preservation costs between $15-$20,000. And I won't bore you with the details, but the reason why I had to do so many rounds with that was when I finally got to an incredible reproductive endocrinologist who took the time to learn about my case, it turns out, I had been suffering with endometriosis for much of my adult life, so the quality and quantity of eggs was already in a tough spot. And so in order to get more eggs to even get me to a point where it might be productive later in life, I had to do three rounds.

Talia: So that really is prohibitive for folks that just don't have that kind of money lying around, what do they do?

Amanda: It's so prohibitive. And when you're dealing with a cancer diagnosis, you are facing your mortality, you are really shell shocked, and you don't have the energy or time to really fight a lot of battles outside of the cancer battle. So the insurance company battle -- that was it, I made a few phone calls, and then I gave up, because I just didn't have the time or bandwidth, or the emotional strength to deal with more rejection. I had already felt the rejection of my body with cancer. So that is the real catch-22 with all of this. You do have an option yet it's very cost prohibitive. You don't have the time to really explore more options, and that's why the Chick Mission is so important. We don't want to put up any barriers, we want to help you monetarily we want to help you emotionally, and we want to give you the education and the facts so that you can make the right decision for your future.

Talia: So when did you actually create Chick Mission?

Amanda: I was sitting there the third time around, it was 2017, and I knew I had to go through a whole host of treatment that time, there was kind of no messing around, they were gonna throw everything at it, which was chemotherapy, radiation surgery, and then long term drug therapy. I was 39 and didn't have children yet, so I just sat there and sat on this. My whole career has been on Wall Street so I did have money saved, and I could afford to freeze my eggs. But I just kept coming back to these young women who maybe they were just coming out of school and had a bunch of student loan debt or decided to pursue their passion in the arts sort of become a teacher or a nurse, --  how are they supposed to come up with this money. This is just so wrong. So I wanted to figure out a constructive way to heal myself and to pay it forward. 

Chick Mission was born in the doctor's waiting room. My mom, who was my wingman throughout cancer treatment is sitting there and she's a retired project manager in total badass and my inspiration, and I kind of turned her and said, “Mom, I want to do this.” And she's like “I'm in…let's take some control back.” 

Talia: So today Chick Mission’s activities fall into three sort of buckets. 1. Fundraising 2. Advocacy and 3. Education. Through fundraising, you are able to provide grants to women who are undergoing egg or embryo freezing cycles before they begin those fertility threatening cancer treatments. You travel from state to state petitioning state governments to demand that insurance providers cover fertility preservation, and you educate women so that they're informed about the reproductive risks and educated about their choices. Now, Tracy, can you talk a little bit about that educational piece? Because I know that you specifically were not educated about fertility options when you were diagnosed with cancer.

Tracy: You know, I've always been someone who doesn't really like to take the first offer. I like to negotiate. I don't like to hear no. And when I was having this problem where I was just bleeding outside of my cycle, I didn't like that doctors were telling me that it's normal. Obviously spotting is a little bit normal, but I got extremely frustrated that medical professionals weren't taking my word about how severe that the bleeding was. It had gone on for probably about two years. I saw my usual OBGYN. I had my annual pap like a Girl Scout once a year, every year, never an issue. I was a newlywed long time in a monogamous relationship. You know, you hear that specifically with certain cancers, they're HPV related or, people who don't get physicals every year are more likely to get cancer -- and early detection is key. But I did all those things. I got physicals, I had annuals, and what ended up happening is I had a very large cervical tumor that originated in my uterus and grew completely through my cervix, before a new OBGYN that I went to basically under duress, as my last doctor told me, a female doctor that I was being hysterical, and a drama queen, as I was discussing the level of my bleeding. You know how it is with girls, I'm texting with one of my best friends in real time what was happening, and she called her OBGYN and said, “you have an appointment at two o'clock… go.” So I went, she did a very quick examination, took a little biopsy of what she thought was a polyp, and it was a glandular cancer had nothing to do with anything other than just being hit by cancer lightning. And from there, you know, this is kind of embarrassing, but I was 30 years old – you understand from health class what the cervix is, but you don't really know, and I'm very educated and knew a lot about the body. But what I remember thinking in the waiting room, as soon as I heard the words you have cancer was, can I get pregnant right now have a baby and deal with cancer on the other side. And the new OBGYN just shook her head at me very sadly and told me, you can't do that. So I'm now scheduled for a radical hysterectomy to happen first thing in the New Year 2010, and I was talking to one of my girlfriends, and she said, “are you going to freeze your eggs?” And I was like, “I'll do that after….” And they said, “I'm not really sure that's how it works.” So, you know, we joke about surgeons, surgeon’s job is to chop, chop, chop, cut out your tumor and save your life, they don't necessarily think about the quality of the life that will be led and hopefully, many, many decades and a happy, healthy, cancer free future. But it was the surgeon who finally said, “hey, did someone ever talk to you about freezing your eggs?” And I said, “No…do I need to do that now?” And he was like, “yeah.” So they pushed my surgery a couple of weeks. I met with reproductive endocrinologist and I had 22 viable eggs from one round. I had the hysterectomy, lumpectomy and a transposition of my ovaries to prepare myself for radiation.  

What I really came away feeling very strongly about is that fertility preservation should just be on the checklist that they hand to brand new female cancer patients: you have a biopsy to find out what kind of disease you have, you have an MRI, you have a CAT scan, you should then have a consultation with a fertility preservation counselor or nurse or directly to the doctor --  just so you can kind of take control back of your body. Because cancer can make a lot of choices for you if you don't advocate for yourself.

Talia: Well, what I find so scary about your story is that you voice to that first doctor that you spoke to “well, can I have children now.” And you would have thought that at that point, it would have started that conversation about your fertility and your options. It makes you wonder how many other doctors are not sharing that information with the patient.

Tracy: I think at the day one of my cancer journey, the OBGYN who discovered my tumor didn't mention fertility preservation, because I'm reasonably sure she was waiting to see how advanced my disease was. It potentially could have been fixed with outpatient procedure and I would have been able to, you know, preserve my fertility or continued to have children. The thing that I find most shocking is that 50% of physicians don't even bring this up to their patients, partially because they think it's too cost prohibitive; wometimes they think that you don't have time, like Amanda mentioned earlier in this interview, you generally have to three weeks maybe before you have to start your life saving treatment; and as we talked about, old school physicians are very concentrated on saving your life, they're less worried about what your life looks like after the fact, which is one of the reasons we want to educate women, not just cancer patients, but all women about what treatment does to the reproductive system, and how to kind of stay ahead. As soon as you hear the words you have cancer, I want someone to be able to know -- oh, I should look into this. And especially given it's been over 10 years, since I had cancer, I think there's more common conversation around all kinds of fertility, and everyone knows someone who's either struggled with IVF or gone through this kind of situation with cancer, so it's a little less rare. Maybe that's just in New York circles, which is why we try really hard at the Chick Mission to just continue educating women about their own bodies, so they're in charge and the disease is not.

Talia: So you guys travel all over to spread this message. And you're currently down in Texas, what's going on down there?

Amanda: So we are down here to basically support and spread the word about some advocacy efforts here. Obviously, Texas is a very populated state, and there was a bill introduced by a representative down here from Fort Worth, who is a cancer survivor. And this bill is similar to the bill that was passed in New York and New Jersey and California, which mandate that insurance companies start covering fertility preservation for illness whose treatment will lead to infertility. So whether it's cancer, sickle cell, gender reassignment… there's a lot of stuff that it covers, but I think cancer is the disease that most people are familiar with.

Talia: Would it cover the whole treatment?

Amanda: this would cover the entire preservation cycle.

Talia: but not storage?  

Amanda: It depends on the state. New York State does cover storage.

Talia: Well, I know that many of our listeners would love to help you with this work. So many of us have family or friends, or maybe we ourselves have suffered or are currently suffering from infertility, or various cancers, and so this really touches so many people. It's fortuitous that this coming Sunday, April 18, marks the start of national infertility Awareness Week. So Amanda, and Tracy, what are some ways that we can all get involved both this coming week and beyond?

Tracy: so many ways. Now, the easiest way, of course, is going to our website, www.thechick mission.org., donating dollars, big dollar, small, all are appreciated. And something else we feel very passionately about is continuing the conversation. So there will be social media campaigns this entire week, sharing stories of patients -- survivors, and we would love for anyone to join in the discussion with their own stories. Cancer survivors.. anyone who suffers from infertility -- just so women know that they're not alone.  

Amanda: There's also ways in the months ahead -- the great egg freeze was a roaring success. Last year, even during a global pandemic, people did virtual polar bear plunge. People dipped their dogs in the water, poured water over their kids heads in the bathtub, came to a socially distant hub party in Long Island and New Jersey and Michigan and now Texas. And we'll be doing it again out in East Hampton over the summer and  in Michigan in the fall, and probably Denver and California.

Tracy: We're so excited. So if the world permits, and it's a safe thing to do, we will have our third which would have been our fourth annual gala in New York City on October 14th. We've had really incredible women who have dedicated their baby showers, their wedding showers, and of course their birthday fundraisers to the Chick Mission, and in lieu of gifts, they raise money for women and the HOPE Scholarship grant program, which is a really, really beautiful way to say I stand with women, I am a woman who supports other women, and I care about this community and I want there to be hope for life after a cancer battle.