Maggie McKay (Host): Welcome to Time to Talk Fertility: Beyond the Lab Coat, a podcast from Fertility Centers of Illinois. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Join us as we go behind the scenes with Dr. Christopher Sipe, reproductive endocrinologist, to discover what inspires his work, how he connects with patients, and what drives his passion for helping families grow. Real stories, real purpose, real care.

Thank for being here, Dr. Sipe. Would you please share your full name and credentials?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Maggie. My name is Dr. Christopher Sipe. I'm a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist at Fertility Centers of Illinois, as well as a board certified OB-GYN. I'm also the President of Fertility Centers of Illinois. And one of the US fertility board members.

Host: Wow, your plate is full. What inspired you to pursue medicine, specifically reproductive endocrinology?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. So, I actually had no one in medicine in the family. And so, when I went to college, I started majoring in business, and then discovered I didn't like business. And so, you know, I wanted to find ways that I could help people give back to community and really challenge myself, and that's where I found my love of medicine. And so, although it took me a few years to pivot and change majors in careers, I've never looked back and I've loved doing infertility when I was a resident at Northwestern University, no one really talked much about fertility. IVF was sort of a newer technology at the time, and it's been fantastic being a reproductive endocrinologist, as our field has grown and developed and new techniques and new technologies have come to help our patients.

Host: What do you find most rewarding about your work?

Dr. Chris Sipe: I think just the opportunity to help people. Obviously, when you help someone have a baby and get pregnant, that's the most rewarding part. But getting to know patients, getting to know, you know, what drives them, what you need to help them through in addition to their fertility journey. I'm not a person who enjoys doing something. I want get to know the person. I want to get to know the process. I want to understand more and share that knowledge with my patients.

Host: Is there a particular moment that reaffirmed why you chose this field?

Dr. Chris Sipe: I think one of the more serious things is we can't help everybody. We know that. I think patients deep down under sort of know that too, that there's going to be times that we just can't overcome whatever medical ailment is preventing them from getting pregnant. So, one of the more rewarding things is when you know you've tried your best, when you've done all sorts of different techniques and protocols and medicines for a couple. It's unsuccessful. I've had a bunch of patients who send me thank you letters for the efforts, for trying for always keeping them informed and up to date with new ideas and new technologies. And so, even though they didn't have the success that any of us wanted, just the fact that they were so thankful that we tried for them and tried everything we could and went outside the normal standard of care boxes. That's one of the most rewarding things for me to hear.

Host: How do you hope to make a difference in your patient's lives?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, I have four young children. Actually, I guess they're not young anymore. And my wife was one of four. My mom was one of four. So, we've always had big family around us. So, family has always been really important to me. And with modern times now with people not having kids till later, it's a lot harder for them to have kids. And so, I know how important family is to me. And I really want to give them that gift to have a family of their own. So, that's really what drives me every day.

Host: That is the best gift you could give anybody if you ask me. What drives your passion for helping individuals and families on their journey to parenthood?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. Their jounrey to parenthood, it's not easy. And what I found over 20 years of practicing is that patients are always going to be their best advocates. Sometimes they're their worst advocates because they go overboard, but they're usually trying to do everything they can in their power to achieve their goal of becoming parents. And so, one of the things I have found is to empower them, give them information, tell them to do some research on their own. Help them understand the labs and the tests that we're ordering. Why we're ordering them, what it means, how all the labs come together, how the different causes of infertility come together.

And then, I think a key part of it is managing their expectations. Everyone walks in expecting a hundred percent pregnancy rate. And the reality is we can't give them that as much as we'd like to. So, one of the most important things to say, "Hey, here is your problem. Here's a couple of solutions we have to that problem and here's the expected pregnancy rate associated with those different treatments, and here's what we expect the cost to be." So, really helping them know and understand their problem and then understand the treatment and probabilities I think is a really important thing for couples and for people trying to have families.

Host: Right. And you touched on this already, but is there anything else you'd like to add, Dr. Sipe, about how you would describe your approach to patient care?

Dr. Chris Sipe: It's a very personable approach. Patient care, none of us are the same. We're all different. It becomes very important that you try to tailor your treatment to the couple in front of you. Everyone's going to come in with a different problem for fertility, some will have multiple problems. So, you really need to be able to give them a very patient specific treatment plan. In addition, you deal with a lot of different personalities. Some people are really chill, some people are highly anxious, some people are engineers and want to know every little detail. So, you have to really tailor your conversation and even your language to the couple and the patient in front of you.

Host: So, you tailor it to the person, and that's why it's important to get to know them, right? What's most important to you when you're guiding a patient through treatment?

Dr. Chris Sipe: I want them to understand a bit about what the problem is. And then, I want them to understand that there's multiple solutions. Some are better than others, but there's always options. And then, I want them to understand if protocol one doesn't work, there's protocol two. If treatment one doesn't work, there's treatment two, there's treatment three, there's treatment four. So, that each time we do some type of a treatment or protocol with them, we learn things about them. They learn things about themselves. And so, we react to that and can change the protocols moving forward to try and tailor it even more to their individuality.

Host: How do you help patients feel supported and empowered throughout their journey? Because it's got to be a long emotional journey I would imagine.

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. So, helping patients in their journey, which is definitely emotional, is really critical. If a patient's going through this blind, they're not going to know what they're supposed to be doing. They're not going to understand why they're doing it. They're not going to understand the importance of this medication over that medication. And so, really, informing them as much as you can. You know, the internet has a ton of information on it. Unfortunately, depending upon which Google search you do or which AI bot you're working with, it can lead you down some rabbit holes that may not apply to you. And so, it's really important to show them what their issue is, how you can help them, moving forward with these different things. It's always good when they've done their own research, because you can go over, "Hey, you know, that is something that we do for this circumstance, but that's not your circumstance."

Host: Dr. Sipe, how do you balance science, technology and empathy in your work?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. It's very important that we balance science, technology, and empathy. I think any good doctor should show empathy, should feel empathy for their patients. every doctor should have access to science and technology. And so, the balance, I don't consider it a balance. Really, they're two separate issues and you do them at the same time.

One of the things at Fertility San of Illinois that we are very key on is trying new technologies, trying new protocols, trying new medications, doing research into various different forms of treatment to see which one is better for this patient population versus that patient population.

And all during that, as long as you are getting to know your patient, you know, watching their emotions, trying to help identify when they're more anxious than others, or when they're more depressed, or when they're more frustrated. I think that's a key element of just being a good person and a good listener.

Host: What are your special areas of clinical interest and what draws you to them?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, some of the areas that I think that I specialize in is polycystic ovary syndrome. That's a condition characterized by women who have irregular menstrual cycles. They tend to have excess follicles on ovaries, and they tend to be medically a little bit more fragile patients. So, you have to really be able to balance getting their bodies to respond in a good way, but not overrespond.

One of the other areas is male factor infertility. So very frequently most couples come in and they just assume it's the woman's problem, right? In fact, I think most women blame themselves if they don't get pregnant. And that's not the case. And at least a third to half of the patients that we take care of. So, really male factor infertility becomes an important part of the journey. I will tell you, talking to thousands of husbands. A lot of times they don't feel empowered to do anything. Their wives are doing all the medications, they're doing the shots, they're doing the ultrasounds, they're having the procedures, and the guys are just sort of sitting off to the side getting ready to produce a sperm sample on demand.

So, it's really important to get them involved in the process. I always ask both the husband and wife or both parties of the couple to be present so that they can be working together, they can support each other. And I always tell the husbands, like, really one of your main jobs is the emotional support and to be a good sounding board for your partner.

Host: That is so true and so wise. Oh my gosh. Well, I know you talked a little bit about where you went to school, but where did you complete your medical education, your residency, your fellowship training?

Dr. Chris Sipe: For my medical training, I was blessed to be able to go to Vanderbilt University Medical Center that gave me a fantastic foundation in medicine. I did my OB-GYN residency at Northwestern here in Chicago. And then, I did my infertility fellowship at the University of Iowa, which was a fantastic fellowship program with excellent role models. And then, when I left Fellowship, I joined Fertility Centers of Illinois, and I have been here ever since. And although it's not a part of my core curriculum for my education, we definitely learn things every day that we're doing this.

Host: Was there something you learned along the way that continues to shape your approach today?

Dr. Chris Sipe: One of the things that I learned during my training, especially at the University of Iowa, was communicating with patients what all of their options are empowering patients to make decisions. That requires that you give them the knowledge to be able to make an informed decision. So, that goes back to the communication point, sort of brought up in the earlier part of our conversation. I found that patients really appreciate that empowerment, and they really appreciate being involved in decision-making process.

Host: We talked a little bit earlier about how far reproductive medicine has come. What excites you most about the future?

Dr. Chris Sipe: The field of reproductive medicine has come really far over the 20 plus years I've been doing this. When I first started, we didn't have half of the medications that we do now. In fact, some of them have changed to a different formulation. The technologies are very different. We were not doing genetic testing of embryos back in the early 2000s. if you did, it was under more of an experimental program. And the fact that now we're able to have people get pregnant with healthier embryos that lead to less miscarriage, less pregnancy loss, less lack of pregnancy, is really helping patients have some comfort going forward knowing, "Hey, the pregnancy rates are going to be really good since we've done it this way, as opposed to the old-fashioned way."

Host: What accomplishment in your practice or your career are you most proud of?

Dr. Chris Sipe: The accomplishment in my career that I'm most proud of is the sheer number of people that I've been able to help. December is one of my favorite times of year, because a lot of my patients will send me their family holiday cards, and there are people that I'm getting cards from that I, you know, took care of 20 years ago that now have kids in college. There are people they've taken care of who have like five kids in the last 15 years. And it's wonderful to see these families grow. Because, as I said earlier, that is my goal is to help these people have their families and to be able to be sharing with their family as they grow and experience things and see what their kids are doing and what their kids are studying and seeing how they look like their parents. That is one of the most rewarding things that I can think of. I mean, it's great to get those letters.

Host: Do you speak any additional languages?

Dr. Chris Sipe: yes. I grew up having some family in Mexico. So, I would go down to Mexico on almost a yearly basis for one to four weeks every year. So, I am pretty fluent in Spanish.

Host: Can you share a simple grading or a phrase in Spanish?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yes, I can share a simple greeting in Spanish. [speaking in Spanish].

Host: Impressive. What did you say?

Dr. Chris Sipe: "Hi. My name is Dr. Christopher Sipe. I am excited to help you with starting your family."

Host: Dr. Sipe, what do your patients often say they appreciate most about working with you?

Dr. Chris Sipe: I think my patients would universally agree that one of the things that I do is I'm, very straightforward. I break things down to their very basic core. And I literally will tell them if this is going to be hard or this is going to be easy. I don't think sugarcoating things is helpful for patients. So, I'm very direct and a very honest, straight shooter.

Host: What advice do you often share with patients who are feeling anxious or discouraged? Because that's got to be a big part of it.

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, the advice that I give patients who are anxious and discouraged is to try to relax. Now, you tell someone who's stressed that they need to relax. They get more stressed trying to relax. So, that doesn't work very well. But what I find is there's usually a lot of strain in the relationship. The woman's ovulating. She's like, "I need to have sex right now." Like, the whole concept of sex is now gone, because it's not the fun sex that you used to think of. Now, it's reproductive sex, which is just get it done. No foreplay, everything's not fun the relationship out.

And so, when patients come in, I tell them, stop peeing on a stick. Stop trying to identify the exact day that you're ovulating. Cave men were having babies before we were peeing on sticks, okay? And so, I tell them, "Go back to have fun sex again. Try to have sex a couple times a week. Normally, if it's around ovulation. Try to average sexual intercourse every two days. If you're not in the mood, when you guys come home from work, because you're really stressed, don't force it, just think about doing it the next day."

So, I find that that really helps couples. And in fact, when I looked a couple years ago, about 2% to 3% of my patients would end up getting pregnant before we do any testing or treatment. And I think it was just empowering them to stop hyper-focusing on every little aspect of their fertility journey and their bodies.

Host: What message of encouragement would you share with those who are still hoping to build their family?

Dr. Chris Sipe: Yeah. So, the message I think that's most important for people trying to build a family is don't give up. There's going to be times this is going to seem hopeless. Your doctor should tell you what your chances are. Your doctor should tell you, "Hey, we've done X, Y, Z. It's not going to work." But most of the time, your doctor is trying to find other ways to get your body to do something to arrive at that goal of having kids.

So where people get really tired and frustrated. I have told multiple patients, go take a vacation. Go out and have a couple glasses of wine. Go out and get drunk if you want to. Start exercising for a month, give yourself time away from this. It goes back to that. Relax, relax, relax, work off the anxiety. Because what we do is not easy. The patients are in our offices. We're poking and prodding them every day. It stresses them out. It stresses their workup because they're missing work. So, anyway, they're not allowed to go out of town for a lot of these things. Are they missing work meetings, missing family things? So really, trying to take some of those stressful things away is key.

Host: And what's one lesson your patients have taught you?

Dr. Chris Sipe: One of the many things my patients have taught me is that listening is key. There are many times when we see a patient, we hear a story and we start thinking, "Oh, I know this story. I've seen this before. But you have to remember that everybody in front of you is different. So, you have to make sure that their story may be similar to someone else's, but recognize what parts of it are different so that you can change their treatment to accommodate what their special needs are.

Host: And outside of medicine, what brings you balance?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, I have a bit of a creative side. It's more in the kitchen. And so, I figured if we've got good recipes to make babies, I should be able to have some good recipes to feed my family. And so, I love cooking. I love creating, I love experimenting with recipes. I love trying new things.

My kids, I think I've experimented them quite a lot. I'd like to think that their breadth of food they've had over their lives is wider than some of their friends. But I think they've learned pretty quickly what they like and don't like, because I've given them all sorts of different foods and different flavors, prepped in different ways.

Host: What's something people might be surprised to learn about you that most people don't know?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, most people don't know me as a family man I always seem like I'm working a lot. cause I am at the office a lot, especially with the different hats I wear for FCI. And so, they don't know me as much as a family man. As I said earlier, that's the goal for me is to help these people have a, you know, a family as wonderful as mine. So, just the family is the key thing. And then, it always throws people when they say, Oh, what are you doing this week? And I say, "I'm going to go fishing or I'm going to go gardening." I'm a very outdoorsy person. I grew up with a family who liked to go camping, who liked to go on adventures in Canada, who liked to go out west to go hiking and skiing, and a variety of other outdoor activities.

And so, I'm blessed to have a brother who is a fly fishing guide out of Idaho and Jackson Hole area. So whenever I get the opportunity to try and go hang out with him and go fishing and get back to nature. I find it really relaxing to do that. My patients aren't happy when I disappear for four or five days, but it's important for my mental health and I will help them better when I am mentally relaxed as well.

Host: Absolutely. What three words best describe you?

Dr. Chris Sipe: The three words that best describe me, one of my doctors in med school used the word ebullient, which is sort of like happily energetic. I think that's appropriate. I think another word that would describe me well is I'm very friendly and open so that people feel comfortable telling me things. We get into a lot of really sensitive conversations during our talks. And I always feel good when people are willing to tell me these things because it means that they feel comfortable around me.

I think another characteristic that defines me is I'm very thorough. I want know as much as I can, I want to make sure that we're not just treating, you know, the egg or the sperm that we're treating the person. We're not just treating like the lack of ovulation, but we're treating the woman who's going to be carrying the pregnancy so that she is as healthy as she can be. So, a lot of my patients will know that I spend a lot of time going over their health and trying to explain to them, "Hey, I want you to do this for the next month before we start a treatment, because that's going to give you a better chance of making it to term with a less complications in your pregnancy."

Host: So, what show is your guilty pleasure? The one you can watch over and over and over.

Dr. Chris Sipe: I had have to say probably Yellowstone. Obviously, I got into that during the pandemic, when, you know, my wife and kids and I were sort of stuck at home and I was doing telemedicine. And just the concept of Yellowstone to me is about a family. And it's not just a family right then and there. It's a family of generations of having land and taking care of the land and working and fighting against the people around who are trying to disrupt their family and disrupt their land. So, Yellowstone is probably one of my favorite shows of all time. There were two other ones. I think one was 1923 and one was like 1888 or something. Those were great because it gave such wonderful background story. And it helped you carry that whole family of generations. I mean that was really good.

And about the same time, my other favorite TV show was Ted Lasso. He's a goofy guy. Ironically, when my wife was in nursing school, she worked at a store with Jason Sudeikis, I think it was a Banana Republic. So, they worked together for, you know, a good six months when he was, I think, in Chicago when looking at Second City or starting his career. And Ted Lasso, I found it so enlightening how positive he always was. When people were sad, he had a positive way to bring them back. He really helped people in the show, and I really think people who watch the show see things in a very different perspective. It's one of the most positive shows out there in a world where there's a lot of negativity. I found Ted Lasso to be an uplifting show that almost every time I watched, it made me feel good.

Host: Well, you've totally sold me because I only watched one or two and then I kind of forgot to go back to it, but now I will. What was your first job?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, my first job, I guess if we're not talking summer jobs, was a waiter because I made the decision to go from business to medical school and I had to do all the pre-reqs. But I didn't want to spend, you know, an extra two years in college. So, I was taking classes after college and I needed a job to supplement me. So, I was a waiter at a restaurant in Nashville called Houstons. I it was a great place, and, and it taught me a lot.

Being a waiter, a bartender, doing, things like that where you're, doing service for somebody, I really think helped me, make me a better doctor because I learned how to interact with all these different personalities, with older couples, younger couples, business dinners, kid dinners, lunches. So, I really learned how to interact with a variety of different people. And so, I really think that helped me sort of moving forward and, really helps me to this day in my career. I was a waiter part-time for almost two years.

Host: I think it is so important no matter what your career ends up being, that at some point in your life you have at least one job that deals with the public because of what you're saying. You have to learn how to get along with all different kinds of people. So, I think you're totally right. what's on your perfect slice of pizza?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, as I said earlier, I like to cook. And so, we actually have a pizza oven at our house. Before pizza ovens became readily available, we've had one for about 10 years. I make all sorts of different pizzas. A lot of it depends upon what mood I'm in. My kids all want a pepperoni pizza or my son wants a bacon pizza.

I like some meat pizzas. And so, I will put meatballs, homemade meatballs. I'll put some spicy Italian sausage, some pepperoni on there, as well as some thick sliced bacon that's been precooked. So, you get a really good meaty bite. But I also make dessert pizzas where I will use chocolate chips, little mini marshmallows. And then, I crumble graham crackers on top and I bake that. And then, I fold it over, sort of like a calzone. And the kids love that. It's like a little smores pizza. They have a good time with that.

Host: I bet their friends love coming to eat at your house.

Dr. Chris Sipe: They do because of the pizza oven. It's not uncommon for us to just tell the kids invite your friends over and I'll make 10 pizzas that night and just keep putting them out on the countertop. Kids will eat it and then next time you all make another pizza. And it's a very happy household. You know, kids are happy when they're being fed.

Host: Yeah. Yep. It's the truth. how do you take your coffee?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So, I'm not a coffee drinker. I have enough energy that I probably don't need much caffeine. But at some point, I did get into tea. I found tea to be a relaxing sort of a hobby. And so, I generally will try and have either a green jasmine tea or a vanilla coconut black tea. Usually, I like it in a warm cup. And I ideally like to sit outside. But if it's snowing and things, I might go outside and let the dogs out, but then very quickly come back in.

Host: What should patients look for when they're choosing a fertility clinic?

Dr. Chris Sipe: So when patients are looking to pick a fertility clinic, I think one of the most important things that they should do is talk to their friends, see what kind of experience they had, if they've gone to fertility. Unfortunately, because the average age of a fertility patient is now 37, 38, a lot of your friends will have gone or met with a fertility clinic at some point.

For people who are in a small town where there's only one fertility clinic in, you know, a hundred mile range, you don't get much of an option. But for places like in Chicago, you want to go to a place that's got a good reputation for good outcomes, it's sometimes a little hard to figure out what those are. In general, most of the OB-GYNs who you know, you may be working with, they have a pretty good feel about who's doing well and who's not doing well. There are some published data about pregnancy rates. But the way that the SART database now, it's very hard to navigate through there and it's very hard to compare clinic to clinic.

you want to make sure that the doctor you're working with, you're comfortable with. And so, it's okay if you meet with a doctor and you don't feel comfortable with that person to go pick a different doctor. It could be at the same clinic, it could be a different clinic. You're not always going to blend with the person that you want to work with. And then there's some doctors, you know, that are good, tacticians and good surgically, but may not have the world's greatest personality. You just have to decide what's important for you.

Host: in closing, what sets Fertility Centers of Illinois apart from other fertility clinics?

Dr. Chris Sipe: A couple of things that sets FCI apart from other fertility clinics Is our breadth of experience. We had the very first doctor that did IVF successfully in the state of Illinois back in the '80s as one of our founding partners. We've had multiple labs that we've worked with, so we've gained lots of experience from different laboratories.

We have people internationally that are with us, training internationally, bringing different experiences from both the Americas and Europe. We have a fantastic collaboration effort between our doctors, urologists, geneticists, psychologists, financial folks. FCI is a big believer in doing research.

We do publish a fair amount, but we do a lot more internal research to know which protocols work better for which populations. And when you're a larger practice, you can do those research practice because when you're doing 3,000 to 4,000 IVF cycles a year, when you do something, you can see a difference there. If you're doing 200 to 300 IVF cycles a year, it's going to take a while for you to be able to detect a difference in those pregnancy rates and you may not be able to break it into subgroups to determine what helps other people.

Host: Well, thank you so much for being here today. It's been a pleasure getting to know you.

Dr. Chris Sipe: Thank you very much, Maggie. I've really appreciated the opportunity and all that you're doing to help raise awareness for fertility and getting everything out there.

Host: Absolutely. Again, that's Dr. Christopher Sipe. If you'd like to find Dr. Sipe, please visit fcionline.com/doctors. I'm Maggie McKay. Thanks for listening to Time to Talk Fertility Beyond the Lab Coat, a podcast from Fertility Centers of Illinois.