Meet J’Keera Stephens, one of our awesome Ovatures coordinators. Donor coordinators are the first line of contact for women considering egg donation and seeking more information.
“Sometimes when a family comes to me, they can feel pretty hopeless,” J’Keera said. “I enjoy being able to provide information and (hopefully) eggs or embryos to help them realize their dream of having a family. It’s the hope being restored and the happiness that these families express that make my job most enjoyable.”
J’Keera, a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserves and former member of the U.S. Army National Guard, has been with Ovatures since 2012 and helps match patients with donor eggs and embryos. She said she’ll never forget the first time she matched a patient with a donor to help the patient grow her family.
“I was nervous and not quite sure how ‘matching’ was supposed to go, but then after a few short months of being the recipient liaison, I made my first suggestion to a recipient with an egg donor profile to consider accepting,” J’Keera said. “That recipient was just as nervous as I was, as she was young and still coming to terms with having to work with an egg donor to create a family. It was also the egg donor’s very first donation cycle, so this was a new experience for all of us. The egg donor turned out to be a rock star, giving her recipient 21 embryos to work with. The recipient now has 3 children (7 year-old-twin girls and a 5-year-old son) and continues to update me yearly on their health and lives. She contacts me throughout the year just to give thanks. She’s the patient that I’ll never forget and her cycle is one experience I’ll always treasure.”
The truth is J’Keera remembers all the courageous women she works with, including one patient who called her Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. She happens to like the comparison, and wishes all her patients – from donors to recipients – the gift of seeing their own opportunity; for donors to give and for recipients to receive.
“You’ve always had the power, my dear,” she recited. “You’ve had it all along. You just had to see it for yourself.”