Lauren Rosenberg faced a heartbreaking challenge as her babies were born too early to survive, putting her own life at risk.

In November 2019, due to a severe pregnancy complication, Rosenberg was moved from Greenwich Hospital to Yale New Haven Hospital.

“I was in critical condition with liver failure,” she recounted.

While grieving her twins, she felt a deep sense of despair. A doctor who aided her recovery specialized in fertility treatments, and at 40, Rosenberg expressed her longing, “I need a plan. This can’t be the end. I just want to be a mom.”

She was informed that she had a 40-60% risk of a severe complication named HELLP syndrome if she became pregnant again, but she could consider IVF and using a gestational carrier. Thus, she was directed to the Yale Fertility Center.

She began her initial round of IVF injections in January 2020.

Patients believed the Yale brand ensured superior care

After her traumatic experience, Rosenberg sought out a leading clinic.

“Assuming that with the Yale name, I would receive exceptional care,” she reflected. “I never doubted they would know how my body was responding or care about my feelings.”

However, her first egg retrieval left her feeling traumatized.

“During an egg retrieval, you’re in stirrups and really exposed,” she described. “They also strap you down, limiting your movement.”

Immediately, she was overcome with intense pain. She began to jerk and was told she needed to remain still.

“My body was shaking on the table, and I noticed the doctor looked frustrated,” recalled Rosenberg. “He raised his hands and said, ‘She has to stay still, or we can’t proceed.’”

In that moment, she reassured herself to “calm down,” feeling responsible for the doctor’s irritation. The nurse advised her to take a deep breath and try again.

“It happened again, and I said, ‘I can feel everything.’” she recounted.

Eventually, more medication was administered, but it was ineffective.

“I asked the nurse, ‘This hurts so much. Is this normal?’” Rosenberg said. “And she replied something like, ‘It’s not like you’re getting a manicure.’”

Despite the nurse and doctor not showing any concern or urgency about her pain, Rosenberg began to normalize her suffering.

“Perhaps this is simply the level of pain that comes with the process. Maybe it’s something I have to endure to become a mother,” she remembered thinking. “Honestly, I was willing to do whatever it took to be a mom.”

What surprised her was how differently she experienced this compared to what others had shared previously. Rosenberg, who saw herself as resilient, felt ashamed afterward for not enduring the pain better.

“I was almost too embarrassed to admit how painful it was,” she stated.

‘It was 45 minutes of living hell and absolute torture’

For Angela Cortese, the neglect began before her first egg retrieval procedure.

In 2017, Cortese and her partner sought to evaluate the fertility options available for having children. During her initial consultation, doctors discovered she had only one fallopian tube and a “unicorn uterus,” meaning her right ovary was not in the typical anatomical location.

In December 2019, she proceeded with her first egg retrieval at the Yale Fertility Center, intending to undergo IVF, with her partner carrying their baby.

As she prepared for the procedure, Cortese experienced a series of uncomfortable appointments where the medical staff struggled to locate her right ovary.

“They kept saying, ‘You can end this anytime you want,’ but that wasn’t true, because you’re on a tight schedule during the appointment. You want to monitor how the follicles are developing,” Cortese explained.

On the day of the egg retrieval, everything seemed to be proceeding as expected—until the actual procedure began. Cortese described it as “45 minutes of living hell and just absolute torture.”

As the nurses, all female, handled each needle insertion, they tried to soothe Cortese, who was shaking on the table.

“But the male doctor at the end of the table said, ‘Do you think you could hold on a little longer?’” recalled Cortese.

She recalls being informed she’d reached the limit of her medication, yet the doctor insisted he could retrieve three more follicles, urging her to endure for the sake of better odds.

Cortese was awake the entire time but was never offered a break. She felt like a burden, forcing herself to endure the pain.

“I was trying to survive,” Cortese shared. “I was trying to figure out how to convince my body to handle the pain because if I couldn’t do it, I was putting my entire family’s future at risk. It was a constant battle between the unbearable pain and the guilt of feeling like it was my fault.”

After the procedure, pain persisted. She worried that her discomfort had affected the success of the retrievals. The doctor prescribed pain medication but never checked in on her afterward.

Cortese’s initial retrieval ended with her wife becoming pregnant, but it sadly resulted in a miscarriage. They then faced the difficult choice of undergoing another retrieval.

While gearing up for the second retrieval, she finally addressed the traumatic experience of the first.

“One of the nurses finally acknowledged, ‘Yeah, it wasn’t a normal amount of pain you experienced,’” Cortese recalled, “But they found ways to rationalize what I felt.”

‘I was literally crying. There were tears coming out.’

Rosenberg’s first egg retrieval resulted in a viable embryo, allowing her to have twin boys. However, it was the only successful embryo from her procedure. Concern about the embryo transfer success rates prompted her to undergo a second retrieval, despite her apprehensions about the pain involved.

During her second retrieval in June 2020, she was sedated and alone due to COVID protocols that made the clinic feel isolating, preventing her partner from accompanying her. Although she felt more anxious, the procedure itself was painless, but she experienced sharp pain afterward. Unlike her previous retrieval, she could not walk and had to be wheeled to her car.

During her third retrieval in August 2020, she was in and out of consciousness.

After these procedures, she attempted to communicate her pain to her doctors but felt ignored.

“The desperation to start a family made me endure it all,” Rosenberg explained. “As I lay there, with the needle going in and out, I was literally crying, and tears were streaming down my face. To have that experience dismissed speaks volumes.”

Cortese’s second retrieval in June 2020 was equally traumatic. Without her wife’s presence in the clinic, her anxiety was heightened.

“There was no recognition of my traumatic experience,” Cortese said. “It felt like, ‘Suck it up, or we can’t proceed.’”

Although she was sedated during the procedure, she woke up to her medical team informing her that she was in distress and had reached the limit of her pain medication. Once they realized she was conscious, they stopped the procedure before retrieving any eggs from her ovaries.

No medical staff checked on her afterward. Instead, she was given pretzels and ginger ale and told she could leave once she had eaten.

As her wife arrived at the front door, Cortese was wheeled to the car, and during her transfer from the wheelchair to the vehicle, a nurse informed her of complications from the procedure.

“She said they had gone through my bladder, which might cause some bleeding,” Cortese recalled. “She wasn’t present in the procedure room, so she couldn’t answer any questions about it.”

Cortese felt like she was a burden, believing she had taken up too much of the doctor’s time.

Her recent retrieval was successful, but due to financial constraints, she opted to proceed with a third retrieval right away—she couldn’t afford to wait in case this pregnancy ended in another miscarriage.

At this juncture, she was frustrated with the inadequate care she received at the clinic. She expressed her dissatisfaction, suggesting they perform an abdominal procedure to alleviate the ongoing difficulty in locating her right ovary. “I was like, I don’t want to keep going through this. Obviously, my body can’t handle it. Just get them out,” Cortese remarked.

As she was wheeled into the procedure room, a severe panic attack overtook her.

“I hadn’t fully grasped the extent of the damage caused by the first two retrievals,” Cortese reflected.

Her second retrieval had resulted in the birth of her son.

A Shocking Revelation in the Mail

In December 2021, a letter arrived for each woman involved. The message from Yale mentioned that they had “learned of an incident that might have impacted your care.”

The clinic revealed that a nurse at the Yale Fertility Center had been substituting fentanyl with saline in “some medication vials.” This could mean that some patients received saline instead of the intended narcotic during their procedures.

“There’s no evidence to suggest that this incident has had any negative impact on your health or the care you received,” the letter stated. “However, we believe it is important for you to be informed.”

Suddenly, everything became clear—the convulsions, the sweat, the tears.

Not only were their experiences valid, but they could have been avoided had the medical staff simply believed the women who were in pain.

Research shows doctors may dismiss women’s pain

Traits typically viewed as “female,” such as vulnerability, dramatization, and emotionality, can lead healthcare providers to believe that women have a lower pain tolerance and may exaggerate their conditions. In fact, providers are more likely to recommend psychological evaluations for women experiencing pain compared to men, while men are more often offered pain relief medications.

A study from 2019 indicated that one in five women felt their symptoms were overlooked or dismissed by a healthcare provider, with 17 percent believing they were treated differently because of their gender, compared to just 6 percent of men.

Throughout her retrievals, all Cortese wanted was for someone to acknowledge her suffering and assist in relieving it. Now, she has lost any trust she once had in doctors. Even after switching to a different fertility center and having a supportive experience, she remains apprehensive.

“You never expect that doctors would overlook suffering or not address it,” she said. “I certainly didn’t anticipate that a nurse would steal fentanyl and leave me in this much pain.”

Rosenberg, who sought care at Yale following a near-fatal experience, was relieved to discover she “wasn’t losing her mind,” but was also horrified and felt violated.

“As soon as I opened the letter, I knew it was about me,” she stated. “It felt like a betrayal.”

A helpline was provided for inquiries, but Rosenberg was too upset to reach out. Instead, her husband called and received no response, as the clinic had sent the letters just before the winter holiday. Eventually, they received a return call a week later. Her husband requested records on which fentanyl vials Rosenberg had received, only to learn from the representative that they “do not keep track of those.”

“I just felt furious that they lacked proper protocols to safeguard their patients,” Rosenberg remarked.

Her trust in medical professionals has dramatically changed since her ordeal, affecting her in all medical settings, not just those related to reproductive or maternal care.

She now takes charge of her healthcare, carefully cross-checking her prescriptions against online images of the medications to ensure she is receiving the correct ones.

“I was forced to plead for medication, to plead not to endure terrible pain,” Rosenberg said. “I enter every situation now wondering if I will be acknowledged.”

And while she is grateful for her twin boys, it frustrates her that she can’t dissociate them from this painful experience. “It saddens me to know that I could have had them without all this suffering,” she shared.

Lawsuit against Yale Fertility Center for drug theft and medical negligence

It came to light that Donna Monitcone, a former nurse responsible for handling controlled substances at the Yale Fertility Center, had been pilfering at least 75 percent of the fentanyl at the clinic, replacing vials with saline solution for a span of at least five months. In November 2020, she disposed of approximately 175 vials of stolen fentanyl in waste containers at the REI clinic.

Monitcone, who battled opioid addiction, pleaded guilty to a federal offense of tampering with a consumer product and surrendered her nursing license in October 2021. She had been using the stolen fentanyl on herself—self-injecting it both at the clinic and at home. In October 2022, Yale agreed to pay a $308,250 settlement to the Department of Justice to settle claims of violating the Controlled Substances Act.

“Yale deeply regrets the distress caused to some patients by the diversion of pain medication meant for procedures,” Yale University expressed in a statement. “After discovering the nurse’s actions, she was dismissed; the university informed law enforcement and patients potentially affected. The Center has also reviewed its procedures and implemented significant oversight changes regarding pain management and controlled substances.”

Together with Rosenberg and Cortese, numerous patients who endured intense pain during their fertility procedures are suing Yale for drug diversion and medical negligence.

“This is a shocking instance of neglect and betrayal by Yale University,” attorney Josh Koskoff stated in a press release from 2023.

These women assert that the distress they faced was easily preventable. There were clear warning signs—but no one paid attention.