It was a cold January day in Manhattan when Maddie Tullo walked into Dr. Stephanie Brownridge’s office at Mount Sinai for the first time. Another clinic. Another doctor. More unanswered questions. It had only been a week since her second miscarriage, and she was feeling nervous, discouraged, and sad.

• Plans Gone Awry
• Maddie and Dominick got married four years ago, and soon afterwards started talking about building a family. They were thrilled when Maddie got pregnant. They were going to have a baby! But the pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and it left Maddie feeling devastated and shocked. “I just didn’t expect that at all. I had no idea there would be any issues.” Maddie and Dominick met with a fertility endocrinologist, and did some testing and genetic counseling. But before they went too far down the fertility treatment path, they decided to try again to conceive naturally. Again, Maddie got pregnant, and this time the pregnancy lasted longer. But once again it ended in miscarriage and left her reeling. “I was feeling all kinds of doubt and fear at that point,” she recalls. “I was starting to wonder, are we ever going to be able to have a child?”

• Second Opinion, Please
• Maddie wanted to see a different fertility endocrinologist. Nothing specific had gone wrong with the doctor she was seeing, but she felt frustrated by some questions she hadn’t been able to get answered. And she definitely did not want to repeat the miscarriage experience a third time. However, the prospect of choosing a fertility clinic seemed overwhelming. “I started doing some research but there are just so many fertility clinics in New York City. It was hard to know where to go or how to make a decision. I didn’t know anyone at the time who had gone through IVF, so I didn’t have anyone to ask for recommendations. I had no idea where to go. I was pretty lost.”

• An Advocate Comes Along
• When Maddie shared with her parents, Michael and Patty Heaney, what was going on, they immediately thought of Healthnetwork Foundation. We first learned about this incredible organization six or seven years ago, and we jumped at the chance to be involved,” says Michael. “We didn’t have any needs at the time, but you never know when life’s going to throw you a curve ball and you might need this network of talented doctors.” Now, the curveball had been thrown—at Michael’s daughter. He reached out to Healthnetwork and Maddie was connected with a medical coordinator who referred her to Dr. Brownridge at Mount Sinai. “The speed of their response is impressive,” says Michael. “Even more impressive is the incredible talent you end up dealing with.” Maddie adds, “When you’re in the infertility trenches, the amount of time you spend just waiting is brutal. To get a recommended vetted doctor in less than a week really meant a lot to us at that time.”

• A Glimmer of Hope
• By the time Maddie walked out of Dr.Brownridge’s office on that cold winter day, there were new emotions brewing. “I left feeling cautiously optimistic, empowered, and hopeful!” she wrote in a journal note on her phone after the appointment. “Dr. Brownridge was so personable and easy to connect with. I was in a bad place then, and she made me feel so supported. She told me, ‘We’re going to figure this out. We will get you to have a baby.’ She made me feel hopeful for the first time.” Maddie thought she’d already been through a lot of testing, and she had. But it was nothing compared to Dr. Brownridge’s regiment. “She was so detail oriented. She wanted to test everything before we tried to get pregnant again.” Maddie trusted her new doctor and agreed to everything. Just four months later, in May 2024, Maddie had happy news to share with her parents.

• It’s a Boy!
• Maddie will always remember the moment she got the phone call from Dr. Brownridge. “I was at my parents’ beach house and I went upstairs with the phone to the playroom where my nieces and nephews hang out, and I laid down on the floor to take the call. She told me I was pregnant! I immediately called Dominick at work, and then I went downstairs and told my parents. I was excited and relieved and so happy, but also still nervous. We knew we had a healthy embryo implanted, but still you never know.” Maddie continued seeing Dr. Brownridge for ten weeks before she “graduated” and was able to just see her regular OB at home. “IVF takes a lot of the surprise out of pregnancy, so we opted to let the doctor decide the gender,” she says. “In August, once we were released from the endocrinologist, we did a little gender reveal party on the beach with our family and that’s when we found out we were having a boy.”

• Grateful
• Cooper Michael Tullo was born healthy on February 2, 2025. “This is not how I ever would have predicted my family would grow. But I’m grateful. If we didn’t go through everything we went through, we wouldn’t have Cooper today,” says Maddie. “We all love Cooper so much and can’t imagine life without him,” adds Michael. “We feel so incredibly fortunate to have access to Healthnetwork and the talented group of specialists. This was the first big thing our family used Healthnetwork for, and it has changed Maddie and Dominick’s life. It’s a miracle all the way around.”

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