The INCIID (inside) Story: The Birth of INCIID
About INCIID
The InterNational Council on Infertility Information Dissemination
“I want to look into a tiny face that looks lovingly back. Can someone out there help me?”
— Nancy Hemenway, INCIID Co-Founder, 1994
Where It All Began
In 1991, Nancy Hemenway sat down at her computer after her first ten-week pregnancy loss and typed those words into a fertility support bulletin board. She had no way of knowing that simple act of reaching out would eventually become one of the internet’s most trusted health communities — a lifeline for millions of people navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption.
The response was immediate. Dozens of people answered. One woman with a similar story led Nancy to a reproductive immunologist who discovered she had antibodies preventing an embryo from attaching to the uterine wall. A treatment was found. Hope was restored.
That is what INCIID has always been: not just information, but connection. Not just answers, but hope.
Founded from Experience, Not Theory
INCIID was not built by marketers or technologists. It was built by patients for patients.
Nancy Hemenway, Theresa Grant, and Linda Davies — the three co-founders — had collectively endured 16 years of infertility and 12 pregnancy losses between them. They understood at the deepest level what people in reproductive crisis needed: accurate information from real medical experts, a compassionate peer community free of misinformation, and a safe space to grieve, hope, and heal.
What makes this founding story even more remarkable is that Nancy, Terry and Linda had never met in person. They found each other on AOL’s early online forums — in the days long before Zoom, webinars, or video calls existed. Three women in three different states — Texas, Arizona, and Virginia — across three time zones, connected by nothing more than words on a screen and a shared determination to help others. They spent hours on the phone, sight unseen, turning grief into purpose.
When it came time to formalize the organization, Nancy’s husband’s former housemate — a nonprofit attorney — Sandy Pfau Englund, volunteered her services and assembled all the legal paperwork as a personal favor. INCIID was built on exactly the kind of generosity and human connection it would go on to provide for millions of others.
During National Infertility Awareness Week in October 1994, the three women held their first telephone conference. By February 1995, INCIID held its first formal board meeting. In March 1995, INCIID’s website launched — becoming the internet’s first nonprofit site dedicated to advocacy for those experiencing reproductive failure.
And then — as if the universe itself was marking the occasion — all three founders became pregnant within days of INCIID’s launch, and delivered their babies the following summer.
Linda Davies departed from INCIID in 1998, and Theresa Grant in 2000. From that point forward, Nancy Hemenway led INCIID as its sole Executive Director — growing the organization, expanding the expert advisory board to 25 internationally-renowned specialists, and launching the From INCIID the Heart scholarship program to ensure that financial barriers never stood between patients and the care they needed.
The scholarship program was made possible in part by Linda Lacey, whose dedication to INCIID’s mission over seven to eight years was nothing short of extraordinary. Linda would sit with the applications — tears streaming down her face — moved by the heartfelt letters of gratitude and hope that arrived from families whose lives had been changed. She didn’t just help keep the program running; she understood, deeply and personally, what every single letter meant. INCIID lost Linda to cancer, and she is missed every day. Her compassion is woven into everything the scholarship program represents.
What Made INCIID Different
From the beginning, INCIID operated on a principle that sounds simple but is remarkably rare: truth matters, especially when someone is vulnerable.
INCIID pioneered a dual-forum structure that has never been replicated at scale. Expert forums gave consumers direct access to internationally-renowned reproductive endocrinologists, OB/GYNs, counselors, and specialists — with no noise, no misinformation, only verified expert answers. Parallel peer support forums gave community members a safe space to support one another, with strict moderation preventing the spread of dangerous medical myths.
INCIID’s advisory board grew to include 25 internationally-renowned fertility experts. The forums grew to serve millions of consumers annually. At its peak, INCIID received over 10 million page views a month — not because of algorithms, but because people trusted what they found here.
Why INCIID Is More Important Than Ever
The rise of social media promised community but too often delivered chaos. Platforms optimized for engagement over accuracy allowed health misinformation to flourish in the spaces where vulnerable people were most likely to look for help. For communities dealing with infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption — among the most emotionally charged experiences a person can face — the consequences of misinformation are not abstract. They are deeply personal.
INCIID never compromised on that. And now, as people increasingly seek alternatives to algorithm-driven platforms, INCIID’s founding values are exactly what the moment demands: expert-verified information, compassionate peer support, civil discourse grounded in evidence, and an unwavering commitment to the people we serve.
The forums are returning. The experts are returning. The community is returning.
INCIID has always been inside the journey with you. We still are.
INCIID — pronounced “inside” — because we’ve always been there.