Updates

I come from a big family and I have always wanted to be a mother and have children of my own. At 36 I found myself still single, and desperate for a family. Over the years, I have tried everything to meet someone, but haven’t had much luck. I was kind of okay with being single, but I knew I would be heartbroken if I went through life and couldn’t be a mother.

I decided to talk to a fertility expert to find out what my options were. The notebook I took with me to that appointment for writing down notes, is still today, completely covered in tears. I just wanted to be a mother so badly.

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Considering using an egg donor to complete our family was a really big deal for us. It was a bit scary, as this option was unchartered territory. We didn’t know anyone who had been an egg donor and didn’t know the process involved with finding one. We had attempted several rounds of IVF in order to give our daughter a sibling, but had no luck. Attempting another round of IVF using an egg donor was the next step in achieving our dream of completing our family.

We got married when I was 30, and my husband was 37. We had always talked about how much we wanted a family. We were aware that fertility can go downhill quite rapidly after age 30, so we tried to get pregnant straight after our wedding, but after 6 months, hadn’t had any luck.

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I was torn between a career in medicine or in football, but had always been keen to follow my older brother who left home to study medicine nine years earlier than me. It was a good thing that I chose medicine as I wasn’t quite good enough at football (although I did end up captaining the Newcastle Medicals Football Club!).

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When seeking specialist fertility care, you are choosing to trust a doctor with your hopes for the future. It’s important that you have full confidence in your specialist’s expertise, but demystifying the letters following a doctor’s name can prove to be a challenge! In New Zealand, the highest possible qualification in fertility is to become a Certified Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (CREI) specialist. Around a dozen doctors in the country have achieved this certification, and here at Repromed we have four of them on our team. These doctors are true fertility experts, offering an unparalleled level of care to each of our clients.

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Dr. Karen Buckingham, a gynaecologist and fertility specialist at Repromed, is an expert in reproductive medicine. As with all the doctors on our team, Dr. Buckingham provides personalised care to clients through their fertility journey. We asked her advice on some of the most common questions we receive about healthy fertility so you can optimise your health this season.

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The end of each year always invites reflection, and as I look back at the past 12 months at Repromed, I couldn’t be prouder of our team. 2017 marked Repromed’s 10th birthday, and as our first-ever IVF baby cut the cake at our celebration, I was reminded of the honour that it is to support New Zealand families on their fertility journey. Our team is extremely focused on setting the highest standards in fertility care and this year saw significant developments in treatment options.

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2017 is winding down, and we’re ushering in the Christmas season, a time focused on children, families and birth, followed by the New Year, when people review the year gone by and set goals for the future. This season certainly comes with challenges if you are trying to get pregnant and navigate your way through fertility waiting lists and treatment options. It’s important to stay grounded at this time of year, so here are a few thoughts and ideas from Repromed Counsellor Helen Nicholson to consider over the next few months.

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I feel so lucky to be able to be involved in creating a family’s life journey. I just love it, it’s truly amazing and deeply satisfying. Working on the donor sperm programme is particularly rewarding, it gives same sex couples and single women the opportunity to conceive, people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to have a baby of their own. The relationships I build with the donors and the recipients is really special and so rewarding for me as I get to support them through the journey they are on. Every day I get a buzz from the amazing thought – this client is now pregnant and that is the direct result of what we have done for them. And a year later they bring in their beautiful babies into the clinic to show them off, and every single time it blows me away. It’s an honour. Continue reading →

This week a new study was presented at an international medical conference in Texas and presented findings from multiple clinics that further strengthened the benefits about Pre-Implantation Genetic Screening (PGS) with Next Generational Sequencing (NGS). This is the first well designed study that gives robust evidence that PGS with NGS genetic screening is beneficial, and defines who it is beneficial for: 35-40 women and women with recurrent pregnancy loss. In this study, 50% reached ongoing pregnancy at 20 weeks versus 37% that did not use PGS / NGS technology. Repromed was the first in NZ to launch this new genetic screening technology (PGS with NGS) and is the first to offer this service locally in conjunction with Auckland University laboratory. Continue reading →

My pregnancy journey has been quite long and pretty hard. After all that we have been through, we can hardly believe we’re 24 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby. We were the first in New Zealand to use new genetic screening technology at Repromed – Pre-implantation Genetic Screening (PGS) with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).

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“Time is like a river, you cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again”

This quote is really true for me. At age 33, the serious relationship I was in ended and I found myself single, starting again to search for “Mr Right”. At the time I didn’t feel that worried, I thought I had plenty of time. But having kids has always been really important to me so I was curious about my fertility.

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By Helen Nicholson, Repromed Counsellor

Get prepared

Father’s Day can be a painful reminder of your journey through fertility uncertainty so make some time to talk together with your partner about how you both want to manage the day.

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