ReproMed is empowering women and men to have open and honest conversations about fertility
So much focus is placed on preventing pregnancy, certainly through your 20s but we at believe it’s time to shift this focus and instead plan for pregnancy and your fertility future. think about your family planning timeline and we want to make sure that every woman is armed with as much information as possible If you want kids one day, it’s time now to ReproMed about the options that are open to them. Providing the information is so important so the focus can be flipped from a reactive mind-set to a proactive mind-set where you are in control and making the right decisions for you.
ReproMed is one of Ireland’s leading fertility care clinics and with the #letstalkfertility campaign that we launched earlier in the year we want to help you address your own personal fertility by making sure you have the baseline information you need so you can be empowered to have open and honest conversations with friends and family. The topic of fertility/infertility does not often come up in general conversation, but it can be incredibly difficult for those who are going through it. And the more that young women speak about their fertility future plans, the less stigma will be associated with it.
Here is some expert advice for what you can do now in order to have more options in the future. According to Aoife Corley, who is the Nurse and Midwife Manager in ReproMed, the clinic is seeing an increase in younger women accessing egg freezing and AMH testing. The availability of easily accessed fertility tests and the growth in egg freezing are both testament to the increased desire of women to give themselves a safety net for the future.
KEY THINGS TO KNOW IF YOU ARE KEEN TO INVESTIGATE YOUR FERTILITY:
• Fertility is finite. Your fertility starts to naturally decline in your early-mid thirties. A particular discussion that most women will have at some stage in their lives is whether to have a baby or not and although you may spend your 20s and early 30s trying not to conceive, this is actually the optimum time for your ovaries and overall fertility health.
• Don’t get to the ‘wait and see’ ‘try and fail’ stage. Understand what’s going on with your fertility health and check in with your GP or healthcare provider and organise some tests for both you and your partner. From these tests, you may decide to go ahead with egg freezing and by doing this, you will be freezing young, healthy eggs which will have a greater chance of a successful pregnancy down the line.
• Be as healthy as you can be. Try and maintain a healthy weight, don’t smoke, cut down on alcohol, get some exercise and take folic acid routinely.
Case study: Hillary Murphy, her husband Eanan and baby Ayra Raymond
At 28 and 32 with over two years trying to conceive, Hillary and her husband Eanan were referred to ReproMed in Galway by her GP in the summer of 2018 when her AMH came back normal. After the usual testing, many scans and a hysterosalpingogram, the couple were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. Unexplained infertility is when there is no underlying cause for the inability to conceive and it can affect as many as one in three couples who are having problems conceiving.
They did three rounds of fertility treatments between October 2018 and February 2019. That February, Hillary’s eggs were collected and Ayra was a grade A, day five blast who was transferred on February 26th 2019. The couple had a confirmation scan at seven weeks and it was then when they finally saw a heartbeat on the screen.
Unfortunately, Hillary got hyperemesis and every complication that could come with that so the pregnancy was a difficult one but at 39 weeks and 6 days Ayra Raymond Murphy was born by elective Csection and after a quick stay in NICU, has been just a dream ever since.
For more information see ReproMed.ie, and follow ReproMed Ireland on Instagram and Facebook.
Related: Rosanna Davison’s motherhood journey
