{"id":16785,"date":"2026-05-23T00:43:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/16785\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:43:20","slug":"rural-women-share-harrowing-ivf-stories-at-parliamentary-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/16785\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural women share harrowing IVF stories at parliamentary inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Sophie Fletcher wants is to complete her family, but her journey has been a long and harrowing one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She has endured miscarriages, false hope and seemingly endless hours of travel throughout her IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) journey.<\/p>\n

The ripple effect travels through her family, including her five-year-old son Dougal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“He’s very well versed in embryo transfers and miscarriage and infant loss now,” Ms Fletcher said.<\/p>\n

“If he sees me crying it’s, ‘Mummy, did the baby die?’\u00a0<\/p>\n

“He’s learning things that no five-year-old should really have to.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Sophie Fletcher says her family’s lives have changed forever after her IVF journey. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

The Walcha farmer and mother of two travels six-and-a-half hours interstate for her treatment, in the hope of completing her family.<\/p>\n

She then turns around to make the long trip back to Walcha.<\/p>\n

“It’s an extra layer of mental load and torture, essentially it’s torturous what you’ve got to go through living out here,” Ms Fletcher said.<\/p>\n

Those experiences were shared at a parliamentary inquiry that sat in Tamworth this week.<\/p>\n

The select committee inquiry into fertility support and assisted reproductive treatment was established last year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sophie Fletcher hopes changes will come from the inquiry. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

Ms Fletcher said it was confronting to relive her experiences, but she did it in the hope that better support systems would be created as a result of the inquiry.<\/p>\n

“A cheat sheet would be nice, even just finding out which pathology places you can go to get same-day results,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There was a lot of trial and error on my part, a lot of error going to places that told me they would have same-day results but in fact it would be three days before we got them, which impacts your cycle.”<\/p>\n

Armidale mum Kirra Smith said her journey to fall pregnant with her son, Raymond, was a long one.<\/p>\n

She agreed that same-day blood results were crucial for IVF but told the inquiry that, because of her location, that was not possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Kirra Smith says her IVF journey left her feeling isolated. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

“We can’t get same-day bloods here in Armidale. They get sent to Tamworth in a little courier and then they get on a plane to go to Sydney, and in that time they may have missed my ovulation,” Ms Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Smith said if her access to care had been different, she might have been able to avoid serious health issues that resulted in hospitalisation.<\/p>\n

“Maybe I wouldn’t have got ovarian hyperstimulation and I wouldn’t have had to spend a week in Tamworth’s Intensive Care Unit,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I like to hope that something like that could be avoided if we had same-day bloods.”<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Kirra Smith has travelled over four hours from her farm outside Armidale to receive IVF care. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

Stories ‘powerful’ to hear<\/p>\n

Listening to the harrowing tales that Kirra Smith and Sophie Fletcher shared was select committee chair Sarah Mitchell.<\/p>\n

The shadow minister for health said the personal accounts were upsetting.<\/p>\n

“The more that you speak to people \u2026 there does seem to be challenges that just don’t exist for people who live in the city,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sarah Mitchell says hearing the experiences of rural women was emotional. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to do better and I think it’s been really important to hear those stories.”<\/p>\n

Ms Mitchell said there were many challenges to overcome.<\/p>\n

“The distances to travel, the leave, the cost involved; it all really adds up,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think also when it comes to IVF access, just the fact that there aren’t any public IVF clinics outside of Sydney is a real challenge.<\/p>\n

“That will really help the committee as we go through the process and look to make some recommendations to government.”<\/p>\n

Giving rural women a voice<\/p>\n

Jen Laurie is the founder of Her Herd podcast and a perinatal and paediatric mental health clinician based in the New England region.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Jen Laurie says rural women need to have a voice at the table. (ABC News: Genevieve Blandin de Chalain)<\/p>\n

Ms Laurie told the committee was also behind the Bush Babies Campaign, which called for an inquiry into the decline of rural and remote maternity services.<\/p>\n

“From conception at home or whether or not you have to take significant trips down the highway in order to access IVF services, it’s really important that we give regional, rural and remote Australia a voice at the table,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Our job today is to make sure that rural people are at the forefront of recommendations.<\/p>\n

“Really looking at continuity of care, the fragmented service, proper subsidies for travel and proper funding for public services.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Sophie Fletcher wants is to complete her family, but her journey has been a long and harrowing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,16610,8709,16613,16615,16609,16616,16611,16614,16612],"class_list":["post-16785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-her-herd","tag-ivf","tag-jen-laurie","tag-maternity-services","tag-miscarriage","tag-nsw-parliamentary-inquiry","tag-reproductive-technology","tag-rural-health-care","tag-sophie-fletcher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}