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What I've Learnt - Dr. Lynne Burmeister · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Family, it's very important to me.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to do my best to help you succeed in your dream of becoming a parent.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I have 20 years' experience in helping people achieve pregnancy.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I specialise in all aspects of female and male fertility.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that is Dr.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Lynn Burmeister.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's the honor and medical director at Number One Fertility.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Lynn Burmeister said her goal is to provide the best patient care and fertility treatment at an affordable cost.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: A clinic of the best and latest technology with state-of-the-art equipment and world-leading scientists.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: She's worked in obstetrics and fertility for more than 20 years.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: So she opened Number One Fertility in 2018 and now has clinics at East Melbourne, Collins Street, Melbourne, Geelong, and at the Epworth in Richmond.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Her mission is to get you pregnant quickly by providing expert treatment and the best science.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Having a baby is the greatest gift, and Dr.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Burmeister is committed to making that happen.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a miracle worker and I tell all the patients that, but I do like the complexity of a fertility patient because there are so many aspects that you have to get right, she said.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: With IBF, every little step along the way, the health of the eggs, the health of the sperm, how the embryo is made in the laboratory, how the embryo is put back into the patient.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: If it's not right, it could mean that that patient might not be able to have a baby.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, Dr.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Lynn Burmeister, welcome to the What I've Learnt podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for inviting me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there must be no greater job than giving life and helping others to bring a little human into the world.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious, how do you assess when a couple is ready?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: What do you look for?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: What is the criteria?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And clearly it's an emotional thing, so you need support emotionally as well as scientifically.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious how you do all of the above.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so it's not an easy journey for anyone with fertility issues, and it's certainly not an easy job as well, because you do go through the highs and lows with our patients.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we know that not every IVF cycle or ovulation induction cycle is going to be successful.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and having a baby for most people is like one of the most important things they want to do.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, we all dream um when we're teenagers that we're going to, you know, get married or have a family, and we all dream about that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: We dream about having great careers as well, um, but we also dream about you know meeting the love of our lives and having a family with the love of our lives.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and then when that doesn't happen naturally, uh, then that creates a lot of stress, not only a lot of stress for the actual person, it puts a lot of stress on the relationship as well.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I become a doctor, a counsellor, you know, a caregiver in lots of many ways.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, and usually I've seen couples that come in to see me, and they've tried many years to have baby naturally, um, or I might see same-sex couples that also want to have baby, they want to use surrogacy.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: I've helped a man out recently, and he'll be the first Victorian single dad who found an egg donor and a surrogate.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I helped him through.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so he had a two to three year journey of that, and we went through the highs and lows of that, where you know, he he couldn't find the right surrogate or the right egg donor and things like that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: So we went through the highs and lows with him through that journey as well.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, and his surrogate is pregnant now.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think she's at around 30 weeks, and they're going to have a baby, and he'll be the first single dad using an egg donor and a surrogate, I think, in Victoria, if not Australia.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that's an amazing story.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: So you live the whole journey with the patient.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, and it is it's very stressful.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: I had one patient who had previously had breast cancer, and sadly her breast cancer was very bad, and she didn't have time to freeze her eggs.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: And when she came to see me at about 39, she didn't really have any eggs left.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I I had to break the news to her that she's not going to be able to have eggs with her own, you know, her biological material.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: And she broke down crying uncontrollably, and she said that this is worse than the day the doctor told me I had breast cancer.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought, wow, that that the impact of telling someone that they're not going to be able to have a baby is enormous.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: So, and I never thought of it like that.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: And she's happily pregnant, had her baby now with an egg donor, um, thankfully, but it took her a while to assert that she wasn't going to be able to be a mum with her own biological egg.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you really are dealing with some very powerful emotions as you've just outlined, and also the scope of what you're dealing with is so broad, like what you've just, you know, talked about now.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's from one extreme to the other.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so it requires, I'm assuming, for you, an emotional core that can be solid, empathic, but at the same time, you have to assess whether that person is suitable for the journey as well as scientifically.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that is, I think that's a really important skill set.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is that tell me a bit of talk to me about that?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because how did you is that something you've developed over time, having done this for almost 20 years?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it something that you really are still working on?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm sure that you get thrown curved balls all the time.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think I've seen almost every single situation.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that so I nothing really surprises me anymore.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I think I feel like I have seen almost every, I'm sure something will come along and surprise me, but I think I feel that I'm so experienced that I have seen every single situation.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: And when you start being an IV, you just don't suddenly become a fertility specialist.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: You have to do six years of training in obstetrics and gynecology, and then you normally have to do another three-year course, and it's called the C REI, and not many people know about that, but it's another degree on top of your obstetrics and gynecology degree that um gives you a sub what they call a sub-specialty degree in infertility, reproductive endocrinology, and so you become a sub-specialist, and um, that takes another three years.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's quite a grueling exam at the end of that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: So you sort of don't finish your training till your mid-30s, and so it is a long time.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And a couple of those years, I spent working in a clinic in New York with I call him the guru of Ivy.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think his name was Zev Rosenwax, and he was amazing, and he was my mentor for the two years that I spent with him.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: And because the New York Clinic was so busy, like you would walk in and it was like LA airport.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was so busy with so many patients, and so such a busy clinic.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, he was, I was like just followed him around.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I was the chosen one, so to speak, and um I followed him around every day, and I learned from him.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of the art, he used to call it an art.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: RVF is just not ticking boxes, it's actually an art, it's an art form.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: You have to learn the biology of it, the chemistry of it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: You have to put it all together just as if you're performing, you know, a musical, you know, piece that you've got to do it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like an orchestra.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, and you have to put it all together and put it and make sure that at the end of the day, you're gonna have a beautiful embryo to put back into that person.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just not a one-stop, you know, one fit for everybody.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually, you know, looking at the whole person.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, I have some patients that come in to see me and they're quite unhealthy.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm not scared to tell them, okay, well, look, you you are carrying an extra few kilos, and that's going to make a difference for your egg or sperm quality.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: So we need to work on that first.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I usually treat the person as well first.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I have a look at the person, they have a whole set of bloods that um extensive set of bloods done, so that I can send and just even something like vitamin D.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: If you've got a low vitamin D, it's been shown that you can have poor eggs or sperm.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: So just fixing someone's vitamin D level and creating a normal vitamin D, many of my patients have become pregnant naturally after I've fixed their vitamin D level.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: So it can actually be something very simple, but you need to check all these things first.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: So even celiac disease, so a lot of people carry the gene for celiac disease, it's very common.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then some people will have celiac antibodies, and that's very common too.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: And even celiac antibodies will stop people from getting pregnant or cause miscarriages.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people don't know they've got these underlying problems until they come to someone like me.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: So you treat the whole person.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: There's no point putting, okay, you need IVF and you know, they're 20 kilos overweight.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: We've got to get them into their right, you know, a healthy body weight, treat all those things that might be underlyingly wrong.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: Hope they get pregnant naturally, and if they don't, then IVF is the next step.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: What I like about what you're saying is the holistic aspect, which is great because you treat the person and that it's not just a scientific, exclusively scientific process, but actually it's also about uh making sure that that person is ready.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I suppose that goes to the question of criteria and making sure that somebody is ready for the journey, as we discussed.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I like the idea that you talk about trying to get them pregnant naturally if you can, and if that, you know, that is not so.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people I would think they'd go, oh well, I'm going here because I'm going to be using IVF.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: But really, what you're saying is there are ways to maybe help them before they get to that step, and you're prepared to do that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you really are open to all forms of trying to help them get pregnant.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: So not all the patients that I see will do IVF.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Certainly, you know, we have to look at their age because age is the biggest factor for infertility.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: So once we're once we're around 35, our quality of our eggs um does decline.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: And more dramatically after 37, and then by the time you're 40, the chance that you're going to conceive naturally, regardless of all the holistic things that I can do for you, um, the chance that you're going to conceive naturally is only about 4% per month.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's so low, isn't it?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Really?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's so low.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: And um, that message is not really out there, and it needs to be because sometimes I'll see the ladies and they've been trying for all the couples, they've been trying for a whole year and they're now closer to 41, and they have no idea.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: And when I said, Well, your chance naturally is 4%.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: So patients usually in their 40s need to get a moving straight to IVF to help them because of that low chance of getting pregnant.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: So between 35 and 40, that's when we need to hurry things up a bit, and maybe, you know, you might try a few months naturally with things like tubal washouts and a bit of ovulation therapy.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: But if it's not working, then those patients will be hurried on to IVF.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, the ones under 35 with good egg banks and things like that, and good sperm counts.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: We can try other things.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: There is this, I call it the magic oil, and it's um got poppy seed and iodine in it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And we flush that through the fallopian tubes, we can increase their pregnancy from you know, virtually zero because they've been trying for a whole year to 43%.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: In the Are you serious?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's exhausting.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is incredible.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's so natural.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so what the poppy seed does, it's anti-uh-inflammatory.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: So it calms down any inflate inflammation they may have in their pelvis.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and the iodine component is an antiseptic.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: So they've got some little bugs in their tubes or something that just washes out and cleans out the bugs.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so we know from studies that if you have your tubes flush, so you've spent a whole year not getting pregnant, the sperm's normal, you're ovulating.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: You go and do one of these tube flushes, and you can do it in an ultrasound department and ask for the, it's called lipodoil.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: I just tell the patients it's magic oil because they can't say the name lipodeil, and ask for the magic oil, um, 43% will be pregnant in four to six months.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: So that's pretty amazing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of the younger patients want to start with that option, and then after the four to six months, if they're not pregnant, then we move on to the IVF option.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: So IVF is not always the first choice.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is so important to highlight.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Also, you've probably seen a lot of changes in the time since you've been doing this.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, first of all, you've got women, I suppose, in the workforce wanting to keep working and and then to address this later than they used to.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is that I'm assuming that's correct based on what I've read.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But so that obviously is a factor.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: The stresses of the way that we live, all of those aspects.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Have you seen that change over time?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that those factors are impacting why fertility has become a much maybe it always has been an issue, but it seems to be a bigger issue.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it just that we're talking about it?
• 13:45
  unknown: You know?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so the average age of having a baby now in Australia for the first baby is um 31.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so when we think about what happens to our eggs in our 30s, they do decline in quality.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so you you may be able to have your first baby at 31, okay, but then by the time you're coming to your second baby, you're going to be closer to 35.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that your eggs do take a big dive in their quality at that time.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I see a lot of secondary infertility as well, and that's mainly because of egg quality, nothing but that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just because people are just delaying that first baby until they are 31 or so, and then when they go to get have the second baby, they struggle.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: But there are a lot of women out there that are now egg freezing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: So we've seen like a you know, 150% increase, especially during COVID, of women coming in and egg freezing.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: So the numbers are just like going up, up, up every week.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just seeing more and more egg freezing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that's women usually between 30 and 35 taking control of their fertility.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it's usually done because they haven't met anyone and they want to meet somebody, but they haven't met anyone suitable to partner with, and they're taking control and they're coming in and freezing their eggs, um, which is I find that fascinating.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's great.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is fascinating.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that so is that something that you encourage and is it something that they're talking about much more?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that that women are a lot more informed about fertility and the issues?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're getting there, but I think it could be better because I still have women in their late 30s asking me, why isn't IVF working?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I've got some other immune problem and I'm rejecting the embryo.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, mostly it's not an immune problem.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Mostly it's because the eggs aren't good at 38, 39, and that's why the IVF may not be working.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's not an immune problem.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: So some of the patients go off searching for an immune problem, that might be their answer, but it's not the answer usually.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: The answer is the quality of your eggs, sperm, and embryo.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: So it's great that we're seeing women, you know, in their late 20s and 30s coming in now, taking control and freezing their eggs.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, so if they can't get pregnant at 37 when they're they're they're ready to, we can pull their eggs out of the freezer and they've got a much better chance of getting pregnant with their 30-year-old eggs than their 37-year-old eggs.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: And we never say it's a guarantee.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: I tell every lady that comes in and freezes their eggs with us, it is not a guarantee.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it is a backup plan, but it's not 100%.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I would ideally rather you have a baby than freeze your eggs, but it there's no one to have a baby with, you know, then egg freezing is a great option for them.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, that's a big transition though, from when you started probably 10 years earlier with medicine.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: The science and the transition is just exponential, isn't it?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, we're seeing you must be seeing incredible growth in terms of options that 10 years ago weren't there, yeah?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So now do you find, you know, for you that must be quite um empowering because you can actually go, well, now I can do this or I can offer that.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me about some of you know, how has that changed what you do?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's amazing because I was around in the days where Professor Carl Wood, who was one of the founders of IVF in Australia, actually found me and stood, you know, steered me in the direction of IVF.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: And um, he he had an an amazing brain.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: He used to think outside, you know, the box even back then.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: And he came into a meeting one day, and I was just a registrar, but he came into a meeting and and we were putting the embryos in at day two at that stage because our culture conditions were so bad that we couldn't get the embryo past day two.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Alan Trounzen and I have worked out a way that we're going to grow these embryos to day five.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: And we were actually, you know, the first, you know, people to grow their embryos to day five in Australia, and because they had worked out that the embryo between day three and day five requires different culture ingredients, and so they matched what was going on in the fallopian tubes and to help those embryos go out to day five.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And we do know that day five embryo embryo transfer is far more superior than putting an embryo in at day two or three, um, because an embryo at day two or three only has four cells or eight cells, whereas a blastocyst embryo at day five has a hundred cells.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really proven itself by that stage whether it can possibly be a baby or not.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: So that is has also quickened the chance and improved the chances of our patients getting pregnant.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then the next development that happened, well, that was even before my time, but in 1992, they discovered how to do IXE, which is where they put the sperm into the egg.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that hadn't been discovered before.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: So that was discovered in 1992.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: So that revolutionized male factor infertility because they had no other treatment for males until IXE was discovered.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: So there was IXE, there was growing embryos out to blastocyst, which I got to see that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: And now we have also the embryo testing of our embryos where cells are taken off the embryo, and we can check the embryo for chromosome problems, and we can also check the embryo for if you're carrying a genetic condition like cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: So there's so many genes that we now screen for before we even start IVF, and we actually do a panel of about 300.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: There are some gene panels of 500 genes where you can match people and make sure that they're not sharing genes.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: And if they are sharing genes, we can screen those genes from the embryos.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: So quite fascinating things that have happened, and and also the egg freezing technology has improved as well.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: When we used to freeze eggs 20 years ago, we used to use a slow freezing technique.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know whether you've ever put a um bottle of Coca-Cola in the freezer, and what happens is it just explodes.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what used to happen to the eggs because when you slow freeze an egg, it used to leak all the water into the egg, and then the egg would just explode on thawing.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: So now we do vitrification, which is snap freezing the eggs to minus 190 degrees Celsius, and it doesn't damage the egg.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: So a frozen egg is as good as a fresh egg.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we can confident exponential transition.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, from when you started out to some of those things you've just outlined are really quite pivotal and quite extraordinary because they do give so many more choices, and also you obviously have to keep up at with the, I suppose, the science and the because it's moving quite quite fast.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: But also, it's really good to educate women and men too, who, as you say, beforehand didn't have any options, and now they're also great options for men as well.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me what sort of age do you you mentioned, sort of you say to people in their 30s they can start freezing their eggs, but what's the latest that you would, I suppose, take somebody on as a patient or encourage them to freeze their eggs age-wise?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's it is a choice, and um, it's not covered by Medicare in most cases, unless there is a medical reason.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: So it is a choice, and I must say that there have been women in their 40s who want to come in and their eggs.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_03: I give them all the statistics and I tell them it's not covered by Medicare, Medicare will not pay for this, and I see it as a choice for that person.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes I need to do it just sometimes for a psychological reason.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I feel sorry for the 40 plus generation because they did miss out on the education for egg freezing.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_03: So they missed out on the discussions we're having now.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I think fertility talk and egg freezing talk is not too taboo anymore.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think people are talking about it more.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so the 40 pluses, and maybe even the 38 pluses, missed out on that when they were 30.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's true.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like the 20-year-olds, the 20, the 20-year-olds, the 25-year-olds, my daughter, one of my daughters is 27, all the they all just, you know, it's all discussed.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's all like all of their friends are very open about it.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's very true.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: The dialogue, both in the media, but also just in terms of you know women talking about these issues has really changed.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be, as you say, a little taboo to say if somebody was struggling to get pregnant, they didn't really talk about it.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: It was no, no, like they were embarrassed that they needed to do IPF, whereas now people, you know, they've got pages and you know, there's Instagram stories, people posting their stories, you know, trigger day, and um, you know, and it, you know, there's forums, there's um, there's great resources for people now, and it's not nothing to be embarrassed about.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I think uh one in every um classroom has an IBF baby, so probably more now, and um, and there'll be more people coming back using those eggs that were frozen, I'm sure, in the future as well.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: And that might give people also opportunity to have a family, having those eggs in the freezer.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: So once those eggs are then created into embryos, then that person has the opportunity to have a family.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you get pregnant, say at 37, that might be the last time you you might be able to have a baby.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you come back at 40, maybe your eggs won't be any good.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: But if you had your eggs frozen when you're in your 30s, we've still got a chance to get you that second baby.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um, you know, recently, as I found quite fascinating because I was following all of this, you recently challenged the elective surgery ban imposed in Victoria.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was quite dramatic because really what you did is well, it was elevated by a number of people, but you and and uh that patient who was very vocal and was all over Instagram and everywhere, she was amazing, along with Angela Soprano and lots of people came out talking about how this is a whole different journey that needs to be treated differently.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: How did you find that?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because that was only recently, like what, six?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, that was just a few weeks ago.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that was.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was really hard for a lot of people.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: And to be honest, watching that play out and the the the incredible outcry and the way that there was this sort of movement, it's like a revolution, and it flipped, and you got the result of overturning the ruling.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about what was that like, and yeah, that was that was um it's happened a few times during the COVID.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: And when for when I remember when for COVID first came out, we all thought, well, I don't know, but everyone thought we were going to die.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: We saw all those terrible videos coming from overseas.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I think we all were scared.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: I know some of my nieces at work moved out of their homes because they were scared for their children um that everyone was going to die.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I could understand it stopping them.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then um, and then it still actually came back.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it actually with a bit of lobbying, we got it back up.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: And when we realized we weren't all going to die of COVID, then we sort of got it back up.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: A few stops and starts over the last couple of years, but it was a more of a stop and start.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: Within a few days, the government goes, Oh, yeah, sorry about that, we'll restart IVF.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: But this was was a complete stop.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: And then with the code brown, this was like it's over.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: You're not doing IVF for three months.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: And um, initially I thought I was told it's just high-risk IVF patients.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: So most of my patients are over 35.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I kept sort of going along for a bit, and then I got told on a five, no, it's not even high risk, you have to stop everyone.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_03: So um, I did an Instagram post, you know, and it was sort of a little bit tongue-in-cheek, was what you can do in in Victoria at the moment, tick, have a baby naturally, big cross, have a baby with IBF, and um next to it.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, it was very powerful, actually.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: And Melanie, who is the patient that was crying um in her video, or did that amazing Instagram video, who's never done anything on Instagram, she saw that on the Friday night because I didn't even have time to tell my patients.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: I like I couldn't even It was like that, it happened very quickly.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like how do I say this to the patients?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'm getting thousands of Instagram messages from people going hysterical, and and I'm like texting them all night back on my you know, personal messenger.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and then I think Melanie the Saturday morning had had done that video, and then she put it up on the Monday, and um she tagged me in it, and I was busy running around working, so I didn't watch it till the Monday night.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I went, wow, she's just expressed what all those people messaged me over the weekend, because that's what over the weekend I had so many messages of distressed and distraught people.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: What am I going to do?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait three months, Dr.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: Lynn.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: Please help us.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so Melanie put it all in words, and it was amazing.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then the media picked it up, and then we were just, you know, everywhere.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: It was everywhere.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then another patient who wasn't actually my patient, she sent me her um, she'd started the petition and she said to me, she had like 200 signatures on it, and she said, Can you help me with this, Dr.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: Lynn?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, Yes, we're gonna help you with this.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: So we got the petition out, and the petition was like, was watching something like this going.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: The signatures were like going, yeah, yeah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was growing.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: It was going crazy.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: And my PR team, uh Lisa and Simon, they said, you won't get the government looking at that unless you get 10,000 signatures.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: We got 140,000 signatures.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Incredible.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then that was the Monday Melanie's video.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: Then we did maybe eight interviews, Sunrise, Morning Show, Channel 17.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Project, yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you mean you yeah, it was a pretty and I suppose what's what was fascinating about that is first of all, you got incredibly quick traction on that.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: It it sort of it shows how we can take things into you know into our own control and how you could drive this very important message out very quickly, very effectively, and also that you had incredible support, not just for you, but for the for the whole issue at hand.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it helped educate people about what that particular pathway is like for people.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you haven't been on it, you don't fully understand it.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you conceive naturally and you haven't been through that, when I've interviewed people, as I mentioned, many of whom, some of whom are your patients, they who have mentioned you, they talk to me about the uh very challenging but also exciting path that they've embarked on.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think people understood that until this ironically, this issue where you were banned, or where it was banned, I should say, that IVF uh treatment was banned as part of this.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, the benefit was that it educated and elevated it to a status that probably you wouldn't have had access to or that people wouldn't have heard before.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: I know hearing Melanie say, you know, I'm on IVF, and I loved when Melanie said, okay, go home and take every picture off your wall of your children, take all the food that they love eating out of your fridge.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think that message got home to people that have children, that want to make their children, you know, beautiful lunch boxes and uh to take to school the next day.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, get rid of all that, throw that all in the bin because they're no longer there.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: Take every picture off your wall of your family.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: That was really very powerful.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: Very powerful.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, when we were being interviewed, one of um one of the hostesses interviewing us actually burst out crying.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it was it was very powerful, yeah, it was so emotional.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, that was incredible.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: But then we still we still got told no.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: I remember it was that Wednesday, we were still told no, I'm sorry, Ivy Africa is not.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: We have to work some things out, and I'm thinking, what do you have to work out?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: I have an ether to just not working, I have nurses not working.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: There is nothing you need to work out, just start it back up, and then the next day um uh we got an apology and um it got started back up.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: So but I think I think it was it was fascinating to me because it's often seen as a female pathway, but it's not exclusively because it's obviously not only women and men, I know there's a lot of women, but actually it's their partners, or you know, it so it affects a lot of people, but but often the fact that it got the the response it did when there were so many other elective surgeries that were also, whether it be knee surgery or weight loss surgery, and so you were sort of up against quite a not you, but the the the notion or the ban was up against um a raft of other surgical procedures that were also saying we want, you know, so I think the fact that it got overturned pretty quickly is testament to the people that came out and spoke in great detail, and and it is an emotional, it is an emotional tug to hear some of those stories.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Just on that note, how do you navigate personally some of the emotionality that I mean you're dealing with volume 10 of emotion pretty much all day?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, most of us go in and out, right?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'll have an engaged emotional interview, and then you know, but it's a lot, and I know you do surgery as well, so that takes you into the science, but how how do you balance that for yourself?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's this hard.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm you know, I I think, you know, I do take it on board a bit, you know, um, and probably debrief to my husband every night about it.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but you know, I try and keep it at work, and um and I think I do deal with it pretty well.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: I am sympathetic to all the patients.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know what they're going through.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's terrible.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: But that's why I fought the fought for them.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: And also I suppose in a way the science anchors you, doesn't it?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the science.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um I'm I should have said I fought the fight for them.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I know I'm emotional then.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, I hear you, I hear you.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Science does sort of anchor you, it forces you back to the the core of what you're doing.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the science is always I rely on the science, and you know, and and I have to keep reminding the patients that you know eventually at one one way or another, it will usually work.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sad to say that not everyone walks out with a baby, and and I can't, we can't guarantee that.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: And but you know, there if it's not working with your own eggs, there's eggs and sperm donors, there's embryo donation, which is sometimes that's difficult, and there's also surrogacy as well, if it's not working out with um your own uterus.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: So there are other options, and usually in most cases, people do walk out with a baby, not in every case though, which is sad.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um and people learn to move on as well.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: So um a lot of patients, you know, they learn that, okay, well, now I need to move on.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: So, and they do and they develop a life outside of that whole IVF world and move on from it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: And at what point, what I find also interesting is at what point does the responsibility that you carry when they come to you?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously your responsibility becomes, you know, assessing them, screening them, preparing them, getting them ready.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Then you go on the pathway together, and hopefully it bears a certain, but at what point it's so different because when there's a natural birth, to be honest, anyone can just have a natural birth.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's no screening, as we've often discussed, you know, or people will say, you know, you need a license to own a dog, but you don't to own a child.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: But in this situation, it is very screened, assessed.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Psychologically, you need to make sure that they're equipped.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: At what point do you that transfer of responsibility become theirs as opposed to your how how do you how do you know manage that transition?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, well, I think that yeah, that's a good question.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I I think all that's a good point because I think that a lot of the journey needs to be about them as well.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: So they need to know that if they're like if they're overweight, if they're over 100 kilos, then IVF's probably not going to work or it's going to be really hard.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: So we have to work on that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of that responsibility has to come back on them.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: And today, even I had a guy that was still smoking, he's coming from another clinic, but their embryos were terrible.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, Well, that's probably because you're smoking.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: Your your partner's 40, but you're smoking.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't expect your embryos to be great if you're smoking cigarettes.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and I really gave him a big lecture, and I said, Really, I shouldn't treat you until you stop smoking.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: So he's actually going to, you know, stop smoking now, and he's going to go and see a hypnotherapist and try really hard because I I said, your partner's got 40-year-old eggs, you're smoking cigarettes.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then he said, But my sperm looks normal.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I said, But the DNA in your sperm is not good because you're smoking, you need to stop smoking.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: So even I have to, I have to tell them how to, you know, get the themselves properly prepared.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: And we can and we can get the eggs and the sperm, and then we can put them in the best lab, which we I think we do have the best lab.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we've got an amazing state-of-the-art lab.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: And but we can't make good embryos unless we've been given good eggs and sperm.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: So whatever they can do from a lifestyle point of view is so important.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I give them all lectures about that.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I do get very passionate about getting my couples pregnant, and I get very annoyed at myself if they're not getting pregnant.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, um, I do every single, yeah, I do every single thing.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good point.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I get very annoyed if I see that someone is not getting pregnant.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why is this person not going?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's nice embryos, nice uterus, good sperm.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it does become a bit of a jigsaw puzzle sometimes, and there's just that certain group of people sometimes that won't.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of tests we can do now that have been developed.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, like there's now an endometrial receptivity test where we can check the embryo lining or the endometrial lining and make sure that the embryo and the lining are receptive on a certain day.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a new thing that's been developed as well.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: Another scientific advance that that's trying to facilitate.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so just coming back quickly to that question, which is important.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, as well as getting them physio physically in the best condition, how what about psychologically?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: How do you assess for argument's sake?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say somebody, because obviously that's so subjective.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anybody you've ever said, you know what, I think you guys need to go away and and sort, or this particular person, you need some psychological or therapy, or in other words, I don't I don't know enough about so I understand the scientific, physiological stop smoking?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty clear.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: How do you like assessing the psychological well-being of somebody and whether keeping in mind that they're probably in a state of somewhat of trauma because they're trying to get pregnant?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's quite stressful.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: How do you find that to assess?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and have you turned anyone away based on the fact you don't feel they're emotionally ready?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: No, I haven't.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I do have um support systems.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I have um a team of psychologists that work in our clinic.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: We've got 10 psychologists, and we also do have um a psychiatrist that I refer to that is a perinatal psychiatrist because a lot of these patients do develop depression after they have their babies.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there is increased risk of depression.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: So when I'm seeing that's happening, I also think it affects their chance of getting pregnant if they're stressed and anxiety.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you can walk in the room and you're about to do someone's embryo transfer, then like this, like you know, uh, and you just think this little embryo is probably not going to plan because I could you can just feel the energy, the wave of anger or angst or whatever that person's feeling coming out of her, and you just feel, well, how is this embryo going to work when you're in this state of stress?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, the cortisol levels must be enormous.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes I do get them to see um this doctor who talks to them first, and then he decides whether they might need an antidepressant just to calm their nervous system.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me on that, just going back to what you just said, why is it that often they experience depression after this?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Is that as a result of the, I suppose, the process?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is it that their bodies and minds are not is it an unnatural experience or what what inverticomas?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they're when they're pregnant, they probably go up into this big high.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then once the baby's born, maybe all the trauma of the IVF or all the trauma of the IVF probably comes back, and the trauma of what they've been through.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: Some some couples are on this journey for years before it works, and so the trauma of that comes back um once the baby's born, and I think that's probably why there's an increased um uh incidence of depression um postnatally in this group of um women.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so tell me, what's what's the future for you?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know that you're you've got a number of clinics which I talked to in my introduction.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you obviously have quite a broad reach, and I can see that you're expanding.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that you're there's there's some sort of um hold until is there a clause that you have to respect until you can actually open the next step?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was reading about that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that happened a few years ago when I left my previous IVF clinic.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: So that's all over now.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: So they put me on yeah, they they put me on a restraint for one year.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that we were ended up going to court to um battle that restriction because it was Australian wide, and I didn't want to I want I love doing my job, I can't not do anything like this.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: Is me if I could can't wake up and do my job, I can't be me.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you've trained very hard for it too, let's be honest.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I went and I bought the decision, and um, just like I I I fought for those for all our patients a few weeks ago, and I'm very determined when I want something.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I got my restrict restraint down to one year, 50 kilometres.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then once I won that, I also got egg freezing straight away.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I won the egg freezing in Melbourne in the city, so that meant I could set my egg freezing lab up straight away.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I started egg freezing straight away in Melbourne.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: But for the IVF patients, I googled 50 kilometres outside Melbourne CBD, um, and that happened to be Geelong.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: And Epworth have built a beautiful hospital, state of the art hospital in Geelong.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I went down, set up an IVF clinic there, and one of my friends had just bought a limousine company.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I said, Nick, can you please drive my patients up and down to Geelong?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, Great! I I didn't know what I was doing because Uber was Uber was killing me.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: So go so resourceful that you actually you blow my mind, you're so resourceful, and you're resilient.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious, where does that come from?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have a very the red hair, maybe it's gotta be you.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you clearly did you come from a line of strong women?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: Was it a was it somebody that really inspired you?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because you clearly have a lot of focus, determination, strength.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I see it actually in my daughter who's a med student, she's got that same tenacity, and it's that real, like single-minded, like, I'm gonna fix this, I'm gonna sort it, and I'm gonna work my butt off.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: So is that something you were you always like that, or is it I was always like that, I think.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: And um, my dad was a builder, we didn't come from money.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: I went to a high school, um, but I was always determined during my high school, like I was the fastest runner, the fastest swimmer.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I was like A plus for every exam, played the clarinet, did everything.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then I got into Melbourne University, but I didn't think I would, like I really didn't.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I got like top my I topped the state in chemistry.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: I got 100% um in chemistry.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: There was only one other person that got that mark.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: And just like, yeah, just resilient.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: Just, you know, if you get knocked down, get back up, you know, you just don't stay down.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's just, and you know, I don't know where I get that from.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my mum and dad must have done something, uh, you know, but you know, I obviously something clicked on my switch when I was a child to make me so strong and resilient.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: And um, yeah, so it's been an interesting journey.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: And and so we had the clinic in Geelong.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: Now we're back fully functioning.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: In um, we opened our clinic in 2000, so that was 2017, and then we opened our clinic in the city 2018, and we're really our numbers are going up, we're affordable.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: My mission is to make egg freezing affordable, my mission is to keep IVF prices down, and we're building a day surgery in our our clinic, so it's all going to be a one-stop shop here, and we're hoping to replicate that model and move to Sydney as well.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it's brilliant because the accessibility and the affordability are really critical parts of what you offer, and I think that's often prohibitive for a lot of people, and I can see that that's something that you focus on a lot in the material that you put out, but also what you're saying.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that's something that you can manage to, I suppose, offer to people?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: It it is because I don't I have no idea what it costs to freeze eggs or to do any of the IVF, although I know some people have done 16 cycles and I can't even comprehend how they fund that.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm very passionate about yeah, I'm very passionate about.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: Keeping those prices at an affordable cost for our patients.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, even like when they're doing IVF with me, even though I am more affordable, people find it expensive.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I am very aware of that.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: And egg freezing as well.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: So because I I know when girls have to freeze their eggs, some some poor ladies, even when they're 30, they might have a very low egg bank and they might have to, you know, do three or four egg freezes.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if you're paying 10,000 a time, like I I wouldn't have been able to afford that when I was 30 to pay you know$10,000.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so um that's why my mission was really to do the low-cost egg freezing, which we started.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um And what sort of like instead of$10,000, what just as an example broadly, like an egg freeze that that's a little more affordable if you just have to do one?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: What sort of are people looking at young girls looking at?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they're looking at um around three for the all the clinic costs and freezing the eggs and things like that.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then the medication on top is around probably depending on how much medicine they need to stimulate, might be around 1500.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then depends on the hospital costs.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: So it probably comes to at our clinic to around five to six thousand, and but still that's expensive.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's still expensive.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: I know it is, but it's life.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's what's hard, is at the end of the day, what you're offering is a chance to produce life.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, there's nothing really greater, you know.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you're sitting down doing your budget and it's something you really want, I suppose you tend to.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: I can imagine that a lot of these girls are just this is what I want to do.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I'd like to thank you so much because you've been so informative, so so um warm, and so I I think there's a sense of I feel like we've really learnt a lot about the pathway and the journey, and also the accessibility.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: You've made it something that I don't think there's a lot of people that have been very scared and and may still be scared about the process.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I think what you're saying is it's something that can be worked and you become a team, really.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: We my team is behind our patients the whole way.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: The counselors, nurses, scientists, we're all out there, you know, rooting for you.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, we're out there wanting you to get pregnant.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's all we want.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank God, shall I say, because there is a sort of uh godliness about what you do, I have to say.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and that's in that sense, it is really extraordinary.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and I thank you for for taking on that mantle for a lot of people that I know struggle a lot.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I do know a lot of your patients who adore you and love you, and thank you, especially the ones that have got pregnant, but even those that are on the journey, they say that you're holding their hand very closely, and that that's quite a special gift.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: So, Dr.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: Burmeister, Dr.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: Liam Burmeister, thank you so much for joining me on the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: We have learned so much, and uh, I look forward to seeing what you do next.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for having me today.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: The What I've Learned Podcast will now be coming to you weekly, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learnt Instagram for updates.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Love you.