Bringing you another personal story by way of my interviews in Columbus a few weeks ago. Lindsey, who is both an infertility patient, and a health care professional in the field, shares why advocacy is important to her. Thanks, Lindsey, for sharing your story!

Elizabeth

“I practice as an OB/GYN Nurse Practitioner and specialize in infertility. I was an RN and worked in the cardiac ICU and then case management so nothing women’s health related. Then, my husband and I got married and started trying to get pregnant. We had a lot of trouble. I felt like the nurses and other people I encountered along the way as a patient had a complete lack of knowledge of what to do with me. It’s a specialty field so I feel like it’s not necessarily the nurses’ fault. I just think, in general, it’s an area that people don’t know anything about unless they work in it. Physicians don’t necessarily do as much or know as much as they should before you end up getting to a specialist. I feel like there’s a lot of wasted time. I decided to go to grad school so I could help other people.”

Lindsey at work in her Columbus, Ohio OB/GYN office.

“I want to share my story because infertility is just not talked about enough. People don’t know enough about it, or realize that it impacts so many people. It won’t be such a taboo topic if it’s something that people are actually aware of. It’s been so hushed and so unspoken that people don’t know enough about it to care enough about it.”

“The first year I went to Advocacy Day, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, really wanted to get professionals there because they think that the senators and representatives take well to professionals who see infertility on large scales. I find it extremely frustrating that legislators, and people in general, don’t fight for coverage for IVF and insurance for those with infertility. Working in the field, we pay for type 2 diabetes in people who have poor lifestyle choices, we pay for lung cancer in people who have smoked. We cover all of these diseases that are, not always but many times, preventable. Infertility typically is not, yet there’s no coverage for it. It’s such a disparity in medicine that we don’t treat a disease like infertility. That’s something I push at Advocacy Day. We cover preventable disease, we cover self inflicted disease, and we don’t cover this.”

“If people are nervous about going to Advocacy Day, I think that once they go, they’ll want to go back because it’s empowering. They’ll feel like they’re making a difference then they won’t question it again.”

– Lindsey

Please consider joining ART of IF and Lindsey in Washington, D.C. for Advocacy Day on May 11th.