Amidst the challenges of infertility, Border women Victoria Giddings and Sloan Pleming shed light on their complicated paths that many face on their journey to parenthood.
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Despite the bleak outlook, they defied expectations.
Infertility Awareness Week, April 21-27, was created to remove stigma and barriers.
Ms Giddings, of Lavington, faced a slim 3 per cent chance of conceiving though she proved the odds wrong after having "a beautiful healthy, now three-year-old".
"I was told if I ever had a baby it would have a disability or I would miscarry," she said.
After a decade of being on the birth control pill, Ms Giddings made the decision to discontinue it, not necessarily with the aim of becoming pregnant, but rather to regulate her menstrual cycles and gain a deeper understanding of her body.
"I didn't have a period for around four months," she said.
"I thought I was pregnant and when I went to the doctor she sent me to see a gynaecologist straight away.
"When I saw her and after a bunch of tests and internal ultrasounds, she found that I didn't have many eggs, from there I found out I had premature ovarian failure, which is pretty much early menopause.
"I was diagnosed with that when I was 26."
She said she had chromosome abnormality, and had to do a year's worth of treatment "doing ovulation induction rounds with medications".
'Diagnosed at 26 with ovarian failure'
"I had to do injections monthly to force my body to release an egg, but nothing worked," she said.
Ms Giddings said there was "such a taboo around infertility".
"No one spoke about it back then, and I felt alone in my journey and isolated.
"It sent me into a dark place for quite a long time, I was upset that as a wife and a woman, I couldn't provide what my body was meant to provide."
Ms Giddings was told she would never conceive a baby naturally and would need to go down the route of IVF something that would set her and her now ex-husband back $40,000.
"My whole experience was heartbreaking," she said.
"I don't remember much of the conversation that day, but I knew it was never going to happen naturally for us - I knew I was never going to have my own DNA.
"That affected me for a long time, the test was always negative and each and every time it would send me down a spiral again."
After trying most things, Ms Giddings went down the holistic approach.
"I started seeing an acupuncturist and fortnightly cupping, as well as seeing a Chinese medicine doctor," she said.
Ms Giddings wants to share her journey with women so that they feel less alone.
'Disabled baby or miscarriage'
"As cliche as it is, miracles do happen," she said.
A few days after being told the news of infertility, Ms Giddings did a pregnancy test after feeling unwell, "I was in denial because there were two lines straight away".
"Never in my life have I ever had a positive pregnancy test," she said.
"I did a few more and then I emailed my fertility professor and was told 'don't get your hopes up', but it turns out after getting my bloods done I was extremely pregnant and she was one very healthy baby.
"After everything they told us, she'd be disabled, we'd have to terminate, I'll miscarry... she was going to be OK.
"Doctors still don't know how, we don't know how, and I'm still shocked to this day to have Ivy.
"My best advice to anyone going through their infertility journey would be to not give up, do whatever you have to do, do the Chinese medicine, do the holistic approach, let people think you're a little bit woo-woo - do what you need to do and have hope, it will happen.
"Ivy is a little ray of sunshine ... an old soul and every day I tell her I'm so lucky to be her mother."
'More patients have infertility'
Dr Scott Giltrap, medical director at Albury IVF, has seen more patients present with infertility.
"Some of the things we're seeing is people leaving it longer until they have their first baby," he said.
"As you get older, your fertility rate declines.
"We're seeing an increase in the number of women with poor ovarian function, which we think is related to environmental effects.
"We're seeing women in their 30s and over only now thinking of fertility.
"As a result, we're seeing a lot of people increase egg freezing to preserve their fertility.
"Back in the 70s the age of people starting to have their first child was 23, now we're seeing people in their 30s access infertility treatments.
On the other side of the Border, Wodonga's Mrs Pleming also experienced her own struggles with fertility.
"My husband Zack and I always knew we wanted kids, but we thought ignorance is bliss we still have time.. we had the mindset of, 'well if it happens, it happens'," she said.
"But we never thought the journey which was ahead us would have been our story."
"After being on the contraceptive Mirena IUD for around eight years and taking it out, I fell pregnant straight away but unfortunately I had a miscarriage," she said.
"We just thought, well it happened easy enough last time I'm sure it will happen again."
Mrs Pleming, a photographer by trade, started sharing her journey online to raise awareness around their loss.
"My friend has a similar journey, so we started a podcast to help raise that light on the topic," she said.
After six months of trying naturally, with no results, she went to Albury IVF to have a laparoscopy, which came back "with a bit of endometriosis and leftover scar tissue from the miscarriage'.
"We did four rounds of medicated cycles, which was "draining" given their relationship had become a routine around intercourse times," she said.
'Infertility is consuming us'
"There was no romance behind making a baby at this stage, it became so mechanical," she said.
"We had to take time off of doing so, because nothing up to this point had worked."
Mrs Pleming said she felt the journey of infertility was consuming her.
"It gets to that point of frustration, I just kept thinking I can't keep doing this," she said.
"It felt like a schedule and there was no enjoyment in it anymore.
"We had to have intercourse on this night, but then skip this night, take a certain shot and take this tablet and then have intercourse again.
"It's so disheartening, every time you get a negative pregnancy test or are told that month didn't work out."
Mrs Pleming said they did their first IVF transfer in May 2023 but it failed.
"We were about to give up, but said we would try one more round - we saw another doctor for a second opinion in Melbourne, I remember going into Mr Giltrap's office and pleading with him to prescribe me the medication, he was hesitant but he did.
"In July 2023 we did our second transfer and it worked - it was our little Colton."
She was over the moon when the pregnancy test several days later showed two faint lines.
She said it wasn't the smoothest pregnancy, because "it never felt real and I was questioning everything and waiting for something to go wrong".
"I documented everything good and bad throughout my journey.
"I wanted to show how much it does take an effect on people and for people to be more mindful when it comes to infertility."
She said she was "so in love" with her two-week-old baby "miracle".
"I would go through everything all over again to know I get him."
Mrs Pleming said her advice for anyone on a similar journey was to "stay as positive as you can".
"It's okay to have good days, and bad days," she said.
"The biggest advice I could give would be to be a voice to yourself and vouch for yourself, trust your gut with everything and remember it's your journey at the end of the day."
