The Home of Fertility with Liz Walton & Helen Zee

Embryology Insights: From Lab to Life

• Helen Zee • Season 2 • Episode 7

Share episode

Ever wondered what really makes the difference in fertility treatment success? Lucy Lines pulls back the curtain on the fertility industry with unparalleled insider knowledge from her 25 years as a clinical embryologist and fertility educator.

The conversation shatters common misconceptions, particularly the myth of "the best" fertility specialist. Lucy explains why personal connection with your doctor, laboratory quality, clinic accessibility, and staff responsiveness collectively impact your fertility outcomes more than a specialist's reputation alone. Her apple cake analogy brilliantly illustrates how the fertility process relies on multiple factors working in harmony—from the quality of your eggs and sperm to the skill of laboratory scientists handling your precious embryos.

Lucy helps to fill critical knowledge gaps, empowering individuals to understand their bodies, ask informed questions, and advocate for themselves throughout treatment. 

Ready to become your own fertility advocate? Lucy's resources in this episode guides people become collaborative partners in their fertility care rather than passive recipients.

You can follow Lucy's active and engaging content on instagram www.instagram.com/twolinesfertility and her work at https://www.twolinesfertility.com.au/

Lucy Lines Bio:

Over Lucy’s first 17 years in the fertility ‘industry’ (12 of those as a clinical embryologist and global customer support embryologist and 5 in GP education) Lucy became increasingly frustrated over the ‘business’ aspect that was creeping in to much of the decision making within large IVF companies and the huge gaps that was creating for patients accessing those services.  Making patients feel like a ‘number’ on a conveyer belt of fertility treatment.   After a redundancy rather late in a rainbow pregnancy, (at 44 years old) she saw an opportunity to fill those gaps - with education, care, support, guidance and space for women and couples experiencing difficulties with their fertility - totally independent of the big businesses!  As a fully qualified and experienced embryologist, Lucy now offers her services through Two Lines Fertility - with her website, blog, courses and, of course, her 1:1 support, Lucy now helps women and couples feel empowered, and more importantly EDUCATED and in control of their fertility, whether they are right at the beginning of considering growing their families, or in the depths of IVF treatment.

Liz Walton:

Welcome to the home of fertility, a space for real conversations and expert insights about fertility, healing and creating family. I'm Liz Walton.

Helen Zee:

And I'm Helen Z. We are two mums who've walked this path and are passionate about supporting you on your journey emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Liz Walton:

We talk about it all fertility treatments, holistic support, relationships, mindset and the emotional highs and lows.

Helen Zee:

Because sometimes the missing piece lies in someone else's story, in the quiet wisdom of the body or in a breakthrough that's finally made for you we are so glad you are here.

Liz Walton:

Let's dive in.

Helen Zee:

Hello and welcome beautiful people who are tapping in and listening to the wonderful conversation that we are about to have with the highly regarded and personable Lucy Lyons. By way of introduction, lucy's first 17 years in the fertility sector involved being a clinical embryologist and an educator. Lucy became increasingly frustrated over the business side of fertility treatments and wanted to advocate for change. And, oh my goodness, is she doing that today. A redundancy, after a rainbow pregnancy at a sweet age of 44 years old, lucy took in her stride to fill the gaps and advocate via education, care, support and guidance for females and couples. So today she is a big, bold, beautiful voice for people to get the education that they need and for them to be in control of their fertility outcomes. Welcome, lucy.

Lucy Lines:

Goodness, that all sounds very amazing, doesn't it? Who is this person?

Helen Zee:

It's the person that we're talking to today. They're arriving, they will land. They're here. They are here. We were just speaking offline, actually about the wise woman journey that we are on at this stage of our life and especially having experienced, from menarche to the menstruation years to the fertility journey of wanting children, trying to have children, having children, wanting children, trying to have children, having children your experience as a person on the journey, as well as your absolute expertise as a clinical embryologist and now transitioning and having transitioned in the menopausal years, you've got a lot of expertise, my friend. I'm in my sage era now Sage, sage, the wise sage, that's right. And so let's talk about your absolute, fascinating background in the fertility journey as a clinical embryologist as well as an educator.

Lucy Lines:

Sure, so I started my journey, if you like, at university. I did a bachelor's degree in agricultural science and I majored in animal breeding and genetics. So I was doing a lot of stuff with paddle and sheep and you know, this was the early 90s, so we're going back a long way when genetic engineering was kind of really new and we were talking about splicing genes and all this really cool stuff. I went from that to work as a veterinary nurse for a while and I did a whole lot of artificial insemination and embryo transfer in cattle and sheep. So we were doing super ovulation, artificial insemination, flushing the embryos out and then transferring the embryos into lots of different as sort of a surrogacy program. And I guess, wow, which is how they did it back in those days, and that was with the cattle, with sheep, we did, um, a lot of artificial insemination. So we purchased, uh, frozen straws of semen and then we would artificial inseminate a whole realm of sheep at the time, you know, like 2,000 sheep. I think we did one one week. Um, I did that for about 18 months and then, um, it was actually after that big week of doing all the AI in the sheep, I was in the shearing sheds. It was like 2000 degrees and I just thought, oh, this is not for me. I was the one busy sorting out the semen and thawing it and loading it up in the straws and making sure it was ready to go and I just thought this is not for me. I don't want to do this.

Lucy Lines:

So I went back to university and got a postgraduate diploma in reproductive science and that was offered through the Institute of Reproduction and Development in Melbourne, and there I was lucky enough to be involved in the reproductive human reproductive world lots of research going on at the IRD at the time and was working under people like Alan Trounson, who's a very big name in the fertility space, or certainly was for a long time. His wife is Karen Hammerberg, who's lots of people would be familiar with her name. She's been a lot in the news and the media over the last couple of years. So I got to know a lot of these people. And there was one day in particular where I'd been volunteering in a mouse embryo lab.

Lucy Lines:

So we were doing a lot of mouse uterus dissections and flushing embryos out of mouse uteruses and doing a bit of research, and the woman who ran that lab, um, came up to me and said I need to talk to you and I thought, oh gosh, what have I done? No, no, no, I've just put your name forward for a job. I'm like, oh, cool, what. What is the job? She said it's an embryologist at monash ivf. I'm like, okay, cool, what's an embryologist? Like I didn't even know what that was.

Lucy Lines:

And she said oh, it's the scientist who works in the lab. And I thought, oh, I don't know if that's what I want to do, but sure, um. And the more I went through the interview process, the more I realized that it was 100% my calling.

Lucy Lines:

So what you've been doing for years prior yeah, so I worked at well, very, very different to what I'd been doing, yeah, yeah, um, but still on the same pathway, absolutely so I worked at Monash IVF in Melbourne for two years and towards the end of that sort of I was coming out to my two-year anniversary and the same woman who sort of put my name forward for the job in the first place. So she came to me and she said you speak Swedish, don't you? I said, oh God, I did years ago. Like I was an exchange student in Sweden when I was in my late teens and she's like great, got another job for you.

Lucy Lines:

So because I'd been trained by Monash IVF, who were world leading at the time, they were prepared to take me sight unseen. They relocated me to Sweden and I went and worked in this clinic in Gothenburg in Sweden covering a paternity leave position. So I did that for six or eight months eight months probably and then I went to the UK and I worked in a clinic in the UK, again relocated and headhunted to go and work in this clinic in the UK. I was there for about six months and I did break my contract there. The reason I broke my contract there was because I went to management with some ideas for how they might be able to improve their success rates, having come from Monash and this clinic in Sweden that were both sort of vying for best implantation rates in the world at the time, and the clinic I was at in the UK was about half what I'd come from.

Lucy Lines:

So I had some ideas how they might be able to improve and they said we don't really want to improve our pregnancy rates, because if too many people get pregnant, then they don't come back.

Lucy Lines:

So I handed in my resignation that day came back to Australia. Sorry this is a longish kind of story, but yeah, I'm back to Australia and look and um set up a clinic again headhunted and relocated by the company. Set up a clinic in Queensland, um, for Monash IVF, yeah, um, and a clinic in so that was in Rockhampton and another one in Townsville. Did that for two years and then, of course, had to go back to Europe to marry the man that I met when I was there. Oh, hey, yay.

Lucy Lines:

So lots of time, lots of different clinics, lots of different um clinical experience, um from trainee right through to writing the procedure manuals and the protocols and and receiving R-TAC accreditation you know, going through all the the hoops that you need to to do that. When I went back to Europe, I did a quick a locum in Ireland for a short period of time. So I was working for the Sims Clinic for three months and then I moved over into um working for a company called VitraLife that you might be familiar with. Vitralife manufacture and market products to IVF clinics. So I was responsible for southern Germany and Austria and I'd also traveled quite a lot in Scandinavia and the UK and even Australia selling needles and pipettes and catheters and culture, media and dishes and tubes and all the things you need to run an IVF.

Lucy Lines:

All the raw materials needed to facilitate the process, and I was also a trainer in the VitraLife Training Academy. So we had embryologists who would come to Gothenburg from all over the world to learn how to use our products and learn more about the things that we consider to be very important in improving success rates. So David Gardner was very deeply involved in that. He's now the scientific director at Melbourne IVF these days, I think, but he's an amazing and very well-published embryologist. So lots of different contacts and connections and whatever.

Helen Zee:

I love the backstory, which I haven't heard in detail, and what I'm sensing, and what I'd like to pass on to the person listening as well, is IVF for humans has, you know, in our human population, has been around as a medical procedure for 50 years. Procedure for 50 years, and so you being involved in the early 1990s. Yes, it started off with animal biology, but hello, we are part of the animal species as well, the animal kingdom, and I know that you've been an independent embryologist and working in your own business for quite a while, so you have been a big part of that 50-year journey.

Lucy Lines:

So this is what I want to yeah, I started my training as a human embryologist in the year 2000. So I've been involved in the human fertility sector for 25 years. In fact, this month, october- yeah, there we go but next month it'll be exactly 25 years.

Lucy Lines:

Yeah, um, I started working independently about eight years ago, so, um, I went back to Sweden to marry my husband. I worked for VitraLife. We did eventually conceive. I had a rather tragic and traumatic miscarriage. We then managed to conceive again and our daughter is now 15. When she was about 18 months old, we moved back to Australia and I took up a position with the sales and marketing department of an IVF clinic and I did that for five years and it was a, it was a very, it was a big balancing act for me because, as a clinical embryologist and as a, you know obviously the five years with VitraLife working directly with IVF clinics helping them improve success rates For me, I'd always been in the business of making babies, even if I wasn't actually doing it myself.

Liz Walton:

And when.

Lucy Lines:

I had this role in the sales and marketing department, suddenly I wasn't actually doing it myself. And when I had this role in the sales and marketing department, suddenly I wasn't necessarily directly in the business of making babies. I was still in the business of making babies, but the focus was far more on being in the business of making money. That didn't sit entirely well with me. I understand it a necessary part of business and the businesses need to be there. By having bigger businesses like that, they get better access to research grants and they can buy their consumables, you know, and then make better arrangements for buying their consumables and there's all sorts of benefits to it.

Lucy Lines:

It was a very challenging time for me. Um, I saw my role very much as a GP education role, but when the managing director at the time said that she couldn't see the direct financial link between educating GPs and shareholder dividends, um, and our whole department were made redundant. That was the final straw for me and I went. You know what I'm actually. They offered me another position and I said, no, I don't want to do this anymore.

Lucy Lines:

I need to get back to helping the people who are sitting on their sofas at home feeling like everybody else is getting pregnant and they're not.

Helen Zee:

Yeah.

Lucy Lines:

And there are too many gaps in the information we leave high school with. We don't have enough information about how our bodies work and combine that with the very big business nature of IVF in Australia. Now there's a big gap in the middle there that I'm trying really hard to fill. So I've been running two lines fertility nowertility now for eight years. As you said in the intro, it all started when I was 44 years old and 37 and a half weeks pregnant when I was made redundant from that position and I started Two Lines Fertility with a newborn in my hands. And here we are eight years later Eight years later how incredible this is.

Helen Zee:

All the shape-shifting that took place for you to get to be strong in your value system and the legacy that you want to work alongside with and also leave behind it is definitely. The passion is felt in ripples. I can feel it and I know that the person listening I'm sure will be able to feel that too. What I can also see and feel in what you're saying, lucy, is in that time with your redundancy, but also what you were toying with beforehand, before you said enough is enough and life just brings you the things that are ready for you to shine in the way that you need to is as an educator. You're also continuing to bring the latest research because you are so well verseded and well-respected. It's not like something that you knew from eight years ago that was set in stone because so much changes. As you spoke about the research, the technology, I remember years ago because I used to work for an IVF clinic as well. They asked me to do a pilot program, a research program for about six months on lifestyle factors and outcomes on fertility, and we had an incredible success rate over a two-year period of about 70%, and what I found was and what I'm hearing here is the changes. They're not static. It's a 50-year revolutionary technology that is an avenue available for people to have children, especially now with the pathways to parenthood that are very, very diverse. It's not just women-centric and heteronormative-centric, so there's a lot of choices there.

Helen Zee:

But I remember way back then in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when I was doing my work and how my career started in this area. Doing my work and how my career started in this area was it was like Monash was known for introducing the five-day blastocyst to have more of a chance of conception, so that was like revered. And then I think it was Melbourne IVF created the glue that vitri life is vitro life. Thank you. There was a glue that embryo glue is sold by vitro life embryo glue and these are the things that are like aha. Since then there's been a plethora of change and I see you, with the gaps that you were trying to facilitate, that, having the most updated information, you're able to bring this information to that person sitting on the couch in bite-sized layman's terms, for them to feel like they are in control and to have the conversations well-versed with their fertility specialists.

Lucy Lines:

And that's entirely why I do what I do. Helen, I do not want to take the place of your medical doctor Of course, absolutely not, because I'm not a medical doctor. And these fertility specialists are amazing, like the research that they do, the study that they do, the information that they have is amazing. But you have half an hour with them, maybe 45 minutes for an initial consult and maybe 10 minutes for a follow-up consult. It's not enough time to fill in the gaps in your knowledge bank.

Lucy Lines:

So I was just at the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand conference last week and just last night I delivered my reflections on that to my membership group.

Lucy Lines:

So we went through Professor Louise Hull's presentation on her Imagendo study, where she's talking about finding non-invasive ways to diagnose endometriosis and getting them validated and justified. And we talked about Professor Wang-Ting Tay and her research into different ways of stimulating for frozen embryo transfers. And we talked about Professor Kelton Tremellin talking about different ways to increase the endometrial thickness. And you know, by sitting in and being welcomed into those kinds of forums and having those conversations with those real movers and shakers in the industry, I can then deliver that direct to my clients and my members and then they can go to their doctor and say, okay, I've heard about this, can you tell me about it? And really advocate for themselves in a collaborative way and be an integral part of their own treatment, rather than feeling like they have to carry the whole burden themselves or hand the whole burden over to someone else and be a passive member of their treatment.

Lucy Lines:

I want my clients to be an integral part of their treatment, but not driving the bus.

Helen Zee:

Yeah.

Lucy Lines:

Yeah.

Helen Zee:

And I know that because we've shared clients which are like, oh, I've got this and I did this course with Lucy and it's like that mycelium network of support and that village just becomes stronger and stronger. You brought up a really good point and I would like to ask the question of what do you think would make it easier for people dealing with infertility?

Lucy Lines:

I am obviously going to say this, but I think everybody needs an independent advocate in this space. If you think about maybe an accountant, for example, or a lawyer, these are intelligent people, but they probably stopped doing biology in year nine. That's when biology stops being compulsory. And if you stop doing biology in year nine, you probably don't even know the word enzyme or hormone or mitosis or meiosis. Or you know you've got estrogen in your body, but you don't really know how it works or what it does, and so there's a whole lot of knowledge that's missing from your knowledge bank.

Lucy Lines:

It doesn't mean you're stupid, it just it's missing. And so then when you find yourself sitting in front of a fertility doctor who has spent 16 years at university studying female biology, they're not going to be able to talk to you on the same level as what you need to hear. So it's very easy to suddenly feel like the stupidest person in the room, and for a lot of my clients that's the first time that's happened in a really long time and nobody likes it. So if you can get yourself an independent advocate who can help you fill in those knowledge bank you know knowledge based stuff, the foundations then you're in a much more um proactive position to be an integral part of your, your treatment and I mean I think.

Lucy Lines:

I think so many people are led to believe that they can just do ivf, in inverted commas it's okay, I'll just do ivf. One in 18 babies born in Australia today is the product of IVF. If other people can do it, I can do it. I'll just do IVF.

Lucy Lines:

And it's not until they've done a cycle or two that they go far out. This is a whole lot harder than I thought it was going to be, and I would like to get to a point where people get an independent advocate and an independent fertility educator before they start their first cycle.

Helen Zee:

Yay, yay, I love that.

Lucy Lines:

I'm up for that as well, and I, you know, I designed an online course called Preparing for Conception, which I don't tell enough people about, but people can go and buy it on my website. They don't even have to contact me or have any contact with me whatsoever. I've just gone by it and watch it. And, having been through that and watched that, then they'll go oh right, okay, cool, yep, I get it. It's delivered in a way that anybody can understand and then you've got a foundation to build from.

Helen Zee:

And the power of knowing how your body works is incredible, and that's with any endurance race. I used to work with iron men and women and you know they would go through their whole Ironman journey and I would train them. This was a long time ago. But when we're able to tell them the why and what is happening in their body and how important it is to do uh cross training on the down times, you can't just keep going the same thing over and over again. Your body needs to rest. Nutritional timing rest, all the rest of it.

Lucy Lines:

The performance is enhanced yep, and that's why I have a performance coach who speaks in my ivf wtf program. Oh, do you? I have a performance coach who speaks in there. I have lazy, um, a habit hack coach, because so much of this is to do with changing habits that we use and and the way we can change those and be okay with it. So inside, inside the IVF WTF program, there's all of that stuff, there's meditations, but there's, you know, we dig into some of those other avenues that you wouldn't have even thought about.

Lucy Lines:

I mean, I often liken doing IVF to taking a trip overseas.

Lucy Lines:

If you're going to go from Melbourne to London and you've got a six-week holiday ahead of you, you are not just going to get on the plane and hope that the tour guide's going to take you to the right places, um, because what happens if you miss something or that you know you don't get to the plate?

Lucy Lines:

You want to research it, you want to know where you're going and what could happen and what opportunities there might be, so that you don't get to the end of your trip and go oh well, I didn't even know that was an option. How did I not know that the Eiffel Tower was only 100 meters down that street. I could have gone there, but it's too late. So if we think about it in that context, if we go into IVF and knowing what might happen and what the various different opportunities are around, that, your doctor doesn't have time to explain all that to you. They're far too busy trying to plan your treatment cycle. But if you know that stuff yourself, then you can say, hey, what about this? Or is this a valid thing for me to try or think about, or should we be considering this other thing? And then the doctor can answer those questions and keep moving without having to introduce them and then explain why they're no good, or they are going to be good, or whatever.

Helen Zee:

Then you're running out of time in the clinic and it's like you didn't really go there. Yeah, you can get railroaded as well in that appointment because it's so limited in that 30 minutes to 45 minutes. You know, you touched about the WTFf, ivf, wtf. Yes, the ivf wtf program where you were talking about yes, I've had my clients uh, do that program with you as well.

Helen Zee:

Um, so, where you talk about, uh, having meditations and habit breaks, et cetera, one thing that I know that I hear people coming originally when they're wanting to speak to me and find out what I'm about and the work that I do, something they turn around and say very quickly is uh, I just need my mindset set and it's like if I get my mind right, then it's all going to be okay. But can we share here how it is more than that? It is not just a mindset, it's not just the way of the mind that needs to shift, it is also the habit stacking, it is also the bits that we need to put in and the actions that need to take place, those micro actions that need to take place that, over a period of time, can make a really big difference. It's not just thinking your way through.

Lucy Lines:

It is what I'm saying it's not just thinking your way through, it is what I'm saying, would you? Yeah, I mean, for me as a scientist, there's, there's a whole lot more to it than than getting your mind right. In event, I'm a scientist as well and, sorry, as an embryologist, I haven't actually worked with eggs and sperm and made the embryos. Yeah, there's a whole lot more to it than, um, I get really frustrated when I see people on social media or whatever, talking about manifesting a baby or like, if you don't have any sperm, you can't manifest a baby. Yeah, if you, if you are not ovulating, I don't care how your mindset is you're not going to make a baby.

Lucy Lines:

You've got, um, um, you know, a massive toxin load because of the exposures that you have to various parabens and phthalates and bpas and whatever.

Lucy Lines:

That's going to impact your egg quality.

Lucy Lines:

That, or your sperm health, that's going to impact how your embryos develop and whether they are capable of making it to blastocyst and whether those blastocysts are even capable of implanting and creating a healthy pregnancy.

Lucy Lines:

So, yes, you need your mind to be right to be able to manage all of those ups and downs, but you also need to know the foundations to biology and how this is going to have an impact and that's why the IVF-WTF program is going to have an impact and that's why the IDF WTF program it's sort of it's only recently been introduced to me as the concept of it being like a social story, like, um, you know, think of any time you felt really anxious. When you feel anxious about things, knowing what's sort of going to happen and who's going to be in the room and what the dishes look like and what the you know how it happens can relieve so much of that anxiety and then you can go back to focusing on the things that you can control and change and support yourself with, rather than spiraling in in anxiety spirals yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Helen Zee:

I have another question. Sure, it's come up Far away. What do you think people don't know about choosing a fertility specialist?

Lucy Lines:

I think people don't know that not all fertility specialists are created equal. Yep, a lot of the people I speak to say oh, we saw Dr X, y and Z because they're the best in inverted commas. And there is no such thing as the best, absolutely 100%, no such thing as the best. And there are people, there are doctors, who will market themselves as the best and I don't know how they can get away with it, because there is no such thing as the best. But there's also a lot of difference between them and that doesn't mean that one is the worst and one is the best. It means that they're just really different. So you would know, and anyone listening to this would know, that sometimes you have a friend and they have a friend and you just don't get along with that friend.

Lucy Lines:

There's no reason why. They're not a bad person. You just don't really get along with them but your friend does. Your friend loves them, and it's kind of weird because you're like but why do you love them?

Lucy Lines:

Because they're really annoying and that you just don't get along with them for whatever reason, and it doesn't mean you're bad or they're bad, it's just you're just not a great fit. The same thing happens in the fertility space and I speak to people all week who are like, oh, but we're seeing this doctor because they're the best. But I get really nervous every time I go there and I leave in tears every time and it's just an awful experience. I'm like so, say someone else now, like, but I can't because they're the best. I'm like, no, they're not, there's no such thing right.

Lucy Lines:

There are over 100 fertility specialists in just in melbourne alone now, so there would be 200 in sydney. I don't know how many in brisbane, I don't know how many. You know, there are doctors who have chosen to sub-pecialize infertility now and they are all human beings, all different people, and some of them you're going to gel better with than others. Some of them are going to have chosen to even further subspecialize into PCOS treatment or endometriosis management or implantation failure or second opinions, or getting eggs where no one else could get eggs, or women with a low AMH or women with an advanced maternal age, or women with partners with male factor, or same-sex couples or same-sex couples who are both men, or surrogacy, or you're all these different immunotherapy and yeah, and they're all different.

Lucy Lines:

So the thing that I think people need to really understand when they're choosing a fertility specialist is that it is not just the fertility specialist that is going to determine whether you are successful or not. Far more integral in your chances in inverted commas of success are the lab that that doctor is connected to and your experience of that treatment. So if you choose a doctor because they are perceived to be the best but it takes you two hours to get there and two hours to get home, and the receptionist is a gatekeeper and you can't park your car, and the waiting room's really uncomfortable and all these other things that impact your feeling, your process, through how you perceive that whole experience, that is going to impact your outcomes.

Helen Zee:

Oh, this is where the sage is.

Lucy Lines:

So you need to take a lot of things into account. Yes, you need to choose a doctor who is experienced and respected and has the skills required for your particular reason for infertility. But you also need to choose a doctor who's linked with a reputable and good clinic with good results and a good lab with good staff. And you need to take into account how do you get there? Where do you park? How do you feel when you ring the clinic? How does the receptionist answer your calls? Do you have access to your nurse? Do you have access to a counselor? Do you? Can you contact your doctor in between times? If you're a person who wants to do that Some people don't want to do that, some people do so ask the doctor if, if, in between times, I've got a question, can I email you, or should I email your nurse, or can I call, or what do I do in between times? All of these things are going to be important and all of these things are going to impact whether you are successful or not. Beautiful.

Helen Zee:

Lucy, I know I want the answer to this, so I'm sure that the person listening is going to want me to ask this of you but where you talked about not just knowing well, it's not just the fertility specialist that you're working with, but also the labs that they are connected to. Now that it's probably another podcast, but anyway to be able to touch on it, my sense is that you answer this question in one of your programs right.

Lucy Lines:

so I have a service called Help Me Choose a Specialist Great, where I sit down with people and I go through what their options are in their area, help them come to a short list and help them work out how to choose between those people. I use a lot of analogies when I speak because I think it makes it easier for people to understand, and the general process of getting pregnant is I refer to as making an apple cake. Right, we're making an apple cake. So if we want to make an apple cake, we need apples, flour, sugar, water, blah, blah, blah need apples, flour, sugar, water, blah, blah, blah the apples. The fertility specialist, the doctor that you choose, is the person in the orchard picking the apples. So they need to make sure they're looking after those apple trees for the last two weeks before they pick the apples. So they need to make sure they're watering the apple tree properly and they're fertilizing it and it's being looked after, and then they pick the apples at exactly the right time. But also very integral to how that apple cake is going to be is what the species of apple tree was in the beginning, how long ago it was planted, how it was fertilized and pruned throughout its whole life. And then the bakers who have to put those apples together with the all the other ingredients that we need to make a human being. So yes, the doctor is very important and your experience in that space is very important. But the bit before the doctor even comes on the scene is also incredibly important, and the bit after the doctor hands those raw materials off to the lab is super important.

Lucy Lines:

Subtle changes in the lab can make wild differences to whole clinic success rates, make wild differences to whole clinic success rates. So I remember myself in the early 2000s when we introduced the mini incubators into our lab. Now lots of labs still use these, but they're little. So we used to have these big fridge door incubators. You know like a great big fridge, and so every time you opened the incubator all the the the environment inside that incubator would be changed.

Lucy Lines:

For you know you open the door so all the environment changes, the gases and everything changed. So we switched from these great big fridge door incubators to these mini incubators where we would just open one lid. So in the big incubator we might have six or seven patients of material. Every time you open the door the whole environment would change for everybody. So in the big incubator we might have six or seven patients of material. Every time you open the door the whole environment will change for everybody. When we moved to the mini incubators, when we opened the lid the environment would only change for that patient and we noticed a almost double in success rates, in pregnancy rates, in the space of two weeks.

Helen Zee:

Yeah, wow.

Lucy Lines:

So little subtle changes and obviously that was a much bigger change but subtle changes inside the lab have massive impacts on outcomes. To answer your question, in Australia we are very, very lucky in that most of the clinics in Australia hover around a very similar sort of skill set and ability and the embryologists move a lot around between the clinics. But there are subtle differences between them and it comes down to quite a number of different things which I cover in the Help Me Choose a Specialist.

Helen Zee:

Beautiful, beautiful, thank you. And in just finishing up, there was something else that you touched on early just prior in that conversation about choosing a fertility specialist. It's like the person that is in the orchard taking care of those apples and ultimately, at the end of the day, they are humans. When you're paying over your $250 or whatever it is for a 30-minute consult and then you're like jeez, I have to stick with this person because I can't afford to go and do the process all over again and all these things play out. The financial factor does play out and I'm just going to bring it to the fertility expos that we're doing only because it sparked it. But with the fertility expo we have got a lot of IVF specialists coming to talk and present themselves, as well as the, you know, the exhibitors. They're going to be hanging around their booth and their stall and they are very personable.

Helen Zee:

As you know, you mentioned a lot of awesome people earlier on. In being in the um franza anz conference last week and wanting to also, I know the vision that myself and liz has when we created the fertility expos and wanting to bring those all around. Australia is having an opportunity for people to come and cherry pick in one space over the day, having a walk around, listening, talking, asking questions and really knowing and seeing who they're going to gel with and having that information, because someone will come to your talk, get something and go. Now I'm going to go and talk to these people and I'm going to try it on for size and I'm going to see who's going to meet me right. I feel it's a. It's a potent opportunity for people to have many, many consult consults, quite complimentary, through some of the best use the word the best some of the most skilled people that we have got in our nation, because we have got incredibly gifted.

Lucy Lines:

Yeah, and I think it's really important for people who are listening to this to give cut themselves some slack. Give yourself a bit of a break. Like we in australia, we have an amazing fertility system that is very transparent, despite what the media is saying over the last six or eight months very transparent, very highly regarded, um, very well regulated, amazing opportunity for people to be able to seek help with their fertility in Australia, and there is no such thing as the best. So you could sit down and research all 100 specialists in Melbourne or all 200 specialists in Sydney and pick and choose and have consults with six of them, or you could just meet one and go. You know what I quite like you. I'm going to go with you and that's okay.

Lucy Lines:

But, you can do that and see how it goes. And if you get to the end of that cycle and you think actually it turned out, I didn't really like that person, after all, choose someone else. It's not like dating. You didn't marry them. You can actually just choose whoever you like and you don't have to break up with them to go and see someone new yeah, you can actually just go.

Lucy Lines:

Huh, I'm going to have a consult with this person over here now and see what they've got to say. You do need to be a little bit careful with that because you don't want to get caught up in doctor shopping. Yeah, because every doctor you see will have a different idea about what they can do. And that doesn't mean that any other one of them is wrong. It just means there are lots of things we don't know about fertility and there are lots of opportunities and lots of things we could try that might work for you. And so you actually, at the end of the day, have to factor in the financial, the emotional and the statistics in your decision making yeah, beautiful, it's a nice way to finish up and wrap up thanks so much for having me, helen.

Lucy Lines:

I'm really looking forward to the expo and I can't wait to get over there and meet all of these beautiful people and share information.

Helen Zee:

Oh, I'm, I'm feeling it too. I, I'm feeling it. It's like, yeah, it's as big as organising oh, and I did a very, very long time ago. But I just kind of think it's like an event, like putting on a wedding and having all your favourite people and the entertainment, and everyone's going to meet each other, and that's what it feels like. It just feels like a very inclusive space and I'm just thrilled to the core that you're going to be a part of it.

Lucy Lines:

I'm looking forward to it. It's gonna be great. Thank you so much.

Helen Zee:

Thanks for having me thank you thanks for joining us at the home of fertility.

Liz Walton:

We hope today's episode brought you clarity, comfort and connection if this podcast resonated, please share it, leave a review or subscribe.

Helen Zee:

This helps us support more people that are on this path and if you'd like to connect or share your story, find us on Instagram and Facebook. At Australian Fertility Summit.

Liz Walton:

Remember the missing piece might be waiting in a story your body's wisdom or something new just made for you. Take care and we'll see you next time you.