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Speaker 2Hello everybody. And welcome to another episode of fertility DocSend sensor . This is Dr. Susan Hudson from Texas fertility center. We're joined with Dr. Carrie obedient from fertility center of Las Vegas, Dr. Abbey , Dr. Abby , Evelyn from Nashville fertility center. Hey everybody. And we have two special guests today. We have Dr. Kaylen Silverberg. Who's one of , um , my colleagues at Texas fertility center. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. And we have the special pleasure of having Barbara caloric , who is in charge of resolve welcome Barbara.
Speaker 3Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2Absolutely, absolutely. So we , um, we, we were talking just a little bit about how you and your husband met a little bit ago.
Speaker 3Yeah, my husband and I met in Athens Greece. We actually met in a bar, but , um, but yeah, we met in Greece. We were both living there and working and , uh, met there he's American on American , but we had to find our way to each other in Athens
Speaker 2Greece. So what were you doing at the time? Uh ,
Speaker 3He was in the us air force station in Athens and I worked for a nonprofit organization run by a Greek ship owner. Uh, so it was really, both of us had great jobs and love to do we doing, but we got to travel all over Greece and that part of the world was awesome. So what , what was
Speaker 4Your favorite part about living in Greece?
Speaker 3The food, the food, if you like Greek food, I may my gosh, you know, if other than cooking in your own apartment, but going out for a very inexpensive, amazing Greek food any day of the week, right down the street, it was incredible. So did you learn
Speaker 5How to make all of those so that now that you're back in the states, you can replicate some of the things that you guys would go out to
Speaker 3And on a regular basis, I do, we do cook a lot of Greek food and we love to cook it. And there are several things that we love to make. Um, so yeah, it, it, you get to love the food and then you got to make it when you're back here in the states. But we also , um, he was there for five years. He traveled a lot. I traveled a lot when we finally met each other too . So the Greek islands are amazing, gorgeous. It was just, and people are so friendly. It was a great, great place to be.
Speaker 4So Barb , tell us a little bit about how you got involved with resolve because beaning being in Greece and doing what you did before. Seems very different than what you're doing now. So how did you get in your present position?
Speaker 3My husband and I went through our own infertility journey. And when I got to a place that kind of mentally, that I felt like I could potentially give back, I started volunteering for resolve. Um, it had been a great source of comfort and community for, for he and I, when we were going through our journey and I, we live in the Washington DC area and at the time , uh, resolve had something called chapters. And so there was a Washington DC chapter. We got, I got very involved as a volunteer. In fact, I volunteered for about four years and then they moved their national headquarters from Massachusetts to the Washington DC area , uh, around 2004. And they moved because of public policy wanting to be more closer to the center of everything that was happening as well as NIH and just being closer to a lot of organizations. And so I was on the search committee that helped hire the executive director here in Washington as a volunteer. And then a few months later, he called me up and said, Hey, do you want to come work for resolve and manage our volunteers? So I did that. I joined the staff in 2004 and I held the different role for the first three years. And then in 2007 , uh , he left and the board asked me to become that present CEO. So I'd been in that role since 2007. So it's an organization that I love because it helped my husband and I, I was a volunteer for a number of years. So I love our volunteers and , uh, just , um, you know, love what we do. So when people are
Speaker 2Volunteering, what are they volunteering to
Speaker 3Do? We have over 900 volunteers across the country . So we have peer led support groups. We have a couple of hundred of those. So we had volunteer hosts who , uh, ho hold those support groups every month. They are not professionals. These are peers that people who've also gone through infertility. We have a helpline and people can call and leave messages and someone can call them back. We have a number of volunteers that run our helpline. We have , um, social media volunteers, people who really promote and are ambassadors to , um, to resolve, we have advocacy volunteers. So we have people who come to Washington, DC and advocate. And then we have a lot of people who do state advocacy in their, in their home states. Those are just a few of the ways that you can volunteer for resolve
Speaker 2Kind of along the lines of what you were just talking about. Um, advocacy, advocacy day is coming upon us. And that's one reason that we ask Barb and Caitlin to join us is to tell us a little bit about what advocacy day is all about and why is it important?
Speaker 3It's awesome that you have Dr. Silverberg on because he has been coming to our federal advocacy day in Washington for many years. I don't even know I've kind of lost track , uh , but he is such a , it has been such a great advocate along with you're lucky. Cause there's, there's actually a couple of docs in Texas that routinely come to advocacy day, Jason Griffith being the other. And , um , you guys just, just rock it . So we have a federal advocacy day, the last three years, we've done it in partnership with the American society for reproductive medicine. So they, their hill day and our hill day are the same event. It brings people together. It brings , uh , healthcare providers. It brings people who work for any of the companies that support our space. That might be pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacies, genetic testing companies. We have attorneys who come. And then of course, people who have gone through this journey , um, not necessarily patients, a lot of people, this is a way for them to give back after they built their family. And sometimes they bring family members who have really stood by them and , and want to support them. And we all come together in fact about, probably about 55, 60% of the people that come identify as professional. And then the remainder are, are people who've gone through this journey. And like I said, maybe done or maybe on their journey. And we think it's really important to let our lawmakers know , uh , what, what infertility is, what are the barriers to care that people face both. If , if they're under any kind of insurance plan that the federal government has control over, that might be federal employees, the military veterans. And then of course, in the private sector, how they can be aware of and help with policies that will help people access care. Look, the federal government can't solve all of our problems, but it's really important to let them know what their constituents care about. And what's important to us. And for many of us, it's not being able to see a doctor. And , uh , we want to make sure that our federal government knows in the areas where they can help. They can do that. We also talk about things like NIH funding, that's super important to our space. And , um, oftentimes there might be issues at the CDC. So we adjust our issues depending on what's going on. I will tell you that our, our hill day is probably well not probably it is the largest number of people who come to Washington to advocate for these issues. Some issues we advocate for our adoption related. We're still the largest group coming to Washington advocating for these issues. So people count on us and , um , we take that really seriously, but I , I just want to tell you that , um, Caitlin , you've been such a great advocate and such a great leader for our Texas delegation. Um, and we so appreciate you coming in and encouraging your patients to come as well.
Speaker 6Well, it's really been our pleasure. I mean, we've been, it's just been a joy to be able to be involved with your organization. Um, I have the privilege or responsibility, whatever of going to Washington once a quarter. So I go for some other organizations I'm very involved in and it's incredible because what I learned, I probably been doing this for 15, maybe 20 years now. And what I learned is, is that one person can really make a huge difference. And the interesting thing about the issues that I lobby for and including infertility is that the issues that that are important to me are non-partisan issues. So you can say that they're bipartisan, but to me, they're really, non-partisan , there's no reason that we can't get everybody in Congress, all 435 members in the house and all 100 members of the Senate. There's no reason we can't get them behind family building. Um, you know, however people choose to accomplish that. Um, and a lot of the other issues that are very important to me. And so it's so important because 15, 20 years ago, I was introduced to a few of our representatives from the Texas area. I got to be very good friends with several of them. I consult with four of them regularly now. So I consult with them on healthcare and a variety of other issues. Um, and it's amazing because they will call you, they will, I will get texts, you know, from members of Congress in the middle of the night, because they've got a hearing the next day and they need an opinion or they want a sounding board, or they want to know, you know, how people are thinking about different issues outside of the beltway in Washington. And it's so important because you would, you, you see personalities on television, you see them being interviewed and then you're in their offices with them. One-on-one and you realize they're very different people. And you may think because of a stereotypical description of somebody, when you're getting ready to go into their office, it's going to be a real hard sell. They're not going to understand family building. They're going to be opposed to this aspect or their post to that aspect. But yet when you sit down and talk to them and you ask them about their family, their parents, their children, their grandchildren, all of a sudden, the world opens up and you realize that there really are connections where you didn't even anticipate connections being. And some of our biggest supporters are some of the most unlikely characters that you would imagine. And that's, what's just continues to amaze me every single year. And you guys with resolve, you do such an amazing job that bringing in people, you have this advocacy, I'm going to get you in a minute to talk about advocacy day on the format, but I'm going to preempt you a little bit because you have people who come in who teach novices how to lobby. And there is a skill to lobbying effectively and lobbying successfully. Anybody can go, you know, get an appointment and go in with a group and sit there and listen, but to lead a group and to know how to present, how quickly to present the timetable of what happens, it's critically important. And people need to understand that. And your team does such a great job of educating the volunteers who show up
Speaker 4Again for just a second. What are the issues this year that you guys are most interested in, and that you're going to present
Speaker 3The Congressman? So I mentioned a few, we are going to be advocating for a certain level of NIH funding , um, for the Institute that does most of the infertility research in the next fiscal year, we're going to be advocating for a bill that would , uh , allow veterans to get IVF access to IVF. Um, it's interesting because there's also the potential for us to have even a new bill introduced before our hill day. And what's fun about that is that when staffers up on the hill call and they , they care about our issue and they want to put a bill together and they're like, tell us when your hill day is because we want to be sure our bill is introduced and has the bill number before your hill day, because you guys do such an amazing job. We're going to be advocating for a couple of adoption bills, one that's , um, they're all around access to family building once regarding a tax credit. Um, and one is regarding , um, non-discrimination in , in people being able to build their families , uh , through adoption. And , uh, and then there's a, there's a larger bill that is , um , about insurance coverage for both IVF and fertility preservation. And it's calling for the federal employee health benefits plan, or , um, the insurance that covers our military, which has Tri-Care to include , um , coverage for IVF and fertility preservation for people who might be going through a cancer treatment or something else that could harm their , their fertility. So those are the issues that we're going to be advocating for
Speaker 5Interested. How, how do you teach someone who's never lobbied before? And who's going to this hill day , how do you teach them in a crash course? How to lobby?
Speaker 3Well, so this year it's going to be a little different. We're doing our advocacy day virtually. So normally people come to Washington, we'll do a lot of training in advance through some webinars content on our website. And then when they come to Washington, we have a training the day before we go up to the hill. And then the morning of we do kind of a crash course, just anyone who perhaps hasn't been paying attention, which sometimes that happens. But to answer your question, you first start with really understanding the issues and kind of the why behind these bills and the legislation and sort of what they do. And then we talk about telling your story. At the end of the day, you don't need to be a constitutional law expert. You don't need to be a lawyer. You don't even need to know all the details of the ins and outs, but it's your own. It's why you care you, whether you're a physician, whether you're a nurse, whether you're somebody who's gone through this, whether you're still trying to build your family, your personal story. And so we do an exercise in how to tell your story, how to boil it down without a lot of acronyms and without a lot of buzz words into your elevator pitch, your elevator speech, so that within a minute and a half, you know, or so, you're able to get your point across as to who you are and why this matters to you. Getting that down really , um, becomes empowering because that is what the staffer or the PA or your member of Congress that you're meeting with. That's what they want to know. We have a piece of paper, it has all the bills on it. It has all the nuts and bolts. You're going to leave that with them, but it's that personal story where they're going to find out, wow, you're my constituent. And you're a physician. And now I know who to call. If I have something come up, oh, you're, you're somebody who's trying to build your family through adoption. And you're having, gosh, we've set up some roadblocks for you. Or you run a medical practice in my community. I didn't realize you were in my district and you employ how many people and how many patients do you see a year? Wow. I had no idea. I love to maybe even come by and see your facility. So telling that personal story opens up you as a resource and as, as a contact now for that congressional office. So we're going to train you on how to tell your story. We're going to make sure you're you feel comfortable with the issues, and then you're never alone. We pair you with other people and you're always in a group. Um, if, if there's no one from your congressional district, it comes to advocacy to accept for you. We're going to find somebody from your state or locally who can , or regionally who can come with you to your meetings. And typically that person is somebody who's also gone come to advocacy day before. So we just make sure you are in a position where you feel really comfortable telling your story and knowing what the issues are. So this year we're going to do a lot of our training, what we have to do all of our training virtually, but we might do some video. We might do send some , um , articles. We might do some webinars. We're going to try and mix it up so that everyone feels like they've had an opportunity to learn and get prepared.
Speaker 2It's great. Being able to hear how you get in there and make that personal connection and share a part of yourself to be able to help our legislators know how important this is .
Speaker 3This truly is, you know, I'd like to dispel a myth and I don't hear it as much anymore, but I used to hear it a lot. And I'd love Dr. Silverberg to comment on it. I used to hear physicians say, oh, I'm , I'm not coming. I'm not going to come to an advocacy day because if I'm there, it looks self-serving. And I'd always be like, what does that mean? Well, it looks like I'm, I'm wanting there to be insurance coverage. So I get more patients. And I said , I don't hear a colleges saying that. Or when the American cancer society has their hill day and all of the oncologists come American diabetes has their hill day right around now in April. I don't hear physicians in that space saying that. So I would love for Dr. Silverberg to comment on why you think it's important for physicians and healthcare providers to come and advocate.
Speaker 6So this is an easy one, right? At a 535 members of Congress. How many fertility specialists are there? The answer is zero, right? There's there there's one gynecologist, Michael Burgess from north Texas. Great guy understands our issues backwards and forwards, which means we have the opportunity to educate 534 people. So I know it's really invoked to bash Congress. I get it. Sometimes I'm guilty of it, even though some of these guys are very good friends of mine, but they are. When you think about what their jobs are, they are sitting in Washington and they are heavy, is about every single issue known to mankind in American society. And one of those issues is in fertility and precious. Few of them know anything about infertility. And this is one of the things that I try and drive home. And I try and teach people how to lobby the main, you know, you are , you are literally going to be the smartest person in the room. So if you are a woman who has been trying to get pregnant for two years or a man who's been trying to get pregnant for two years, whatever your relationship. When you walk into a room with Senator so-and-so, you know everything about this issue and she, or he knows nothing about this issue and the reason they are meeting with you. I mean, granted, they're hoping you're going to vote for them in the future. Maybe even raise money for them in the future. But the reason they're really meeting with you is because they know that they're going to have to make a decision on legislation that's coming before them. And they don't know anything about it. And they look to their staffers to educate them. And this is why some people, when they go to Washington, they say, oh my God, I got jipped that went up on the hill. I didn't even get to meet with my Senator. I met with their staffer. But what you don't understand is the staffers are sometimes even more important than the members, because the staffers are the ones who understand the issues. They brief , they prepare briefs for the members. They present information to them. They talk it out with them or I'll be on the phone, you know, hoping, talk it out with them or whatever. Um, you know, with my people and the bottom line is they, we then have the opportunity to shape their opinions or help shape their opinions. So that's really the responsibility of everybody who comes to Washington. It has nothing to do with appearing self-serving or, you know, lobbying for more insurance care so that you can, you know, see more patients that you can make more money. That's the furthest thing that anybody is thinking about. And, you know, we need to do a better job of educating the physician community out there to make sure they understand their job is to be educators. When you go to Washington, you're going to learn a lot. I mean, every time I go to I've been to Washington era a hundred times, but you learn something every time you go, but you're there really to teach, not to learn. And if people look at it that way, you know, it , it just dispels all those myths
Speaker 4For a patient or a physician. And you're interested in doing this, who do you contact and how would that process
Speaker 3Start where you would go to resolve website? Uh, we are , uh, our website has the registration form on it. So what happens is, and if there's no cost to participate, so you would go to resolve.org/advocacy day, or just go to resolve.org and you'll see the link on our homepage. But what happens is you give us your home address, be great. If , if you're a physician, if , if you give us your work address as well, tell us a little bit about yourself. We ask questions. Like, are you in the, you know, former military veteran, that kind of thing, because we , um, we want to know that some of those things are really important for us. Uh , when we, when we talk about these issues and then what we do is we take that information and we contract with a firm that makes all the appointments. And when they make the appointments on behalf of, of you , uh, they need to tell them, Hey, this is our caloric . She lives in Herndon, Virginia, here's her street address because they're going to verify that you're a constituent. And then , um, they're going to schedule those meetings. So what's going to happen is once you've registered, we're working behind the scenes to make your appointments and get you all scheduled. But you're going to start getting communications now from resolve about the training, about materials that you can read up on and really just starting to get you prepared. So you're going to get a series of emails from us that are going to keep you updated on links, training opportunities , uh , things to read. And then what's really cool is we group everybody by their state and we have a volunteer who's called a state captain. And that person is somebody who , um, kind of makes sure everybody knows each other that you've thought through. When you're going to the appointments, who's going to talk, who's going to open them , the meeting, who's going to close the meeting. Oh, Susan, you have a great personal story. Can you share it in your Senate meeting? And those state captains kind of really smooth out how the actual meetings go this year, our state captains are going to be even more important. We're probably going to do some zoom calls and things in advance so that the state delegations can actually see each other and get to know each other and share , um , who's who and what your backgrounds are. And kind of, who's going to talk. I was in , um , live in Virginia. I just remember last year we had this husband and wife who came up from the Norfolk Virginia Beach area. He was active duty military, and you just never know like who you're going to get in your group. And he'd never come . He and his wife had never come before. He was so articulate and so awesome. And each meeting, we had him tell his story of serving in the military and going through infertility and what it was like. And wow, so powerful, so impactful for our members of Congress to hear about that. So , um, it, there's a lot of planning that goes on, but let's go to resolve.org, get yourself registered, and then everything will flow from there.
Speaker 5So from a time commitment perspective, now, granted right now, everybody's got a lot more time on their hands, but from a time commitment perspective, what do either physicians or patients need to think about, okay, it's X amount of time when you're actually either going to Washington or participating in the , um, the virtual hill day, but how much time do you think people need to kind of a lot ahead of time to say, okay, I know I'm going to be spending an hour a week or four or five hours a week in the two weeks, three weeks leading up to it. How do they plan for that? So they know how to build it into their lives?
Speaker 3Well, it depends if you're Katelyn Silverberg, you don't need to do much prep time because , uh , you're, you're very comfortable coming to Washington. If you're not, you know, you might wanna , you might be spending maybe a total of two to four hours of that might be in a couple of webinars, maybe reading some materials. But , um, I would say that's kind of the max and, and getting yourself up to speed on some of the training opportunities this year, because we're doing virtual. What we're doing is you're gonna have , um, uh, three, three calls or perhaps even video conference calls on May 20th , uh, one with each of your us senators. And one with your representative, that's a minimum. You may also have meetings with other people who are alone, who are part of your state. So you might have an extra meeting or two , some people like Dr. Silverberg, he's going to have several because he goes to a lot more of the state delegate a lot more of the Texas congressional delegation than just his own. So sometimes we do that. And then if you're a professional and your , your office address and your home address are in two different congressional districts, we're going to have , try and get you meetings in both of those. So it could be on the day of, you might have three, four or five calls, and each of those are only 20 to 30 minutes. Um, they're , they're very quick, short , um, meetings. And , um, and so, because we don't know exactly what time we're hoping that they're kind of grouped together and you're not, you don't have big gaps of time during that day, but , um , you're going to have, you know, at least three phone calls, video conference calls on May 20th, each of each of them running 20 to 30 minutes, and then two to four hours of prep, time to paint upon your level of comfort and experience.
Speaker 6And then if I can just add the other important thing is follow up because, you know, after you people think, okay, well, I'm gonna get ready for this visit. I've got all this anxiety about this visit. I go in, I have the visit. I'm so relieved when I come out. Now, my job is done until next year, and that's just not true. You know, what, what happens then is even just as important, if not more so, so everybody I work with, I tell them, you know, we always get cards from the staffers. We get cars from the receptionist, we get cars from the members and we always send emails afterwards, thanking them so much for paying attention, thanking them for listening to our issues, pointing out something funny that may or may not have happened. And I'll give you two scenarios in a minute. If we've got time of, of things that happened and how you can really make a huge difference, but follow up is just as important. Not only follow up with the members, but follow up with resolve because resolve needs to know of all the people that we see, where are they standing on our issues now? You know, because a lot of times the outcome is very surprising. It's not what you would have anticipated. And, you know, you can go either way. And so that gives resolve and they're professionals who are doing this full time , the opportunity to connect back to those members provide additional information if possible. And we also have to leave our contact information for the members, because you'll be surprised how often they're gonna want to have somebody get in touch with you just to refresh their memory about something, or, you know, they had another thought after we left and they want some more information. So it's really important.
Speaker 3And we , we do a lot of , um, up with the advocates and we have ways that they can , um, through their phone and other ways that they can tell what, tell us what happened during the meeting. But I'll tell you one of our favorite things is finding out either a staffer or a member who has gone through infertility has IVF kids, grandkids, adoptive parent. You only find that out when you go and do these meetings, this isn't there, isn't a , there isn't a database anywhere that tells you this. So that's how he's incredibly valuable as well.
Speaker 6Yeah. And as much as we want to open up and our patients won't open up until their stories. It's amazing because you're providing these staffers typically or members in a couple of occasions, one of which is my form on my funny stories. Um, they have the opportunity to open up and they have the opportunity to ask you questions. And it almost becomes like a visit, you know, like a visit to the doctor. You know, you're sitting there answering questions. It's really great.
Speaker 3Caitlin , why don't you share some of those stories?
Speaker 6Well, a couple off the top of my head. Okay. One funny and one serious. So the funny one is I went years ago to see one of the representatives in Congress, I'm gonna change the names to protect the innocent. And , um, this person said to me afterwards, you know, we go through this meeting, we talk about, you know, the issues and infertility and why it's important. And this person, before we went in to see him or her, we were led to believe that they were going to be very opposed to our issues, but they listened intently, really intently as did their staffer. And I'm walking out of the room and this person grabs me and says, can you hang out for a couple of minutes? I said, sure. So never met him or her sit down, you know, just me and him or her sitting in their office. And this person says to me, you know, I've got a kiddo who has been trying to get pregnant for a while and hasn't been able to, would you be willing to see him and his wife? And I said, absolutely. Well, not only did I see him and his wife, but I saw all of his brothers and sisters and their spouses and long story short, this member of Congress now has six grandchildren. Okay. That have resulted from that one innocent little meeting where we were just there talking about issues. So that's the kind of the funny story. The serious story is we went in to go visit another member of Congress who was one of the people who was behind the what's called personhood legislation, which is the desire that some people have to imbue , um , an embryo with person its rights. In other words, they're very devout in their faith. They very much believe that life begins at conception. And they very much believe that therefore an embryo should have rights. And so I asked basic simple questions and I said, look, we're not going to get into a discussion about abortion record to get into a discussion about these, you know, this thing or that thing. We're going to have to agree to disagree or agree to agree, whatever it doesn't matter. But what I want to make sure that you understand is some of the unintended consequences that could result. So for example, my embryologist is carrying a dish with an embryo in it, and they walk past the door and somebody walks through that door and runs into them and they drop the dish on the ground. If that embryo has rights as a human being, is this manslaughter, is this murder, is this an accident? And this representative, you could just see stops dead in his or her tracks and grabs the aid . The, you know, the , uh, the , uh, the staff person and said, did we consider that in this legislation? And the answer was no, we didn't. And the response I got was, oh my God, thank you so much for telling us about this. This is not the intent of this legislation. And I said, I'm so glad because my embryologist would be petrified. If this went through, they'd be petrified to carry a dish across the lap . You know, how are they going to work with, you know, with, with any kind of, of embryo, if God forbid, you know, we freeze an embryo and it doesn't survive. The thighs , somebody's gonna press charges. So they not, you know, I mean, it, it just creates so many unintended unintended consequences. And so as a result, that person, you know, you can see the light bulb go on over their head. They get it and make changes in the legislation. And in fact it didn't even happen. So it was, it's really very important. I can't, I can't overstate how important, what this responsibility is.
Speaker 2Well, I personally would like to thank both Caitlin and Barb for coming here today, because I can say that even though Caitlin is my practice and every year he's like, who's coming with me to advocacy day. I have yet to take the hook because it was, it was very intimidating. It was like, what do I say? What do I do? But I, I hope that this has not, I definitely has opened my eyes to, you know, I knew the importance of it, but the help ease the comfort level of not only other physicians, but patients, former patients, anybody who has, you know, fertility on their heart.
Speaker 3Absolutely. Don't be scared. We will train you. You won't be alone. You have a story to tell, and if we aren't there, no one's going to L no one is going to be doing it for us. This is, this is the day. This is the group. This is the chance for us to make an impact and raise your voice. It's so important.
Speaker 4And I think we should make a trip to DC together. Guys, this would be a fun, little trip and fun podcast from DC.
Speaker 6Hopefully you'll take me along .
Speaker 5I totally agree. I didn't realize how much training you give ahead of time and how, how really well organized and set up it is. I mean, it's, it's pretty much show up and, and be yourself and, and that's really phenomenal. So thank you guys, both so much for , for talking to us and really for doing everything that you do. Um, because it's very much appreciated.
Speaker 6Oh, the thanks. Go to bar because of what she does. I mean, the organization that she runs, the Oregon , the staffing that she has in place, the amount of detail that they pay attention to before advocacy day, during advocacy day after advocacy day. And it's not resolved, it's not just about advocacy day. I mean, these people are bulldogs 365 this year, 366 days of the year. And I mean, they really are. And what they've done for our community is just immeasurable. It's just, it's incredible.
Speaker 3Thank you. Thank you. We love what we do. And we have a fantastic team and amazing volunteers. And then we have advocates like yourself that make it really incredibly fun, as well as a productive. And we've made a difference. We've made a difference on many levels on the hill and that's , um, you know, we, we also do a massive amount of state advocacy. Um, and so we, we have when we've had a lot of wins the last few years, and that is just such an amazing feeling. Well , I know
Speaker 2Now all of us have a big place in our heart, obviously for infertility. And again, thank you everybody for coming with us today. This is Dr. Susan Hudson with Texas fertility center,
Speaker 5Dr. Carrie obedient from the fertility center of Las Vegas and
Speaker 4Dr. Ablin from Nashville. Fertility. Thanks
Speaker 2For being here. Thank you everybody. See you all soon.
Speaker 7[inaudible] .