A Letter to our Local Member

Dear Member,

 I am writing to you as a concerned resident of xxx., NSW.

The proposed 'Health Insurance Amendment (Safety Net) Bill 2015' has come to my attention as something which is of vast importance to the local and the national community, and I wanted to voice my worries to you, as my local member.

My name is xxx, and I have struggled with infertility for many years now. Despite being 31 years of age - which is still technically "young" in IVF land - my husband and I have been trying to expand our family since 2010. For medical reasons, we require the help of IVF to conceive, and while coming to terms with this was tough in itself, we considered ourselves extremely lucky to live in a country where we were assisted financially with our endeavours.

We are young, well, and healthy. We are well educated, tax-paying individuals who have thankfully never needed to utilise the system in any way, shape or form - until now. How crushing it is to have the ONE initiative that we actually benefit from, taken away - particularly when it comes to matters of family planning.

If you do go on to read the many articles about this proposed amendment, I encourage you to read the comments. They are so, so varied. They range from folks like myself, who are struggling to make sense of this medical journey and so desperate to start a family. Then there are those from others, who shoot us down, tell us that we don't deserve to have a family, or that we should just 'accept that we weren't meant to have children' and move on.

I find this appalling, from a mental health perspective - what a thing to say to someone who is already mid-way through a heart-wrenching journey.

I realise that as a couple, my husband & I are not important in the grand scheme of things. Parliament doesn't care about the needs of one couple, or about the overwhelming emotions that come along with infertility. But I want to be a voice, for a community that is often silent (due to shame, embarrassment, grief, or a multitude of other reasons) because if we don't speak out, we won't be heard.

The children we are trying so desperately to have, are going to be the politicians, the farmers, the tech-gurus, the lawyers of the future. They will be hard-working individuals, with strong family backgrounds pushing them to be whoever they want to be, and to provide for Australia in whatever way they deem fit. And they will be so loved.

We are the lucky ones.

We have a daughter, a fiesty, spirited 2.5 year old, who was born after several rounds of IVF back in 2012. Without the help of the Safety Net system, we could never have afforded to utilise IVF, in even the cheapest of clinics. She is here, alive, throwing a temper tantrum as we speak, because of this great country. She's the reason this scheme needs to carry on - to give every family the gift of a child.

 But we are also the unlucky ones.

The ones who have been trying desperately to add to our family since 2013. The ones who have spent thousands out-of-pocket, above the Safety Net, to continue doing cycle after cycle of IVF. The ones who have suffered multiple crushing miscarriages, and who will go on fighting until they have given it everything they've got, because having a family is so important to us. It would be devastating to have to give up that dream, simply because of finances.

Please consider making this a priority to look into.

This amendment affects real people, with real stories, and real hopes & dreams.

 Thank you so much for your time.