Former Australian Opals basketballer Jenni Screen and her husband Neil tried for 12 years to have a baby.
And initially, when things weren't going to plan, they didn't know where to turn.
"It was excruciating," Screen said.
"It was a lot of heartache, emotional rollercoasters, and a big financial burden.
"But we were one of the lucky ones."
On her 13th round of IVF, Screen fell pregnant with her daughter Edith, who has just turned one.
It was ecstasy after such a long time of agony, in which the now 41-year-old wished she'd known more about her body.
After her fifth round of IVF, Screen had explorative surgery and discovered she had stage-four endometriosis.
"The (period) pain was excruciating for me and I just thought it was normal and it's not," she said.
"So that journey and understanding my body, would have been so vital 10 years ago, when I was in the thick of being an elite athlete and pushing myself.
"All the education I remember as an adolescent was, 'Don’t have sex, you’ll fall pregnant,' and it's very far from the truth actually that it will happen.
"Equally with coaches – educating them around women's and men's health and being more appreciative of the body and respectful of the body we've been gifted with."
That is the aim of a new partnership between Monash IVF and the Australian Athletes' Alliance (AAA), the peak body for Australia's eight major player associations – to give those at the top of their game, the best chance of starting a family.
Making informed decisions
The partnership will provide athletes and support staff with educational resources around women's and men's reproductive health, as well as access to fertility specialists and treatments.
"It is spoken about between the athletes themselves, but it's the lack of awareness around where to go to seek that information to have the expertise that's attached to this," Professional Footballers Australia Co-CEO Kate Gill said.
"This is exactly what this partnership provides.
"So the players do have a comfortable space where they know they can turn, to get the right information, so that they can make decisions that will assist them in preserving their fertility or actually going on the journey to start that family trajectory as well."
Female athletes are at particular risk of fertility difficulties.
They're more likely to experience irregular or absent periods, which can impact their ability to have children.
There's also the age factor – female fertility starts to decline from the age of 30, and it increases more rapidly from 35.
"Delaying a family because you want to put your sports career first is a good decision, but it is a decision with implications," Monash IVF Group Medical Director, Professor Luk Rombauts, said.
"We see lots of talented athletes now able to have a long sports career, but the biological clock on their eggs doesn't stop.
"That [path] is for the individual to decide, whether that's a fair trade-off, or whether they want to avail themselves of services like egg freezing, so they can make sure they make that decision with, in a sense, some form of back up option."
For Diamonds netballer Jo Weston, it's comforting to see examples of players returning to the sport after having children.
"I'm 29 now, and I'm not sure how much longer I'm looking at playing but it's certainly something that myself and a few of my other teammates who are of a similar age have spoken about," she said.
"I feel like just being able to talk about [it] is going to be so beneficial because it helps you to have that certainty and eases that anxiety … which helps you be able to plan for what you want."
Let's talk about it
Screen wishes she was better informed during her career.
"As an athlete you don't know what you don't know, and a lot of athletes don't know anything about this," Screen said.
"I think this is a great step to educate the masses, who really put their health and wellbeing on the backburner in order to strike success on the sporting field.
"It also opens doors for conversations about a topic that can be very private, because as an athlete, it's sometimes hard to go to a coach and say I'm having a bad day with my period."
That's something AFLW player Chloe Dalton relates to.
"If I go to training and I've got a sore knee or a sore ankle, I feel really comfortable walking up to my physio, my strength and conditioning coach and saying, 'Hey, can we adjust training, I'm not sure what's going on'," she said.
"Whereas some of the pain and symptoms that I've experienced with my period, historically, I haven't felt like if I voiced my concerns that would be validated and that would be heard by some of those staff members.
"It's about empowering, educating the athletes themselves, but it's also about empowering and educating the people that work with the athletes."
Screen hopes it'll give people an opportunity to support each other.
"Now we get an open forum to be educated, but then empower each other to be brave enough to speak up, knowing that potentially another five people in the room that I'm sitting with are going through exactly the same journey that I am.
"It shouldn't be a journey of isolation."
"You can do it all," Gill added.
"You can have your athletic career; you can become a parent."
