(upbeat music) - You think it would
be the easiest, most natural thing in the world.
Conception.
But the truth is, about 11% of women and 9% of men
of reproductive age in the United States,
experience an infertility problem.
And for those thinking about starting a family,
often times the pharmacy aspect of treatment
is an afterthought.
Joining me today is Hilary Thibault,
director of pharmacy practice at Freedom Fertility Pharmacy,
and Hilda Fernandez, who struggled to conceive.
Good morning to both of you.
- Good morning - Good morning, thank you.
- Thanks for being here.
Hilda, let me start with you if you don't mind.
Could you share your story?
I mean, I'll tell you mine.
I had some issues as well, and I took Clomid,
which helped me with my pregnancies,
and obviously I have two girls.
What's your story if you don't mind?
- My story is, I started with IUI, I had four failed IUIs.
- [Olga] Four of them?
- Four.
- [Olga] Wow.
- So, I had to undergo surgery for endometriosis,
which I didn't know that I had.
- Oh my goodness.
- Once I did that, then I did in vitro fertilization,
where I was able to conceive my first set of twins,
and then two and a half years later,
I conceived another set of twins.
- So you were not gonna give up, I can see that.
Emotionally you really had that call.
You wanted to be a mom.
- Yes.
I wanted to leave a piece of me behind.
So now I've left four pieces of me behind.
- That's fantastic.
Now, Hilary, does this sound familiar?
You know, women who try and try and it's emotional,
it's a rollercoaster, there's anguish, there's stress.
And many times there's a positive.
- Yes, it's a very similar story.
We hear it all the time from our patients
and know that it can be a very challenging
and stressful journey for them.
- It is.
And not only just stressful, just the sometimes uncertainty
of will this happen, will I be able to get pregnant?
Now, once they're diagnosed, doctors prescribe various
medications that can aid in conception.
My example of Clomid is one.
- Yes, yes.
The typical IVF protocol generally ranges anywhere
from seven to 12 medications that show up in a package
from our pharmacy to our patients.
- Seven to 12?
- Yes.
Freedom has been a fertility-only
pharmacy for 25 years, and so we have a
lot of experience in being able to
help our patients.
We're well positioned as the nation's largest
fertility-only pharmacy to do that,
and what that's taught us from that experience
is that injectables are a very scary thing for our patients.
And so it led us to create Freedom MedTEACH,
which is a series of videos that help our patients
understand the administration preparation
of injectable medications.
And so it's really allowed our patients to become
more confident in being able to mix
and administer those medications to themselves.
- It was very helpful because that way you knew
what syringe and what needle and where exactly
to have the injection done cause I had to use injectables.
- Hillary, what if someone has a question
and they really aren't sure of something.
- Freedom Fertility's open seven days a week,
but more importantly, we have a pharmacist available
24 hours a day so even those late night questions that
a patient may have - [Olga] A concern.
- Any concern, any question a patient has,
we're available 24 hours a day, there's a pharmacist available
to answer a question.
- And what about safety, when it comes to the medication.
- Patient safety is our most, one of our most important,
components of what we do every day.
And as a National provider we're licensed in all 50 states.
Which requires us to adhere to all state and federal
regulatory requirements because of that,
that really provides a solid foundation for us to be able
to grow upon and make sure that everything that we do
is in the best interest and safety of our patients.
- And it gives the patient peace of mind.
- Yes.
- What about cost, cause that's a huge factor Hillary.
- It's a huge factor, you're right.
And we're in a really interesting time right now
where what we're seeing is employers looking to
increasingly add fertility benefits to their
insurance benefits packages for their employees.
So that's very exciting cause there's not a lot of coverage,
but Freedom also works with pharmaceutical manufacturers
to provide self paid discounts.
Which makes it very possible for our patients
in many times to be able to afford the medications.
- I really like this because it really gives a lot of
women out there hope, that if they've tried so many
times that just keep on trying.
And with Freedom Fertility Pharmacy,
you just might get there, right?
- Yes.
- And for you, let's see you said you had four.
So how old are they?
- [Hilda] I have a set of 14 year olds, which are two boys.
- [Olga] Two boys.
- [Hilda] Jake and Lucas, and then I have a
set of 11 year olds, it's a boy and a girl,
Sydney and Matthew.
- [Olga] You're blessed.
- Yes and let's keep it that.
- And how blessed are you?
How do you feel today?
- Amazing, they're my life.
- [Olga] What does it mean to be a Mom?
- It's everything I ever wanted and thanks to the in vitro
fertilization and all the meds and the doctor and the
group of help that I had, it was able to happen.
- Well, God bless you, I'm sure your hands are very busy.
Your life is very busy, you're all over.
- [Hilda] Yes, I am.
- Well enjoy them all.
Thank you so much for what you do Hilary.
For our viewer who'd like more information,
where do they go?
- They go to freedomefertility.com
- Freedomfertility.com thank you ladies so much,
thanks for sharing your story.
- [Hilda] Thank you.
- And if you'd like more information you can always
go to our website, it's easy, thebalancingact.com.
(upbeat music)