Tatura's Brooke Cimera and husband Josh had been trying to get pregnant for five years before they finally turned to IVF.
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It was a mentally and physically exhausting period, as Brooke watched her other friends starting families while they continued to struggle.
Already feeling a sense of separation, she was then told there was one more hurdle.
She and her husband would have to undergo police and child protection order checks before accessing treatment.
“I guess, when you get to that stage, you just do what you have to do,” she said.
“And I knew we'd be fine, the checks wouldn't reveal anything.
“But at the same time, it was frustrating - because people falling pregnant naturally don't have to undergo police checks to have babies.
“And yet we had to prove we were acceptable candidates to have a child.”
It's a requirement which has left women feeling discriminated against as they seek assisted reproductive treatment.
And it caused lengthy delays, with checks taking up to three months to be processed before women could progress to the actual treatment.
But the Victorian Government has just announced the condition has, finally, been removed.
Assisted reproductive treatment clinics will still need to ensure the welfare and best interests of the child to be born are paramount when deciding to treat a woman.
However, women will no longer have to experience the delays, cost and distress associated with undergoing the checks.
It's a change Brooke wishes had been implemented years ago.
“Anything that alleviates the stress of people going through IVF is a good thing,” she said.
Marrying in 2007, she and Josh had been trying to fall pregnant for 12 months before they were finally successful.
But tragically, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.
Attending a revolving door of specialist appointments, Brooke was eventually diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, which can cause unpredictable ovulation.
However, doctors still couldn't explain why the couple couldn't complete a pregnancy.
Five years later, they turned to IVF.
Each IVF treatment required piles of paperwork, two weeks of drugs, the egg collection, transfer and then two weeks of anxious waiting.
Already exhausting on so many levels, for women from the country like Brooke, it required constant trips back and forth to Melbourne.
“I could only get my ultrasounds done in Shepparton,” she said.
“Everything else - even a five minute blood test - had to be done in Melbourne or Bendigo.”
After eight failed transfers, Brooke was reaching the end of her rope.
“When we completed our ninth transfer I said to Josh, ‘I can't do this anymore, it's exhausting. This is the last try’," she said.
Too impatient to wait two weeks for the official blood test, Brooke used a home pregnancy test instead.
And burst into tears.
“I came down the stairs and gave it to my husband. He saw my tears and said, ‘I'm sorry’," she said.
“And I said, ‘No, look at it'.”
Brooke and Josh were finally pregnant, and four weeks later, an ultrasound revealed an even greater surprise.
“We'd always joked about having twins,” she said.
“At first we saw one baby in the ultrasound and I said to Josh, ‘See, only one'. But then the nurse said, ‘wait’ and suddenly, the ultrasound revealed another baby.”
On May 8, 2018, Archie and Bohdan were born.
Now two years old, Brooke still has to pinch herself sometimes when she looks at her twins.
“I'm so grateful IVF exists,” she said.
“And I'm so happy it's becoming easier for women to access.”
Senior Journalist