A rural mother missed her toddler son's first words while she was away from home for weeks of fertility treatment.
Another woman whose symptoms were dismissed before she suffered a life-threatening ruptured ectopic pregnancy narrowly survived the emergency trip from her rural home to a regional hospital.
A family worried about the standard of care at their rural hospital considered moving to a capital city to have their baby.
"I wasn't willing to risk my life," the mother told rural parenting social enterprise Her Herd.
Those are some of the many stories about the complicated road to parenthood for rural families, who are disadvantaged by long distances, limited access to specialists and fragmented healthcare.
Their experiences will be aired at a NSW parliamentary inquiry examining fertility care and assisted reproductive treatment across the state.
