Gaby Reid says the most challenging part of infertility is that no one talks about their struggles.
"It's an awkward conversation," she says.
But that doesn't put people off from asking questions.
Reid says after she had been married to her husband, Jonny Gabriel, for a certain amount of time, people started asking questions around her plans and commenting on the dreaded "timeline".
"You start getting people saying, 'tick tock, tick tock'."
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The 35-year-old says this has been challenging. She tended to keep her and Gabriel's battle to herself, so outsiders' comments have made her feel quite alone in their struggle.
Reid and Gabriel, both Auckland-based high school teachers, began trying for a baby in 2015.
When nothing initially happened they went to see a doctor. They went through the usual tests - for sperm count, and endometriosis, but all of the results came back clear.
The couple wound up in the large and murky bracket of "unexplained infertility" - a label Reid said was as frustrating as it was painful.
"Because there's no reason for it, there's no public funding for us until we've been infertile for five years."
The funding for the government subsidised IVF and fertility treatment was based on a points system. It takes into account age, previous experiences with infertility and the length of time a couple had spent trying to conceive.
Although March 2020 - the month Reid and Gabriel become eligible for funding - is on the horizon, Reid is a realist about their chances.
She believes there would be around a year-long wait list for those eligible, and she knows IVF doesn't have a positive outcome every time.
In the meantime, Reid is considering trying intrauterine insemination - a fertility treatment with a higher success rate than the natural process.
This treatment comes at a cost of about $900.
In an attempt to fix the issue herself, Reid has quit smoking and is working on losing weight.
Research linking acupuncture and conception prompted her to spend hundreds of dollars on weekly acupuncture sessions - but she stopped after several months due to the cost.
She and Gabriel are taking the journey one step at a time, she says.
"It changes week from week. Like this week I'm like, 'Okay it's all good.'
"But then other weeks it will be really horrible, and you don't want to see pregnant women and you don't want to talk about children."
Reid said it was good to hear there was research going on in this space.
"It might give some answers, it might highlight why people are struggling or why there is such a high infertility rate in NZ.
"It's so hard when you don't know, when there isn't a reason for it."
The community turned out in force to help clean up the damage.