Jenny Wheeler
The Nurse Who Gets to Hear the Baby News
There are plenty of things you can measure in a fertility clinic — cycle numbers, pregnancy rates, laboratory outcomes, waiting times and treatment costs — but some of the things that matter most are harder to put into a report.
They are the small things you notice when you work somewhere every day. A doctor stopping in the hallway to ask a nurse how a patient is going. A scientist coming upstairs to share some good news. Someone making tea after a difficult morning. Or the cake that appears in the staff kitchen every week because Jenny Wheeler has baked one for everyone again.
Those things say a lot about a workplace.
At No.1 Fertility, we have always wanted to be a doctor-led clinic, but never a distant or hierarchical one. Our doctors work closely with our nurses, scientists, counsellors and support teams, and people are able to talk, ask questions and share the moments that matter.
Jenny Has Been Here From the Beginning
Jenny Wheeler is one of our Senior Nurse Coordinators and has been with No.1 Fertility since the beginning. These days she has one of those special roles that connects the beginning of a patient's fertility journey with what happens much later. Jenny makes our pregnancy follow-up calls.
At around 20 weeks, she reaches out to patients who have graduated from No.1 Fertility to see how they are going. Then, a few weeks after the baby's due date, she contacts them again to hear their news and collect the outcome information fertility clinics are required to record.
On paper, it sounds like a follow-up process. In reality, it is much more personal.
Jenny gets to hear about pregnancies progressing well, scans, births, baby names and the moments patients have waited so long to experience. In many cases, she is hearing the next chapter of a story that began months, and sometimes years, earlier inside our clinic.
She then brings that news back to Dr Lynn, the specialists and the nurses or scientists who remember the patient's journey. There are plenty of moments when someone says, “Do you remember them?” and of course they do. Jenny helps close the circle.
Not Every Call Brings Happy News
Fertility care also means being there when the outcome is not what anyone hoped for. Jenny sometimes learns that a pregnancy has ended in loss or that a patient has experienced a complication.
There is no perfect thing to say in those moments. Jenny simply lets people know the team is thinking of them, that support is available and that they can reach out when they feel ready.
Sometimes care means knowing when to talk and when to give someone space, while still making sure they know they have not been forgotten. That takes warmth, empathy and judgement, and it is one of the reasons Jenny is so well suited to the role.
And Then There Is the Cake
Anyone who works at No.1 Fertility knows something else about Jenny.She bakes.
Once a week, Jenny brings a cake in for the team. There is no roster and nothing in her job description requiring her to do it. She simply started, and over time it became one of those little traditions everyone looks forward to. The cake goes into the kitchen, someone puts the kettle on, and doctors, nurses, scientists and members of the support team drift in and out, have a chat and catch up. Sometimes they talk about work and sometimes they don't. For a few minutes, everyone is simply together.
We think there is something very special about that.
Doctor-Led, But Always Human
When we say No.1 Fertility is doctor-led, we mean our doctors remain closely involved in patient care, but they are also part of the everyday life of the clinic.
Our specialists work directly with our nursing and scientific teams, ideas can be discussed quickly, questions can be raised and patient stories can be shared. Dr Lynn can walk into the kitchen, make a cup of tea and have a piece of Jenny's cake like everyone else.
That closeness matters because good fertility care depends on people communicating well and working together.
The Culture We Want to Keep
No.1 Fertility has grown a great deal since Jenny first joined us, but there are certain things we never want to lose.
We want our doctors to remain accessible. We want people to know one another. We want good news to travel through the clinic, and when the days are difficult, we want people to look after each other.
We also hope there will always be time to put the kettle on and share a piece of cake.
For all the medicine, science and technology involved in fertility treatment, this will always be work about people. Jenny's weekly cake is only a small part of No.1 Fertility, but perhaps that is why we love it so much.
It represents something very simple about the place we have built — people working closely together, caring about what happens to our patients and caring about each other too.
