Local Inspirations: Stacey Robert-Tobin turned her own infertility struggle into support for 800+
Local Inspirations: Stacey Robert-Tobin couldn't find a local infertility support group, so she started Fertility Friends in 2017. It now has 800+ members. This year she received the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship.
Topics: Community
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Local Inspirations is Windsor News' monthly profile of local people who make the city better. This is our first.
When Stacey Robert-Tobin went looking for help with infertility, she found nothing nearby. So she built it herself.
The Windsor woman, a professor at St. Clair College, struggled for years to conceive. She told Windsor Life that she and her husband, Ryan, went through extensive testing, but "all the results came back normal," and they were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. "I became isolated," she said, "which is strange, because I'm a very social person."
She told St. Clair College there was "no support in the community all the way up to Toronto." In 2017 she started Fertility Friends, a free peer support group. According to Windsor Life, she found her first members by leaving comments on message boards on doctors' websites, inviting people to join.
From a few members to more than 800
The group had about 400 members across Windsor and Essex County in 2022, the Windsor Star reported. By this spring it had more than 800 members, according to St. Clair College and Windsor News Today, and Windsor Life put the number at nearly 900 families, including some beyond Windsor-Essex. Members offer each other a listening ear, share information and can point people toward physicians and clinics.
In April 2022, to mark Infertility Awareness Week, about 20 mothers from the group gathered at Lakewood Park in Tecumseh with the children they call their "miracle" babies. "I wanted to do something different, to show people there is hope for people who have struggled with infertility for years," Robert-Tobin told the Windsor Star.
She has described infertility as grief "for something that hasn't happened" (Windsor Life). Her advice for friends and family who don't know what to say is simple: "I'm so sorry you're going through this and I'm here if you need anything."
Robert-Tobin is now the mother of a daughter and a son. She told St. Clair College that helping others "has blessed me in my own life."
Teacher, advocate, medal recipient
Before teaching, Robert-Tobin worked in law enforcement with the Canada Border Services Agency. She has taught criminal and civil law, social justice, sociology and psychology in St. Clair's Protection, Security and Investigation and Police Foundations programs since 2013. She is also the Southwestern Ontario representative for Fertility Matters Canada.
On April 14, 2026, Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont presented her with the Queen Elizabeth II Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship at Queen's Park. She was one of the 2024 honourees, alongside Windsor's Sam Sinjari and Dean Paul La Bute from the 2025 group (Windsor News Today). The medal is Ontario's second-highest civilian honour.
"You're literally just doing things in the community that need to be done because there's a need for them," she told St. Clair College.
How you can help
Her story is a reminder that one person noticing a gap can build something hundreds of neighbours lean on. You don't need a medal to start. If someone you know is going through infertility, simply listening, without advice or questions about timelines, can matter a lot. Anyone looking for support, or wanting to offer it, can find Fertility Friends on Facebook under the same name. Windsor News tried to reach Robert-Tobin for this story. This profile is based on published sources listed below.
