Success story 5
In a couple of weeks I’ll be turning thirty-five and my son will be celebrating his first birthday soon.
When I was 31 years old, I was diagnosed with a genetic defect that prevented me from having egg cell reserves and thus, I couldn’t have any babies either.
The intervening years were the most exciting, difficult, beautiful, surprising and terrible four years of my life. I cried a lot, tears of happiness and desperation, tears of grief and joy.
The doctors didn’t show any sensitivity in telling me the diagnosis. If my best friend hadn’t been with me, I probably would have jumped from a bridge, but she stopped me. It was on May 9, which still is a black-letter day for me.
“You can’t have any babies” they said, “your ovaries didn’t produce any follicles”, “your FSH level is sky high”, “your uterus is much too small”, “any kind of fertility treatment is useless”, “why don’t you take some hormones for your osteoporosis”, “goodbye”.
In my desperation I asked whether treatment with donated eggs might be possible in my case. I just got the curt reply that such kind of treatment was illegal in Germany.
I felt myself falling into a deep black hole. It took me all of 7 weeks simply to collect myself and get back to work again.
I happened to find some information about egg donations on the Internet. My husband was sad that our baby wouldn’t have any of my genetic traits. No big blue eyes, no cheeky grin, no prominent nose, no cute earlobes etc.
But let me tell you right from the start, our son does have beautiful big blue eyes and his grin is even cheekier than mine. I struggled with my conscience, wasn’t it selfish to buy another woman’s egg cells and pass them off as my own? What would my future child say if he or she was told later on? I kept on wrestling for a long time with my feelings, but we decided to explore this path nonetheless.
It took three attempts until our son was born. Unfortunately, the first treatment cycle at the AVA Peter hospital wasn’t successful; we then tried an infertility clinic in the Czech Republic which was a disaster. Dr Zaytseff had spoiled us. She supported us again and again, encouraged us and was able to help me come to terms with my difficulties thanks to her extensive knowledge.
Our 3rd attempt with Dr. Zaytseff as our attending physician was finally successful. I still cherish the memory of the pregnancy rnd_test showing the two stripes. Our son is a perfect fit for us and in the meantime I hardly ever have pangs of guilt anymore. We are blissfully happy and are so grateful every single day that we may call this little individual our son.
We are also aware of the fact that we owe our happiness to the untiring efforts of Dr. Zaytseff.
Story translated from German