Success story 8
Our Journey to have a baby has taken over 6 years with more than 6 attempts at IVF before we moved onto Egg Donation and achieved our dream. The 6 years we spent trying to conceive were horrendous and something that only people who have gone through themselves can fully understand how difficult it can be. When you decide to try for a baby you naturally assume it will happen and when it doesn`t you become increasingly worried that something may be wrong so when test results later confirm that as a couple you are infertile and will almost certainly need IVF/ICSI to get pregnant your world is shattered. Initially we thought we were dealing with male factor low sperm count however as things progressed this would not be the case. The trouble is no one really prepares you for what lies ahead with IVF, you always want to give it just one more go or perhaps try a different approach or a different clinic to finally become pregnant at last. Sadly for us we`d tried every kind of drug with various types of IVF protocols in 2 different countries to try and stimulate my ovaries to produce more eggs and with each year that passed it only got worse. After our 6th attempt at IVF/ICSI with only 2 embryos which neither were what they call "good quality" we simply had to call it a day, it was never going to work. I cannot put into words how devastated we both were, the simple fact that my ovarian reserve was greatly diminished was incredibly hard to come to terms with and the fact that i`d never have biological children of my own broke my heart, being only 31 at the time I felt robbed. Moving onto Egg Donation seemed the next obvious choice but for me this was something that i`d always had reservations about, i`d convinced myself over the years that somehow maybe I just wasn`t supposed to be a mother and that perhaps the child would resent me in some way or what if I couldn`t love the child back and so it goes on. Over the next few months we did some research and the more I read up on about Egg Donation the more I wanted to give it a go. Unfortunately for us living in the Middle East it was not available and if we went back to the UK we would more than likely be on a waiting list for many years so we started to look at clinics abroad, we really wanted to have a European donor so in the end we chose a clinic in Russia. Once we`d got to Russia the reality of everything hit me hard and as much as i`d wanted us to have a baby i`d always hoped that it wouldn`t come to this. Maybe it was the last chapter of mourning and something that I just needed to get through but once the Embryo transfer took place I felt incredibly hopeful and prayed that we`d become pregnant this time. Once we returned home the same nagging doubts that my body had failed me again were there so a couple of day`s before we were due to take a pregnancy test I bought a home kit instead, I was so glad I did because we`ll both remember St Patrick`s day forever, 3 further tests later it was clear, we were finally going to have a baby at last! Over the next 9 months I wanted to wrap myself up in cotton wool and as much as we wanted to shout it from the rooftops we waited until 20 weeks.
It is with huge thanks and appreciation to Dr Olga Zaysteff who carefully guided us through our IVF/Egg Donation cycle with her complete support, kindness and true professional ability each step of the way to achieve the most wonderful gift a person could ever ask for.
We`d never really told many people about our battle to have a baby, we always used to shrug off those who asked us the dreaded question about having kids. In a way we were glad to have kept it this way simply because now no one apart from us will know how our little baby boy was brought into the world, for us this is something that we felt very strongly about and maybe when the time is right and he`s old enough to understand we`ll tell him but for now we just want to enjoy being parents. I can honestly say that from the moment he was born we have never felt so much joy and happiness, when we look at him we still to this day cannot believe he`s ours after so many years of longing for a baby. I feel the proudest Mummy in the park as I push him around and when people stop and say what a beautiful little boy he is and how much he looks like me, I smile and secretly laugh.