My Infertility Story

Treatment: In-vitro fertilisation (IVF)
Provider: IVF Treatment Abroad
Date: Apr 2016

Motherhood in my opinion is such an innate desire.  I am going to try and make a really long story short so that we can get to the details of my experience traveling abroad for treatment.  When I was 27 years old, I went off the pill with hopes that everything would happen naturally and quickly.  Unfortunately, due to my active lifestyle at the time (I was ballroom dancing professionally) I went through a period of amenorrhea where my period stopped for 4 years.  So if there’s no cycle, then there’s no chance at all of pregnancy.  Time literally flew by and before I knew it I was almost 39 years old and having basic tests done at my OB/GYN to get the results of her saying that I had diminished ovarian reserve.  In other words, due to my advanced maternal age, my eggs were old and chance of pregnancy was not likely.  Two months later I found myself pregnant naturally, but something was wrong from the get go.  My Doctor found a septum in my uterus which is a piece of cartilage tissue that the embryo implanted on and was not getting oxygen so that lead to miscarriage #1.  Shortly thereafter, I went through 2 different surgeries to remove the septum from my uterus in case I was to ever become pregnant again.  Looking back on things, it is a good possibility the septum was the reason I hadn’t gotten pregnant for all those years.  

When I was 40 years old I went through 2 mini stimulation IVF’s to find they were both negative.  After a couple years had passed, I was almost 42 and found out I was pregnant naturally again.  This pregnancy carried on through 10 weeks and had heard heartbeats as well.  Unfortunately, at my 11 week appointment there was no heartbeat and so I was miscarrying #2.  I had some tests done again and found out I have high natural killer cells that actually go in and attack any foreign object that comes into my body.  Luckily my specialist at the time said that this can be prevented next time around with medication.   My husband is also older and has male factor issues so this meant we had quite a combination problem.  We went through 1 IUI to find it was negative and then went through donor egg IVF fresh cycle with my 36 year old cousin as the donor.  What a beautiful blessing, however our fresh cycle ended in a negative and our frozen cycle ended up in a miscarriage #3.  At this point we were feeling defeated, deflated and hopeless.  The only thing that kept us going was this INNATE DESIRE to start a family.  When my husband and I first met we agreed that we would NOT get into debt with fertility treatments.  But, we wanted to try again and came across a fertility group with many valuable resources and experiences.

After already spending close to $100,000 on treatments we needed to consider another option.  This is when we met a couple from the fertility group that was pregnant at the time and very open to meeting with us and sharing their experiences of traveling abroad to Greece for treatment.  After the meeting with this gracious couple, my husband and I both agreed this could be another option for us due to the cost factor and success rates of the Clinic Iakentro. 

We immediately reached out to Ruth Pellow for information regarding her services and felt instantly comfortable.  Ruth has been a Godsend for us with her compassion, knowledge, and genuine love for her patients.  We have developed not only a patient-nurse relationship, but also a much grounded friendship that we are confident in will last for a lifetime.  Questions we had were  instantly answered via email or Skype and this for us was the determining factor that we were in very caring hands with Ruth and her services would best fit our needs.

We arranged the treatment, medications and protocol and headed to Greece for undeniably the “time of our life!”  We stayed in the on-site beautiful apartment that is connected to Ruth & Simon’s home for 24 hour care if needed.  We walked to the beach, made our own dinners, and lived like locals and tourists for 11 days straight!  The experience with the Doctor and nurses at the clinic was also top notch with their modern cutting edge facilities. 

We headed home after treatment saying a sad “goodbye” to Ruth, Simon, Emily and the pups.  Once we arrived back we waited anxiously for the call from Ruth to find out if the treatment was successful.  We were overjoyed to find out our first treatment had worked and it was twins.  Unfortunately, around 7 weeks we did not see proper growth and were miscarrying #4 & #5.  Heartbroken at this point we still felt very blessed that we still have 3 embryos in Greece and will be headed back this very week to transfer 2 more with HOPES that at least one of these last 3 will END our struggle to start a family. 

In conclusion, we are so hopeful to be able to hold that little blessing, that little treasure in our arms one day, that has all too often in our case been taken away…But, for my husband and I, we also never want to look back with regret.  Thanks to Ruth for her services and the Doctors and nurses at Iakentro, they have allowed us another chance and we are forever grateful.

M & I 2014