I promised myself that if I ever succeed in getting pregnant and giving birth, after the numerous IVF cycles that I have gone through since 2012, I would write about my positive experiences for encouragement to others. Now in 2017 I am finally able to do this.
My story is a long one, but luckily it has a happy ending. I started my journey to become a mother when I was 42 years old. I knew that this was already late, but life does not always go according to our plans. However, encouraged by many women who have managed to get pregnant in their 40s, I was hopeful and not too concerned.
I started with two IUI treatments and one stimulated IVF cycle in Copenhagen, and continued the next year with another stimulated IVF cycle in Athens. My body did not respond well to the stimulation medicines, and I decided to continue with natural cycle IVF. I had further ten attempts of IVF with my own eggs, but although my blood tests were fine and the fertilized eggs seemed good at the time of the embryo transfers, all attempts ended in failure.
In 2016, I started to accept the fact that my own eggs were too old and I could not get pregnant in this way. I started looking for possibilities to use a donated egg. At first, this idea felt scary, but little by little, with the encouragement of my husband who is adopted himself, I became fine with it. My only regret now is that I did not make this decision earlier!
Because of my husband’s background as an adopted child who does not know anything about his genetic background, we decided to look for an IVF clinic, which provided as much information about the egg donors as possible, while them still being anonymous. Since my husband would have liked to know some basic facts about his genetic origins, but was never given this possibility, we wanted to give this opportunity to our child. Hence finding the clinic in St Petersburg, with its extensive and detailed donor database was ideal for us!
We contacted Dr Olga's team in the spring of 2016 and found a perfect donor from their excellent database. The same summer we made two trips to St Petersburg; one for the initial appointment and various tests and another for the embryo transfer. We had one coordinator arranging everything before going to St Petersburg and another when the treatment started properly. Everything was arranged with great professionalism, and all our queries were answered promptly and thoroughly. We also used donated sperm (with extended anonymous profile) from Cryos Denmark, which was transported to St Petersburg with the help of the clinic. After the embryo transfer, we got detailed instructions how to take the medicines and how to deal with possible problems.
I was lucky to become pregnant in our first attempt! However, the pregnancy was not easy, and I started bleeding early on. The nurses from Dr Olga's team assured that there is still hope and that I only had to increase the dosage of medicines and follow carefully their instructions. All went fine in the end and I gave birth to a wonderful baby boy in spring 2017!
After my long struggle with IVF cycles, I would like to encourage women who are longing to have a child, but struggling to get pregnant with their own eggs, to choose egg donation. I wish that I had done it earlier, and saved myself from prolonged stress and sadness. My little boy is as much mine as he would have been, if conceived with my own egg. We are going to tell him about his background one day, and we are confident that he will value the detailed information about his genetic origins.
We would wholeheartedly like to thank Dr Olga and Dr Alena, our coordinators Anna and Tamsin, as well as Katia and all the nurses for their exceptional care and help at their clinic in St Petersburg! And we are forever thankful to our egg donor, whose kind act made my motherhood possible!
2017
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