Story of Anna

Anna @anna_sane:

When I came to OLGA I’d been through a lot. I had lost faith, but they helped me to believe again. 

At that point I had been pregnant four times, miscarried twice and lost two children halfway through pregnancy. I had turned to IVF with PGT-A to minimise the risk of chromosomal abnormalities and had transferred 6 embryos, but that didn’t make me pregnant at all. Finally doctors told me it wasn’t just “bad luck”, most likely me and my husband share the same, unidentified, genetic issue. That left us with two options: “Just try again” or using donated eggs or sperm. 

The main reason we turned to OLGA, except their reputation of helping the “impossible cases” was that we really liked their egg donation programme. Valeria guided us through the whole process and we felt so safe. Unfortunately Russia was closed due to the pandemic, but I kept my hopes up and in August 2020 we finally travelled to St Petersburg and fell in love with the city.

It was hard for me to believe it could work as I’d fallen pregnant easily on my own, but never with IVF. But for the first time I felt that the doctors were doing EVERYTHING they could and I did become pregnant! I worried a lot and many emotions caught up with me during pregnancy, but in May 2021 our son Lev (means lion 🦁 in Russian) was born and he patched up all of my wounds. He’s perfect and all I could wish for 💙

Apart from their medical competence, it’s the details that make a difference at OLGA — that they acknowledge infertility is tough, that they greet you with a hug at the clinic, that they actually CARE.

As I’ve come to work with supporting fertility patients on their journey with a focus on emotional support, I know this makes a lot of difference. Really happy if you want to have a look at @mytilly.co if you feel lonely or like you need tools to cope — we love to hear what you think 🙏

We’re now hoping to have a sibling for Lev and I visited St Petersburg with my husband and Lev this Christmas, it was great to bring him back to where it all began and I hope I will do it many more times 💙"

Dr. Olga Zaytseff:

Dear Anna, thank you SO MUCH ❤ for sharing your journey and for mentioning what was important for you in our clinic, what kept you going and made you feel safe and comfortable. I cried when reading. May be because I feel so much for you. May be because there is so much hard work behind each success story. A lot of work on both sides - by patients and us. May be both. Lots of love from me and the whole Team.