IVF Treatment at the hospital, May 2018

My husband and I had a strong desire to have children for 10 years already. After 7 years of trying in vain, we decided to start the fertility process at our local hospital. Various tests followed, and the conclusion was: there's nothing wrong with either of you. So for 2 years it stayed at follicle measurements because my period wasn't very regular. After 2 years we said we wanted to take the next step, but the doctors didn't agree; I was still young and just needed to lose 10 kilos first — I was already 30 at that point and didn't feel especially young.

I just kept becoming more and more insecure because of all the comments and advice. So we decided to look further than the local hospital, and through Google we found Human First, who work with the hospital in Istanbul. I decided to get in touch and first spoke with Evren. That phone call already gave me a good feeling, because she took all the time to answer my questions and partly took away my fear. We decided to go for it and received the registration forms; we had to get blood tests done and send the results by email to Evren. All of this went smoothly, and we were told we could choose a date for the treatment. A month before departure I started the pill, and we could count down the days and arrange the last things: medication, flight tickets, hotel... On May 26th we flew to Istanbul, and on May 28th we had our first check-up at the hospital. Since this was the first time we were doing IVF, we decided to stay the full 17 days in Istanbul. That way they could guide us better with the medication and keep us monitored from day 1. Our first meeting was fantastic — that day we got to know the whole IVF team and we both had a good feeling. An ultrasound was done and a medication schedule was set up, along with an explanation of the injections. In the days after, I came in for checks every 2 to 3 days to see how things were going, and the medication was adjusted whenever needed. Dr. Cem Demirel kept giving us good hope, and we trusted him completely. On June 8th the retrieval took place, which made me nervous since it happens under general anesthesia. Looking back, the nerves were completely unnecessary and I was glad it was done this way. At retrieval, 10 eggs were collected — that's really good, and also the number we were hoping for. When I woke up from anesthesia I got a nice breakfast and was well taken care of. The days after were tense; we just had to wait to see if fertilization had occurred. We got the redeeming phone call that all 10 eggs had fertilized, and now we had to hope they'd make it to day 5. On June 13th we had to go back to the hospital for the embryo transfer; we were told that 4 eggs had divided well and that 2 embryos would be transferred that day — wowww, what great news... All the uncertainty we'd experienced for years in the Netherlands, we didn't experience once in Istanbul: no scale in sight and not a single negative comment, only positive feedback from the entire IVF team. We've now been home for a month and we're 7 weeks pregnant! I'm so glad we decided to go to Turkey through Human First, and I can only say that the care we received at the hospital in Istanbul was fantastic. I'd recommend it to everyone. Even though it's an intensive treatment, they try to take away all your worries, and secretly we had a little bit of a holiday feeling. Communication went flawlessly from day 1. Both Evren and Hatice, the IVF coordinator of the IVF team, were reachable via WhatsApp and answered every question or concern we had right away. That's very different from the Netherlands. All praise and thanks to the whole IVF team, and especially to Dr. Cem Demirel and Evren from Human First: without you, we wouldn't have gotten this far!! NIKI & TARK

This story was translated from Dutch by our team. Read the original Dutch version →