Our Dream of Getting Pregnant (Oct 2018)

My husband and I have now been together for 12 years. 4 years ago we thought it was quite strange that in 12 years I'd never once gotten pregnant — not that we were actively trying that whole time, but I did sometimes forget to take the pill.

I went to the GP, who referred us to the fertility clinic in Hengelo for further testing. The results came back and we had a consultation. Our conversation didn't feel right from the start, and we really felt like just a number there. Our feelings weren't taken into account at all, so that same evening I went online to search for the best fertility clinics near us.

That's when we saw that a lot of Dutch people were going to the VivaNeo clinic in Düsseldorf, Germany. We arranged an intake there to see what the doctors had to say about us and what the possibilities were.

The conversation went really well and everything was explained clearly. IVF ICSI was our only option to get pregnant. So we started with the first egg retrieval after all that injecting — 17 eggs, of which 11 turned out good enough to freeze. Really good news, so we were overjoyed! In the end I only had 3 transfers, because the rest of the eggs apparently didn't thaw properly, they said.

Then came retrieval 2, roughly the same number of eggs but again no pregnancy. Retrieval 3, again 11 eggs but no result. And retrieval 4 gave us 11 eggs again, of which 7 fertilized well. In the end I only had 1 transfer from that batch, because the rest again didn't survive thawing. We found it so strange that out of so many eggs, so many were lost every time, that I asked them if the power had gone out or something, that all 6 died at once. Of course we had to pay for everything ourselves and didn't get any of it back. I was so sad when they called again to say I had no eggs left, and I really didn't see how we could continue. By then we'd been at it in Düsseldorf for 2.5 years. We'd heard from friends that they'd also heard good things about IVF treatment in Turkey.

So right after I hung up with Düsseldorf, I started searching again and ended up on the Human First website.

My husband and I read through other people's experiences there and immediately felt courage again.

Evren, our contact person, called me right after I sent an email. She explained everything so nicely and clearly, how it all worked in Istanbul — what an incredibly sweet woman. We both got a good feeling again about trying one more time. We did feel we should do the 17-day trip so Dr. Cem could properly monitor how quickly I responded to the injections and how my eggs would grow.

We both found it exciting, and a bit scary too, to go to a country whose language we didn't speak and didn't know much about, and to stay there for 17 days on top of that. But we really felt this was our last chance and we just had to try something different. Everything was arranged perfectly — we were picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel. Our contact person in Istanbul was Dayon, also an incredibly sweet, kind woman who translated everything into Dutch for us. She came with us to every hospital visit. After our first conversation with Dr. Cem, my husband and I were simply speechless. He listed so many reasons why they hadn't tried certain things in Düsseldorf — keep in mind our entire 3-year file was in German, and he'd gone through it so thoroughly and really knew what he was talking about.

Eventually I had to start injecting, and in between we went a few times to check how the eggs were growing. Everything went well; on the day of the retrieval, 7 eggs were collected and in the end 3 were good enough. My husband and I looked at each other like, that's really few — we were used to numbers like 11 and 17 from Düsseldorf. But well, in the end all of that hadn't worked there anyway. So 2 embryos of AA+ quality were transferred, and Dr. Cem also said they only freeze AA+ quality, because otherwise they know anything lower won't survive thawing. My husband and I were in shock — in Düsseldorf they'd frozen everything below that quality too, even though it's known the chance of surviving thawing is minimal. But of course you have to pay for every egg they retrieve! So we thought, again a clinic where it's all about money and not about the people. Dr. Cem said he'd freeze the other egg, and that he himself had never once seen an egg fail to thaw properly — so you can imagine. On the day of the transfer we flew home again; Dr. Cem said that was no problem and that I could just fly, though my husband was of course extremely careful with me, haha.

Once home, after 10 days we were allowed to test, and we couldn't believe our eyes: PREGNANT!!! After 4 confirmation tests we went to the midwife for our first ultrasound. We were of course super curious whether both had survived or whether I was pregnant with just 1. And yes, my husband spotted it even before the midwife did — she said, I see 2 little heartbeats! My husband and I were so moved and simply couldn't believe it... How? After 3 years in Düsseldorf with no result, only disappointments, one trip to Istanbul and immediately pregnant with twins? We just couldn't believe it. Of course we were both still very cautious and wanted to get past the 12-week ultrasound first.

I'm now 28 weeks pregnant with our twins and everything is going really well... oh, and it's a boy and a girl, so we're doubly blessed there too.

The decision to go to Istanbul has been the best decision of our lives. I would truly recommend EVERYONE to never give up hope and to really choose Turkey. I completely understand that it seems like a big step, but every single bit of it has been so worth it. They're so much further ahead there than in the Netherlands, Germany or Belgium. It's really about the people there, and they do everything they can, and you really feel that! Evren still messages me to ask how the pregnancy is going, which I think is so incredibly sweet.

We want to say a thousand thanks to Dr. Cem, Evren and Dayon, and everyone else who supported us.

Without you, we wouldn't be pregnant with our twins right now.

Thank you for everything!

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