A weekend in Istanbul for a cryo transfer (Nov '20)

Our wish for a child began at the end of 2014, after trying intensively, we went looking for the underlying problem. Unfortunately, that problem turned out to lie with both of us. We were then referred to an IVF clinic here in the Netherlands. Because of my young age (25 at the time) I immediately got the lowest dose of medication. It was basically, here are your meds and we'll see you again once they run out. We already found that extremely strange, but didn't know any better. Obviously you can guess that the dose was waaaay too low. And we had 1 reasonably good egg. 1!! We also tried ICSI, but that wasn't a success either. Then I started reading up online and that's how I ended up on the Human First website. At first we were a bit like.. hmm, Turkey, but after a phone call with Evren all our worries and questions disappeared. We're doing this!!

Together with Evren we made a treatment plan and picked a date. And so everything was set in motion. We could choose to hand everything over and take a full package (hotel + flight + transfer), but for someone who likes to keep control of everything, we chose to arrange everything ourselves. In 2016 we left for Istanbul. We did choose to have a host though (which is definitely not an unnecessary luxury, because it's really wonderful). We'd booked 2.5 weeks. And had to go to the hospital every other day to check whether the medication was working well or whether it needed adjusting. We really liked that. Dr. Cem is truly a friendly man who really takes the time for you. I can honestly assure you there won't be a single moment where you feel like a number, like in the Netherlands. Once you're at the point where they retrieve the eggs, you get a light sedative and feel absolutely nothing of the procedure (amazing!)

After the treatment you do feel that something happened and it feels a bit like a period, but not painful. For us, 12 eggs were retrieved. After 3 days, 6 eggs dropped out. Dr. Cem advised us to stay 2 days longer, so the eggs could grow a couple more days and the best ones would remain. So that's what we did, and we ended up with 4 embryos. We then chose to transfer 2 of them. And freeze the other 2.

Once back in the Netherlands and after 1 nerve-wracking week, we could test. Yesss, pregnant!! ❤️ After the first early ultrasound, we saw 1 beating heart, and an hour after the ultrasound we lost our 2nd baby (which unfortunately no longer had a heartbeat). On 05-02-2017 we welcomed our son Jace 🩵

In 2020 we decided to travel to Turkey through Human First for the 2nd time, for our 2 frozen embryos. This time we only went for a weekend. During the thawing we heard from Dr. Cem that 1 embryo most likely wouldn't survive, so we decided to transfer 1 embryo. We were done within 1 day!.

Now expecting our daughter who will arrive in August 🩷 We thank, from the bottom of our hearts, Dr. Cem, Evren, our hosts Dayon and Nida, and all the staff at the hospital! ❤️

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