On Christmas day, after five very long years, there was a beat inside of me for the very first time.
Our journey has been long and extraordinary; we started looking for a child at the age of 28 and, after a year without any results, we started performing many tests, which concluded with a diagnosis of male infertility.
Without thinking too much about it, we understood that science was our only option.
Altogether we went through 8 treatments between IUI and ICSI, all of them failed.
Meanwhile we kept on getting and repeating tests to treat female infertility, but no issue came to light. After three years of no success and pain using our own gametes, we finally decided to change direction. After months of doubts and uncertainty, we realized that DNA was not important to us, we wanted to become a family and we accepted the idea of achieving it through donation.
We had three failed Embryo Donations in Greece. We were devastated. I kept on performing tests and none of them showed any sign of female infertility, but as time went by I was more convinced that I had a hostile uterus and I was unable to achieve a pregnancy.
We took a long break until, one day, I went to a meeting organized by STRADA PER UN SOGNO ONLUS in Milan –organization from which I am a member and which offered me great support and help through all these years– and there, I met Dr. Suñol from Institut Marquès.
I am very fond of him, I find him very experienced and, above all, very kind. I know the clinic is at the forefront when it comes to the medical team and the Embryology Laboratory.
Therefore I decided to give it a try. I contacted the clinic and Dr. Suñol was very caring and studied my case in deep detail. He answered all my questions and worries –he treated me like a human being and not like a number, and that was crucial to me.
Meanwhile I changed my gynecologist and I found “my angel”, Dr. Simona Vailati. Together we analyzed all my medical history and decided to try a new protocol with spontaneous cycle, which was completely new to me.
Dr. Vailati followed the treatment step by step with professionalism, kindness and empathy. I felt that she cared about my case, that this time was different and that I found the right doctor.
On a windy day of November I was in Barcelona, where I received a warm welcome from the lovely assistants and a very pretty doctor transferred 3 beautiful embryos –which I could even see on the screen.
They said goodbye and advised me to go for a stroll and, in fact, I went to a restaurant and ate a delicious paella and after I went for a nice walk!
After 12 days, I opened my report for the first time and I read 403… a number that will stay in my heart forever.
Few weeks after we saw a blink in the scan: there was a heart beating! I never thought that would happen to me!
Obviously, we hope that everything will go well, but for now –after so much pain– we finally see a bit of light. Now I know that my body works, we only needed to find the right adjustment! And for me, the right adjustment has been finding a clinic like Institut Marquès –the personnel is so thoughtful to the patients and its prestigious laboratory with cutting edge technology– and also finding “my angel”, Dr. Vailati, who followed my case in Italy and found the right treatment for my uterus to be receptive.
These people helped me to change my life for the better, and I cannot thank them enough.
For all those couples that, just like us, have been through different attempts and have lost their hope, sometimes, we only need to turn the corner to find the right people that can really help us. In fact, it is said that Assisted Reproduction is a matter of luck, but you also have to help the luck!
Fertility clinic - Institut Marquès