We had the last laugh

A 10-day Mother:

Hello. Although doctors say that egg reserves of women diminish and their quality suffers with increasing speed after they turn 30, I married at 32 and my husband and I immediately wanted to have a child. I became pregnant four months after I got married. Of course, we were delighted with the news and immediately told our families and friends. Everybody heard about it. We think we made this mistake due to lack of experience. We shouldn’t have broken the news to so many people without getting any confirmation. Unfortunately, we had a bitter experience – it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy and I had to be operated on immediately since it was too late. In short, I can legitimately say that I had a close brush with death. Afterwards, I switched doctors because I had lost trust in my former one. Yes, he had correctly diagnosed me with having an ectopic pregnancy, but I almost died because of him. Fortunately, after an examination my new doctor told me that my tube on the side where I was operated was blocked and we would continue with the IVF treatment by using my remaining tube on the other side.

Following the mandatory six-month waiting period after the operation, I would go to visit my doctor every month to observe on which side the egg was developing. If it was on the unblocked side, we were focusing on the fertile days to get pregnant. Although the success rate of getting pregnant within a month for couples who do not have any problems is 20 percent, I had to accept that my chances of getting pregnant was 10 percent since it was discovered I was only ovulating every other month.

Not long after, I got pregnant again but was again diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy. We aborted with medication, without the need of surgery. Then I had to wait another three months after this medication. At the end of this three-month period, my doctor said, “Let’s try IVF.” These tubes weren’t taking us any closer to success and we were losing precious time. IVF treatment was very expensive; however, we desperately wanted to have a child. At last, we decided on IVF. At this stage, we paid another heavy price due to lack of experience because we learned later that IVF treatment is a team effort; each dose of medication you receive is very important and new application techniques are emerging each passing day.

My doctor said that he would monitor the IVF treatment himself and the operation would be carried out at the Metropolitan Hospital. I was immediately started on medication and after a lot of injections and drugs we produced four eggs. My doctor called the IVF center but they didn’t like the quality of the eggs and the treatment was cancelled. Then we lost another three months. But because we trusted our doctor we doubled the dosage of the medication and tried once more. And after loads of injections and drugs, we again produced four eggs. This time, the IVF Center decided to give them a try.

We had a lot of bad experiences, including gaps in the organizational phase, ineptitude, lack of attention, arrogant behavior and other misfortune in the hospital and had to wait another 12 days. In the end, all we got was a fiasco. The thing that I got most angry with was that I had called the Public Relations Officer of the IVF team at the hospital and told her that the result was negative and she couldn’t care less. And on top of all that, she told me in a condescending tone that we had to try once more. Once again, I really hated doctors. But after all these unsavory experiences, we became more the wiser and kept our mouths tightly shut.

And, of course, in the meantime, we went broke. We had to pay for one full and a half IVF operation. After all, we were no more than two salary earners and we had had to pay an enormous amount of interest on our credit card debt that we had incurred as a result of these expenses

THANKS TO ANOTHER PATIENT

Incidentally, an event took place which I think helped me have a baby. In a sense, I was helped by God. I was having my injections at a pharmacy and so was another lady. She was undergoing check-ups at the Bahçeci Clinic. She had learned from the pharmacist that my first treatment had been interrupted and the second one ended in disappointment. She had left her phone number and insisted that I give her a call.

As those who have had failed IVF attempts know, you hate talking about it because you don’t want to bring back those hurtful memories. You become weary of life and withdraw into your own shell. After avoiding it for some time, I finally called her. She was three years older than me and became pregnant after her first IVF treatment at Bahçeci Clinic. She was telling me that I had to give it a try, too. I was willing to try it immediately, but at the same time I was feeling desperate because we didn’t have any money.

At long last, we went to Bahçeci and were welcomed very warmly by everyone. We first met and talked to Dr. Ersadık. He provided us with a lot of information in a very calm manner. Although I had had IVF treatment before, I realized that I was unaware of many important things. It became clear that it was a mistake to have blind faith in a doctor. We should have looked into alternative options. After Dr. Ersadık, whom I took a liking to, we were invited to meet with Dr. Mustafa. He told me that I had a 25 percent chance of success and we definitely had to give it a try. We told him that financially we were in dire straits. Yet there was nothing to do and time was passing quickly. Dr. Mustafa said, “Come back and visit me when you are in a better financial situation.”

In the end, I borrowed from my job and began treatment immediately. And I can’t tell you how much attention we got from the extremely kind and friendly staff! All the secretaries, nurses, doctors…They were all like angels. We liked them so much. And after all the drugs, injections, egg collections, egg transfers and of course daily prayers, combined with the fact that this was our last chance financially and God was helping us – after all of these and a 14-day waiting period, the result was negative! I got the call when I was at work; I was wrecked when I heard the news. My husband is a wonderful person. He has always supported me and said that every cloud has a silver lining. I, too, had faith but the results were obvious! I was desperate for a baby but to no avail.

After getting this result, my doctor Dr. Süleyman insisted that we meet. I went there, crying, during my lunch break. We talked and he told me that he was very sorry and we had to retry. He was so humane, intimate and cordial and most importantly he was so understanding. He told me that we needed some other laboratory analysis to find the reason of this failure. I don’t know how I survived that day at work. I had tears in my eyes as I left the office. I don’t remember how I got back home. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. And then I finally fell asleep. It was over. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any more chances to try again. We didn’t have a baby, which we wanted so desperately. It was the end of the story! We would only have a baby by accident. After all, even people at later stages of life have had babies by chance.

Later, we had the analyses that Mr. Süleyman had requested. We went through some very expensive operations, including chromosome analysis and hysteroscopy. We were again stretching the limits of our credit cards. The analyses didn’t show any problems. Then, at the pharmacy where I had my injections, they recommended I visit Dr. Ender Saraç, who practiced herbal medicine and was a follower of the Oriental school of medicine. After all, “the beaten wrestler is never satisfied with wrestling!” Of course, I wasted no time going and visiting him. He recommended I use various herbal remedies and I began right away.

In the meantime, I was frequently on the phone with Ms. Yasemin, the resident psychologist at Bahçeci. I was asking her about what I was supposed to do. I knew that Ms. Yasemin had had a baby through IVF. Around that time, a newspaper was publishing an article series from which I learned that she had also failed to have a baby on the first try; in fact, she didn’t become pregnant until the third try. Ms. Yasemin was also a doctor working in the same team. In addition, I had gained a lot of new information from the web. Mr. Bahçeci, Ms. Yasemin, Mr. Süleyman and my other doctor, Ender Saraç, were all encouraging me to give it one more try. After all, it was easier said than done. We didn’t have a clue if we could do it or not. As a matter of fact, it was possible; we had no choice but to incur another debt!