Part 1: On the road to an IVF/ICSI Pregnancy

The beginning…

Parties, travel, and beaches were the life of my husband and I when we were first married in May 2010. Even though I am from the United States and my husband is a native of Greece, we got along great. Best friends!

My husband and I spent many nights dancing in clubs and walking the streets of Chania at night to get a 3am hot dog or crepe, but as time went on, we did “partied” less and less. Our travel plans of going to Istanbul, Paris, and Vienna were always pushed back and eventually we stopped talking about them. Instead, we found ourselves at home, tending our garden, cooking together, watching mystery series, and challenging each other on computer games. Going out did not seem to have the same appeal as it did before. Soon we adopted a little puppy from the local shelter. To him, we were Mom and Dad. And then it happened, we talked about what it would be like to have kids. Then the talk turned into let’s have a baby, but there were problems.

I had two teenage sons that lived in the States, so the fear of having a child was not the problem. In 2003, I had a pap smear that revealed that I had abnormal cells on my cervix. They were advanced enough for my doctor to recommend a follow up biopsy. After the results of the biopsy, my doctor concluded that I should have them removed by a procedure called LEEP immediately. He also wanted to do a laparoscopy to search my ovaries for any abnormal cells. There was one big reality with the LEEP procedure that scared me. If I were to get pregnant, it would end in miscarriage due to the fact that part of my cervix would be missing. Of course, there were options to avoid this, but they did not sound very reasonable to me. I thought it over. At that time, I did not want anymore children. My life and my relationship (at that time) made the idea of pregnancy out of the question for multiple reasons. So I decided to get my tubes clipped to avoid any trouble in the future. The surgery was a success and I forgot about it for 7 years until I married my husband.

My husband knew about the problem and suggested we go see a doctor. I thought that maybe the clips could be removed. I heard about women having success after having microsurgery to repair their tubes. Maybe the same could work for me. We went to a doctor who said he could remove the clips, but the rest was up to us. His charged a large fee which made my husband seek a second opinion from his friend at the University Hospital in Heraklio. His friend said that IVF was the way to go. Lucky for us, the hospital in Heraklio had a IVF clinic which had a great team of doctors and the procedure would be very low cost. That was the day that changed everything for us. It gave us hope that we would hold a baby in our arms. We made an appointment for March 2011 and our IVF journey was to begin.

Next… Part 2: Starting the IVF Procedure. The ups and downs.