We are a couple, 44 and 39 years old, with serious infertility problems. My husband had mumps that left him infertile at age 15; his sperm count was almost zero, and I only have a quarter of an ovary and endometriosis. We knew about our infertility problems since we got married, so when we decided to have babies, we sought professional help and were recommended an institute in Medellín.
When we went to the institute, they recommended we undergo treatment using the ICSI method.
From the moment you decide to have a baby, you begin the process of accepting that you want to have one, but you can’t do it through natural methods. That’s when you start finding out how, where, and who is the person or institute you should turn to for help.
You start to feel many fears. The first is whether you will finally get pregnant. Another is whether, if you succeed, the baby will be healthy. Before this, you worry that the sperm and eggs will be sufficient and of the quality needed. Whether the method you are using is safe for the embryos, and that manipulating them does not generate any risk. Another fear is whether there is pain at some point in the treatment, also whether you will gain weight or have abrupt changes in mood.
After deciding to start, you begin to worry that you might not get pregnant on the first try, but at the same time, you are convinced that the treatment will work and that the pregnancy will be achieved right away. When this doesn’t happen, the sadness is very great, and the couple has to give each other mutual support, because otherwise, accusations start from one side or the other, and that can create an even greater conflict.
After accepting that this process is not easy, you have to make the decision (taking into account that your economic possibilities allow it) to try as many times as necessary. It should be noted here that the optimism and strength that our doctor gave us were immense, because he always told us: “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here pregnant,” and that is something that you never forget.
Finally, I got pregnant on the fourth or fifth try, and each experience was different. In the first, the anxiety was horrible. In the next two, the pressure from my husband and his family to stay still was terrible, and in the last one, I was very calm and gave it to my God, and that was the successful one.
Anyway, in the process between one treatment and another, we realized that my eggs did not have the quality needed for the pregnancy to be achieved, so that’s where the doctor suggested the possibility of using donated eggs and explained that these came from women donors who had already been evaluated by the institute and were healthy women, because you worry about where these eggs come from.
Actually, for me it was a little distressing to think that the babies were not going to look like me, that genetically they were not going to have anything of mine, but my husband gave me a lot of support in this and told me that this was an issue between the two of us and that I should never think about this again, that it was a relevant thing, that the babies had formed inside my womb and were one hundred percent ours. To this day, we keep this between my husband, our doctor, and me, and we are not interested in anyone else knowing.
Our life as a couple was difficult from the beginning because my husband is a very enterprising man who achieves everything he sets out to do, so the dream of his life was to have a child, and knowing his infertility problem, he never contemplated the idea of not being able to have one, much less of adopting.
When the pregnancy was achieved and we found out that they were triplets, it was the greatest happiness in the world, and as a couple we were very united, always both aware that everything was the best for our babies. When they were born, our life as a couple changed radically because we are already many people in the house, because our life revolves around the babies, but as a couple we strengthen ourselves more every day.
Today we know that our babies are the most wonderful beings in this world, that they are healthy, intelligent, and full of love babies.
As advice, we tell couples who want to try to have babies by any method that may be the case, to fight, not to give up, that I would not have achieved it if it were not for the decision and tenacity of my husband and for the optimism, human quality and professionalism of our doctor and the institute to which he belongs. Another piece of advice is that couples should be open to all the suggestions that the medical team makes to them.
