Personal Stories

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Interview with Persa Tzeferakou, the President of the Magna Mater Association, Traffic magazine, 20.04.2006

“After 21 IVF attempts, I became a mother”

Persa Tzeferakou, aged 42, holds in her arms her 9 month old twin boys. After 20 years of efforts and 21 IVF attempts, she finally succeeded and became happy. Ever since, she has devoted herself to other women who wish but cannot have children of their own. Story by Yanna Triantafyllou

“I got married twenty years ago and just like any other young woman I really wished for a child. Time went by and then my husband and I, having realized that we had a problem, contacted specialized doctors. We were told that the only way I could have a child was by IVF. I really felt losing the ground underneath my feet. At that time, twenty years ago, IVF was still experimental in Greece and the ensuing results were not encouraging, not to mention the cost which was unbearable. What was I to do though? I had no other option. From that point on, my struggle began and lasted for twenty whole years.

Never-ending attempts

I made one, two, three attempts … all of them failed. On my 10th attempt I felt that I started losing my strength. The years went by and I started to despair. As the doctors had told me, time was not on my side, just like any other woman in my place. The younger a woman is, the better are her chances to become pregnant. So, I gathered my hopes and kept on trying. In the following years, I made one effort after another with no results. I was devastated both physically and emotionally. I kept asking my husband why this had to happen to me, why I could not a house filled with the laughter and the voices of children I so much longed for.

Good … news

Every time the doctor told me that my attempt had failed again, I thought I would go crazy. It is like you bereave the loss of your child time and time again, as many times as your failed attempts. On the other hand, you feel completely isolated by the rest of the world; you do not wish for anything else, everything around you is about this child. Things become even worse as time goes by and you realize that you get older and that your window of opportunity narrows down. However, I did not give up. I kept on trying; I managed to stand on my own feet again. I said to myself: “Persa, go on, you will make it. There is nothing wrong with you. Many other women in your place have been where you are now and they finally made it. You will too…” I stopped trying for a while and then I gathered all the courage I had left in me and with my doctor’s help I made another attempt. I was now over forty and I knew that it was now or never. Christmas time was near and I was waiting once more for results. I had become accustomed to hearing bad news for twenty years. This is why as usual and without any excitement I was once more waiting to hear the bad news. So when the doctor told me the test was positive, I did not believe it! I said that there must be some mistake and that they had given me the results of some other woman. Only the women who have experienced this struggle, only the women who have been dragged onto surgery beds and have cried for nights in a row, only they can understand what I felt that day …

A gift from God

And yet, it was true. My dream had been realized and I had finally become this whole new person, a happy and fulfilled woman, an expectant mother. For me as well as for my husband this was the most important time of our lives; I really do believe that we shall not experience such strong emotions, such complete happiness as long as we live. Our happiness became even greater when, during a doctor’s appointment to check the heart function of the foetus, we saw in the ultrasound monitor and heard two heart beats. I was expecting twins! I came out of the doctor’s office looking intoxicated; intoxicated by the unexpected happiness. To this day, there has not been one moment that I do not thank God for the gift he gave me, for bringing justice to a struggle that last almost twenty years.”

Persa Tzeferakou, the President of the Magna Mater Association and member of the Hellenic National Authority for Medically Assisted Reproduction EAIYA, was with reason one of the persons who started the Magna Mater Association, after she gave birth to two children after 22 IVF attempts.