Turkish IVF

During my first few months in Turkey, I had the pleasure of meeting another woman on Base just beginning the infertility journey. While JB cannot tell me he is seeing a patient, this woman volunteered the fact that JB was her doctor and how blessed she was to find someone who understood the pain associated with infertility.

A friendship was formed, and I was given the extreme privilege of standing beside her as she began the quest to have a baby far away from the comforts of the U.S. of A. Our tiny clinic here at Incirlik does not do infertility procedures. You can get some basic medications and some initial tests, but if it is deemed that you have reached the end of the clinic's capabilities, you have the option of being referred to a Turkish infertility center.

I made the trip with my friend quite a few times. Off base. In the middle of Adana. The building is clean and professional. But it is different. It doesn't feel like anything you'd see in America. It feels unfamiliar. The waiting room is filled with women dressed in Turkish attire. Headscarves. That sort of thing.

There is a wonderful doctor who speaks fairly good English. He looks like Robin Williams. There is also a translator who speaks some English. Not good English. But some. Conversations are choppy and carefully spelled out. Some questions can't be asked because they are just too difficult to get across.

After one of the appointments, we had to go to the Turkish pharmacy. We found the one guy who spoke some English. He gave my friend the medication. It looked different from the previous cycle's medications. Was it the right one? How can you confirm when you don't speak the same language. They brought us Chai and asked me why I wasn't drinking mine. Turkish delight was served.

In 2007, JB and I travelled to Nigeria on a mission trip. As JB served these people as a physician, and I stood along side him helping organize patients and records, we met quite a few women who had been unable to have children. Years. No babies. What could they do?

These were women who lived in huts in the middle of a grassy plain. Truthfully? There was nothing that could be done? Maybe if they could save thousands of dollars and make it to one of the major Nigerian hospitals they'd have a few options. 

My friend is lucky here. While Turkey is definitely not America, she has been blessed with a fantastic doctor, a reputable clinic, and costs only a fraction of those back home.

But either way I have come to realize something. The desire to have a family isn't unique to a certain section of America. It is happening to women in Nigeria who have no options but to wait and pray. It is happening in countries like Turkey where headscarves are worn in the lobby and chai is offered while you wait. It is everywhere. Infertility is everywhere. 

This same friend recently started a support group for infertility on Base. I have been attending as more of a "mentor woman." We are reading a fantastic book called: Every Drunken Cheerleader ... Why  not Me? And in the pages of the book, I was told something I never really thought about.

Those struggling with infertility are NOT special. She writes: Yep, that is right. There are zillions of women in this world and most of them want to have babies. It is perceived as our most basic reason for creation and that is even stated in the Bible in the book of Genesis. However, according to a recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics ... there were  '6.1 million women ages 15-44 with impaired ability to have children.' That same list of statistics also reported that there are '9.2 million women who have used infertility services and that 2.1 million couples are infertile.'

While it seems every drunken cheerleader can get pregnant but you can't, the truth is that there are millions of other women in every other country with the same desires and hopes. Some have medical hope. Some do not. Some are doing it with God. Some are not.

My friend was talking to her husband and said to him that this chance with IVF might be their only chance at a child. Her husband told her, "We could end up like John and Wendi. You never know."

"But we don't have the same problem as John and Wendi," my friend said.

"No," her husband began. "But we have the same God."

Amen.