Thursday, August 9, 2012

Greece is the Word - part 1

Thursday, August 9, 2012
You've probably all thought I ran off and joined the circus...or went into the witness protection program, but you were mistaken.
I'm here. I was getting bored with telling the same roller coaster with the sad ending over and over.

The egg donor here found out her egg reserve was low, so it wasn't right for her to donate again. I wish this test had been done before she'd been offered to me the first time. It would have saved me more heartbreak and money.

So...the only way I was going to get donor eggs was to go outside Australia. My fertility Doctor has affiliates in Cape Town, South Africa and in Athens, Greece.
The person in charge of the donor program is his wife, Denise, so I made an appointment with her to talk options. I'll skip over the boring stuff and say I chose the Athens clinic.

Being summer in Europe, the clinic closes for the month of August, so we had to move fast as I was the last patient they were sending until September. Denise, organized everything with the Athens clinic and started me on the hormone medications I needed to be taking.
I booked flights and accommodation, organized someone to look after Ollie, my dog and did all the preliminary freaking out
"Am I going to the right place?"
"Is Athens safe?"
"Will the clinic be clean?"
"WILL THIS WORK?"

The week before I was scheduled to leave, my Mum decided she'd come with me. This meant I had to re-look at accommodation as I'd booked a one bedroom apartment. I figured if I was going for 10 days, it'd be much more comfortable to have more room to move around in than just a hotel room. Also, I'm not a fan of eating out for every meal if I have the option.

There are a couple of sites I like and trust and trawled through them looking for a two bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in an area of Athens that looked safe! Having not been to Greece in a couple of decades, I wasn't au fait with the city at all. I'd been told about good neighborhoods, so was focusing there. 

I finally found a superb apartment, in an area called Glyfada, which is touted as being the Beverly Hills of Athens. Said apartment had all the amenities we needed PLUS a PRIVATE POOL.
Booked...

Our private pool

Me and my breakfast smoothie



N x