“After many medical studies on fertilityresearching a lot and betting on life, my daughter and her husband decided to consult a clinic in Ukraine“, Graciela tells MDZ. The protagonists of this story are his daughter and his son-in-law. She prefers not to give their names to protect his identity. They are Mendoza and, although they circumstantially live abroad, they received the news they most expected on Harvest Day, as a sign that their destiny is intimately linked to their roots.
The couple began their preparations for travel to ukraine to perform the treatment fertility on the Ivmed Clinic, an institution that has excellent references from many parts of the world. Before the trip, they were already in contact with the clinic and with the doctor who was going to accompany them in the process. Graciela accompanied her daughter all the time. And he traveled with her to Kiev. “We were there the entire month of January and the first days of February,” Graciela relates and continues: “We were surprised by the hospitality, respect, neatness, efficiency and empathy of absolutely all the clinic staff and the coordinator assigned to my daughter to assist her in everything she needed during her stay in Kiev”.
“Adapting to the harsh climate -every day it snows and there are temperatures below zero-, to the language, to the customs and to the time change was very strong. It was difficult for us to fall asleep. Ukraine!”, he reports.
He explains that, during the month he was in Ukraineher daughter underwent “two surgeries in which the results were optimal. After them we tried to go out and see something: we were able to see the center of the city, its markets, the Plaza de la Independencia, the Santa Sofía church, the train station, and the entire underground world that exists.Kiev It is an exemplary city in cleanliness and safety!”, he details.
Because of their daughter’s treatment they had to attend the clinic daily. “There we met couples from all over the world. One day, in particular, there was a lot of movement in the clinic: the state that ‘something’ was happening caught our attention. We couldn’t stay any longer and decided to return. The rumors of conflict with Russia they were very strong,” he recalls. mendoza on February 11. Two weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine. And the war began an escalation that still continues.
“We quickly organized the departure. Leaving in those lands -under the care and attention of those professionals- the embryos achieved by the grace of God,” says Graciela with barely a whisper. She is moved just by remembering the uncertainty of returning to her home just a few days before the invasion of Ukraine. “The days here, after the return, have been heart beating a thousand times and great anguish knowing that part of our life, our descendants, our blood is waiting for us there. And here we are desperate thinking what we can do for them and for everyone” , he comments when he recovers his voice.
“It occurred to us to make a move that would motivate organizations like the International Red Cross to get all the embryos to a neighboring country. We felt despair and offered endless prayers day and night for these lives,” he says. Even after the invasion They kept in touch with the coordinator that the clinic had assigned their daughter to accompany her in the process of fertilization. “He told us that she – an excellent person – had to go to the town where her parents live. We saw bombings near the clinic. Everything was pain, tears, anguish,” she says.
But then his tone of voice changes. “On Saturday – the day of our Grape Harvest Festival – we received a message that makes us cry with joy to this day: the head of Embryology at the Ivmed Clinic rescued the tanks with liquid hydrogen -which was about to run out- where the embryos“.
Birol Aydinhead of the Embryology Laboratory at IvmedHe was the one who carried out this task. The clinic issued a message to its patients: “All frozen materials in the ivmed clinic You are in a safe place, but at the moment we do not have the possibility to work and be in very close contact with you”.
Graciela celebrates this as “A towering gesture of humanity”, and adds: “He himself transported them to the border and now they are safe from this ruthless, crazy, despicable war that only has a death flag”.
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