From Yousef & Carol

Dear Dr. Sahakian,

This letter is way overdue and for that I apologize.  Youssef and I want to thank you for our little miracle.  There are no words to explain how thankful we are for what you and your staff have done for us.  Our beautiful baby girl, Hailey Yasmine, was born on June 27, 2001.
It was worth the four long years it took me to get pregnant.  It seems like yesterday, that my husband and I realized that we are having problems getting pregnant.  What was more amazing is that I was only 25 years old when we started trying for a baby.  Who would think that someone so young would have a problem.

Well to make a long story short, we tried for a year and had no success getting pregnant.  After going to my doctor she recommended that I see a fertility doctor.  We started out with the body temperature charts and 3 months of Clomid.  After no success, we then did a combination of Clomid and artificial inseminations, for 3 more months.  When that failed we then did 3 months of artificial inseminations with Gonal-f injections and Novarel. That also failed.  At that point it was almost a year and we felt that he was not aggressive enough.  So we heard of a doctor in Michigan, which is where we live, who is suppose to be the best.  We decided to go to him.  He could not tell me what was wrong but that he has a high success rate and that I should have no problems getting pregnant.  So we ended up doing 3IVF’s with him over a year’s time. And we still did not get pregnant.  He told me that my embryos are no good.  I cannot explain to you how I felt.  It was devastating.

Then we heard of Dr. Sahakian, a family friend.  The only problem is that he lived in California and we lived in Michigan.  He told us that he deals with patients who live out of state and that it is no problem getting treatments with him even though we live so far apart.  My husband and I decided to give it one more try.  We sent Dr. Sahakian our file and he told us that he would look it over and give us his professional opinion. Dr. Sahakian looked over our file and told us that he believed that there are two problems, one being an implantation problem and the second my embryos.  He told us that he would recommend one more cycle of IVF.

We started with the medications, which was done differently then the doctors in Michigan.  He also ran a blood test that showed that I had elevated levels of anti-thryoglobulin antibody & microsomal antibody (thyroid perozidase). It is believed that women with these elevated levels cannot implant the embryos.  The body rejects the embryos and does not allow for implantation.  Dr. Sahakian suspected I had this problem since I have thyroid problems and I am taking synthroid.  None of the physicians I saw in Michigan ever tested me for this problem.  He recommended a treatment of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG).  It helps some women to achieve pregnancy with this auto-immune problem.  However it does not always work.  The basic effect of IVIG is like neutralizing a large military force (the mother’s dangerous antibodies) armed with weapons.  The army is still present after administering the IVIG, but it is disarmed and gives the embryo a chance of implanting.  Also he recommended that I do a course of Heparin subcutaneously, to help increase the chance of implantation, by increasing blood flow to placenta.  So I started taking these medications with hope of getting pregnant.

Dr. Sahakian removed 7 eggs form my ovaries and they all fertilized.  We had to wait a few days for the incubation period to see how the embryos developed.  We came back to his office a few days later to put them back.  To our dismay, Dr. Sahakian did not have good news.  Our embryos did not look good, it seemed that my eggs are fine but that my husband’s sperm were not.  He was tested in Michigan, and we were told that he was fine.  Dr. Sahakian uses another form of testing and found out that my husband’s sperm was not that good.  Dr. Sahakian informed us that we only had one good embryo, that was a 10 cell, and 3 other ones that were 5 cells.  He told us to give it a chance, it only takes one but my husband and I was devastated.  So all four embryos were placed back and I stayed a few more days in California and flew to Michigan to wait 2 weeks to see if I was pregnant.  It was the longest 2 weeks of my life.

To our surprise, we were pregnant!!  We could not believe it.  I cried for hours.  I had them repeat the pregnancy test a few times to make sure.  I had to fly out to see Dr. Sahakian in 7 weeks to get another course of IVIG to keep the pregnancy.  To our surprise I was told that I was pregnant with twins!  That indeed is a miracle.  However, I ended up losing one of the fetuses.  It was not meant to be.   I am very blessed to have given birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl.  I could never thank Dr. Sahakian enough for our little miracle.  May God bless you and your family Dr. Sahakian.  And if we do not get pregnant on our own for the second child I will be returning to see you. 

I want to thank you again for all that you have done, and the numerous times you went out of your way to answer our questions, always honest and sensitive to our feelings. Thank God for you.

With much thanks,
Youssef and Carol