Hi my name is Elvira Giannitto. I am 49 years old and work as a medical Scientist. I married my partner Tony who is 8 years younger than me. At 39 years old I delivered our son Danny. Later I found out that Danny was a miracle because I had a cyst on my right ovary and Tony had a low sperm count. This was followed by a spontaneous miscarriage and a hytidaform molar pregnancy, which was not viable.
I had the cyst removed, followed by 8 cycles of IVF with two pregnancies resulting in spontaneous miscarriages. Once I had grieved the loss of not being able to have another child which was biologically mine, I looked at adoption and then egg donation. I chose egg donation because I wanted to experience pregnancy again, give the children a biological connection as well as being the fastest and most affordable option available to us.
We chose Nurture because we wanted a local South African company to benefit financially. Nurture were fantastic, they answered every request and question I had. The process was very streamlined with Nurture and I was given a high quality service.
Everyone just assumes egg donation will work but it requires an element of magic and as I was aware of this I chose to seek the services of a good clairvoyant to see clearly in an area where I was being clouded by desire and not outcome.
I scanned the files looking for donors who had grandparents living in the late 60s and 70s. Then I looked for features in either the donor or their children which were similar to my son. With this information I narrowed it down to two donors which is when I seek the help of the clairvoyant for a successful outcome.
In the mean time my husband and I were seeing a naturopath to ensure the health of our bodies was balanced. I had my obstetrician test me for every test possible to sure that if I had a fantastic embryo that I would not have a miscarriage. As it turns out I had a MTHFR mutation with meant I had to take 10 times the amount of folic acid as well as clexan for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy to reduce the risk of miscarriage. Yes I may have had a miscarriage if I had not discovered the MTHFR mutation.
The donor produced six eggs and five of them were successfully fertilised. I had genetic testing done on each embryo and they are all female embryos. They transferred two embryos. At week six I had a bleed and feared the worst. To my surprise there were two sacks with heart beats. I delivered at 36 weeks +5 days. Two beautiful girls, Lilly and Rosie, our family now complete.
We share our story with everyone and we will be sharing this story with the girls. As a mother I believe that every child has a right to know who their parents are. Our girls have two mothers, how wonderful to know that they are loved. I feel the donor has given our family two precious gifts. When I watch the girls I am reminded of the wonderful act of generosity by the donor.
It takes a very special person to donate, it’s not for everyone. The way I see it now is that when a person donates, they give the gift of life, love and a family to others. A donor may live with questions about the unknown and the possibility of unexpected surprises but that can make life more interesting.
As the recipient I would never have consider this option. It took a few years of failed attempts of IVF to humble us, just enough so we could look at egg donation. Once we had decided on egg donation we gained hope and we felt very excited. If you are considering egg donation take it one step at a time and make sure you ask lots of questions so you are comfortable with the process. This experience has been life changing for myself and my family. I would also like to add that being a mother of twins is so wonderful. We feel so blessed to have been given twin girls!