Our Story
We are a couple from Sweden that has been involved in a failed IVF procedure at the North Cyprus IVF Center in 2021. We were victims of a big lie about the MicroSort method they offer in that clinic.
This clinic is supervised by Dr. Savas Ozyigit and Dr. Ahmed Ozyigit, this is the complete staff.
With this history we want to create awareness about what this clinic is doing.
The failed MicroSort method
We ended up in Cyprus because we wanted a sibling for our son, and in our case a daughter. Not only for family balancing, but it was because our unique son is autistic. Males are 5 times more likely to have autism than females. We have autism running in our family with 3 relatives in our family affected.
The clinic offers a treatment in their website with a method called MicroSort. (Here it is the link for you to have a look). MicroSort will improve chances to conceive a baby girl according to the web site. They claim in their website a success rate of 90% for female sperm sorting. The method supports by this scientific paper, if you want to have a look at it. In this paper they claim even a higher percentage of success of 96% for female sperm sorting.
Despite of the said use of MicroSort, we only got one healthy female embryo (one not healthy), and two males! This out of 14 eggs. So that is a result of 50%. How is that possible if the sorting success rate that they claim is over 90%? The resulting embryo’s result should have been mostly females.
Documents they made my wife sign before Doctor’s explanation of the embryo growing result (they did not mention the failed MicroSort method in this talk)
These are the documents (click on each thumbnail for a bigger view) they made my wife sign before the doctor explained that we only got one healthy female embryo. They assured my wife to sign those documents the day of the embryo transfer and before Dr. Savas Ozyigit explanation about the failed result of the MicroSort method. They have never explained to us anything stated in the signed documents. It was an error to sign those documents, but we wanted to finish the treatment. Also, my wife had already been taking the strong medications for the procedure.
We have stated from the beginning not to receive more than one embryo
Before we decided to go for the treatment my wife had a conversation over a voice call with the patient coordinator Ibanna Rosado. She told my wife that the treatment has more chances of success if the patient receives 2 or even 3 embryos. My wife told immediately Ibanna Rosado and putted in a remark in that moment her history of premature delivery (stated in her clinic record). Then Ibanna Rosado just said to us “That is a patient choice, if you want to receive just one embryo”.
It was unbelievable that she just said that to us! She should instead aware us that with just one embryo the probability of success is 46%, they just want the patient’s money.
Why they did consider my wife a candidate for the treatment if we were not willing to receive more than one embryo. That was a strategy of the Patient coordinator Ibanna Rosado and everyone there to get/steal our money! They really don’t care about nothing than patient’s money. They don’t explain with numbers at the website or to the patients that 46% probability of success receiving only one embryo. We only got the success probability 5 minutes before the embryo transfer
Hospital nonsense “tour” to mislead us and get all documents signed
Before the failed result explanation of the MicroSort method from Dr. Savas Ozyigit, my wife was “guided” into a “tour” through the whole hospital. Commanded by the patient coordinator Ibanna Rosado. Ibanna Rosado was avoiding all the time to answer about how many female embryos we got. My wife had asked Ibanna Rosado the whole day of the embryo transfer several times this important question. We just got the silence as an answer, or that the doctor will come with an explanation, instead she was very persistent to get my wife to sign these documents.
She was talking all the time about the medication post embryo transfer as a strategy to avoid answer our questions. The patient coordinator Ibanna Rosado was playing her cards very well to fool us, and to get all the documents signed before the explanation of the failed result. We can prove all the chronology of the events because all those are documented.
The disturbing information we got on the day of the Embryo transfer
Five minutes before the embryo transfer my wife meet Dr Savas Ozyigit a second time for some minutes. He informed my wife very late at that time about the low chance of success (46%) to be transferring just one embryo. He recommended my wife to transfer 2 embryos, (a boy and a girl with a fake smile in his face). My wife was totally in shock! She was very stressed and was not able to think clear in that moment! We ended up in Cyprus for the possibility to have a daughter! For this result we would have decided to stay in Sweden and get the treatment in a clinic here instead. It was unbelievable to hear that explanation 5 minutes before the embryo transfer! We were confused and we did not know how to react or proceed. It felt like we were alone in a dark hole.
Before this meeting my wife only meets Dr Savas Ozyigit once. In the first meeting my wife was due to an ultrasound checkup for the status of her ovaries and the uterine lining. This is standard procedure during IVF since the expectations is for her ovaries to stop working. This is the effect of the strong medications and a result of the treatment. After that the patient coordinator Ibanna Rosado took my wife to the office directly to pay the full treatment.
This first time my wife met Dr. Savas Ozyigit was less than 15 minutes.
In this first meeting my wife had an argument with him because they did not care about the high levels of the TSH hormone. This was provided in the hormone levels report, that they asked for and received from us at the beginning of the treatment assessment. Dr. Savas Ozyigit was rude, and he just left the room aggressively wishing my wife good luck with the treatment (an hypocrites wish). My wife impression in that moment was that he did not understand enough English, so she gave a chance to him to rectify his attitude in the next meeting.
The second time she met Dr. Savas Ozyigit, as we said before, my wife was totally in shock after the resulting and failed MicroSort method. At that moment we were refusing to believe they were fooling us all the time. She felt confused, tired, overwhelmed, and was a long way from home in that moment. Today she regrets not to argue with that people in that right moment.
The overwhelming emotions and stressed decision
My wife just wanted to be finishing with all this nightmare in the best way possible and fly back home. She had spent 2 weeks in North Cyprus there of 10 days in strict quarantine. Totally alone and isolated at a quarantine hotel away from the family, and specially away from our little son who was 3 years old in 2021. She had also been taking hormones and medicines for the treatment that made her feel badly too.
So, me and my wife just decided to take one embryo, the unique female one, and for her to fly back home.
Two weeks later, as everyone expected, except my wife, the IVF treatment first and only try failed. She was in shock refusing to believe that after all the effort we were fooled. It took a couple of months for us to understand everything we went through, specially my wife. We lost all the possibilities to have our daughter.
The red flags we missed
Ibanna Rosado was looking at the floor all the time when we met Dr. Savas Ozyigit for the failed MicroSort method explanation. And specially when my wife refused to receive 2 embryos. Everyone really did know from the beginning that they was fooling us to consider my wife as a candidate for this treatment.
It is not correct to recommend receiving 2 embryos to a person with an history of premature delivery. Receiving 2 embryos and having that condition is almost to commit a suicide. Twins pregnancy implies high risk to be a premature delivery. An IVF doctor in Spain had advised us against transferring more than one embryo. We informed about this at the very beginning of the treatment. So that it is stated in the journal of that clinic in North Cyprus for the doctor’s review (We have a copy of that journal).
My wife and I, we were very stressed out because of this treatment we did not realize what happened in that moment, we were in shock specially my wife, she did not understand the whole lie after a couple of months after
Bad treatment plan and doctor contacts
We never had a chat with the doctor despite a couple of critical events for us. In that clinic for that “treatment” you can only talk with the patient coordinator and that is all the support you can expect from their treatment.
Also, during this treatment we had a lot of stress due to lack of support and contact with the doctor. For example, my wife usually has regular cycle on 28 days, but on occasion it can be irregular. My wife got an early period on the first try to start the treatment. Despite this they did not act upon it, they did not even mention to take pills for birth control to regulate the cycle. Same thing on the second try. So, they were not even helping to regulate my wife’s cycle in the months before the treatment, and did not act on her low progesterone’s level on the week of the embryo transfer. On the last try we were trying very hard to get a hold of the responsible doctor for advice with no luck. Because of that we decided to follow the advice from an IFV specialist from Spain that we know via our family doctor there and injected the Prostap (2.75 mg) early (day 15).
We were furious and disappointed and almost regretted to go to Cyprus and finish the treatment. But unfortunately, they convinced us because my wife had injected herself with the strong medication to stop working her ovaries for the treatment. They used that argument to convince us to fly there and pay the 5000€ more that were left to pay for the rest of the treatment. We have all these events/situations documented in email letters.
Aftermath
We are not questioning the result of the IVF procedure but the MicroSort method! How is it possible that we got more males than females sperm with a probability for success of 96%? Do they have a proper laboratory conditioned to offer this MicroSort method? Due to these facts, we believe that they did not apply the MicroSort method properly, or that they did not
apply the method at all! I wish we should have known it was a fraud, because for the same result we should have decided to take the treatment here in Sweden instead. We end up in Cyprus for the 90% of probabilities of female sperm sorting that they claim in their website.
As a result, my wife has been under a lot of pressure and stress. And due to the failed treatment, she got into a deep depression. She is no longer the same happy person as before.
Lots of companies are peddling these potions, which fraudulent doctors are very happy to promote, because they get a huge chunk of the profits for doing these procedures. And this time we were victims of this fraud/malpractice affecting a lot of people nowadays.
We are not trusting this company any longer. We are worried about the future of the left-over embryos. For example, the clinic is offering embryo adoption (For about 6000 euros). So, if we request a destruction of our embryos, will they be destroyed? Or will they be sold? We don’t know.
Cost and left-over embryos
We spend 9000€ for the treatment. The flight tickets and quarantine fees 2000€. The medicines 500€. So, in total 11500€. On top of that we are missing one document about the cost for freezing the leftover embryos for one year, 250€.
We are still paying the clinic (via our lawyer) to have our left-over embryos frozen at least for 1 more year or until we know what we want to do with them.
We also found on the internet bad reviews about the result of the treatment in that clinic. They said that the children conceived via this treatment are suffering diseases despite the PGD method to avoid defective embryos. Here it is the link (LINK) of those reviews. So of course we hesitate and is afraid to use those embryo’s in another treatment.
What we expect
These people were played with our time, our energy, our economy, and our feelings. They ruined the possibility for us to provide a sibling to our son.
We are not able to spend more money in those kinds of treatments. Adoption for us never was a possibility because of age limit requirements in Sweden, and my wife is not the same person after all this experience, this was a big personal injury for our family.
What we expect from now is justice for us. These people business deserve to be closed. They performed what we feel is like an armed robbery to us.
I hope this testimony will be enough to avoid other people get fooled by these people.