Why Turkey for IVF and not just stay here in the States?

It's a very good question and I would be asking the same question if I were you as well.  When we found out that the second vasectomy reversal failed we were devastated, but immediately started looking into IVF because we knew it was our ONLY way to conceive a biological child.  At the time of my researching, I was reading a magazine called,  Conceive. I came across an article about traveling to do IVF for a lot cheaper and with results as good, if not better than the states.  The article talked about a well renowned doctor, Dr. Arici, from the states that had ran the IVF clinic at Yale University, and was recently asked a few years back by John Hopkins ( a huge hospital chain here in the the States) to head up the IVF department at their new state of the art hospital they were opening up in Istanbul. Since  starting his practice in Turkey, Dr. Arici's success rates are 64% and the cost of the procedures are less than half of what we would pay here. I talked to Glen and at first he was like, I don't really think I want to go to some strange country for a medical procedure, but I had him read the article and I started talking to him about how this could be a wonderful opportunity for us to get that vacation we were going to have to pass up on and get IVF at the same time. I told him that IVF is a gamble no matter what, and there ARE NO 100% GUARANTEES no matter what clinic you go to!  I told him we could take the gamble here in our townhome in Dallas with nothing to distract us from stressing, where the success rates are the same, and IVF costs TWICE as much...OR....We could go to ISTANBUL, TURKEY, for a trip and experience of a life time!!!!  I also said that if God forbid the IVF doesn't work in Turkey, then we would have at least gotten the most awesome trip ever, compared to if it failed in the states and we would would have nothing to show for all the money we invested except a lot of heartache!


So...for $6,300 we are getting airfare to Istanbul, Turkey, 20 nights lodging in a condo onsite to the hospital with free breakfast daily, and all the IVF procedures we need to make it successful for us. Can you believe that?!!?  And to think the cheapest IVF in our area with comparable success rates that we could find for our situation with the sperm issue was going to cost us over $12,000!  


So it's a Destination Baby Vacation for us!  We leave in exactly 2 weeks and we are SO pumped!!  It's nice to have something other than the IVF to focus on.  I've been reading as many tour guide books as possible and beginning to get a feel of the city and all the sites we want to see.  I'm not even going to think about all the medical procedures and so forth.  I'm just going to focus on the trip and hopefully when we fly back to the states I'll be knocked up!  LOL  Of course, we won't know if I'm pregnant until the end of Sept.  Now those two weeks of waiting from the time they transfer the embryos to when I take the pregnancy, is when I am going to need to find some MAJOR distractions.  I'm going to start planning and filling up my calendar now!