Veronika, 47, originally from Siberia, tells Lunàdigas about her current pregnancy, achieved through IVF in Greece. Between fears and desires, science and politics, her testimony is a candid invitation to all women to persevere in self-determination, including through the practice of egg freezing.

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VERONIKA: «My name is Veronika Chufistova and, as my name says and as you probably hear from my accent, I’m Russian. I come from Siberia, from a city called Novosibirsk, don’t be shocked if you don’t know it, it’s really far. It’s the geographical centre of Russia, and the reason why I was born there is because both of my parents were military engineers and it’s a very well protected area from East, West, USA and all other alliances, so we can say that is was the Silicon Valley of Russia where all military engineering was done. I haven’t said that in 1985, as Russia was opening for the world, I decided to move to Germany where I have studied Economics and Law, and basically since then I’ve been living in Europe. I have to say that I really enjoy it, it is my new home.
As for my private life, I am 47 and that is the moment when I have decided to become a mom. I am in the fifth month of pregnancy, I am very happy and I have happy expectations on my baby to come. It was a conscious decision to become a single mom, so it was an IVF treatment which I went through in the wonderful Greece. Et voila! Obviously a lot of people might be wondering: Why IVF? Why at 47 years old? Is it a decision which came all of a sudden to her mind? Is she bored to death so she’s getting a baby? No, it’s not like this.
I come from a very traditional family, a biblical family in the sense of values. My dad used to say things like: “A family with no kids is not a family, and if you could have ten children then you should have ten children”, but equally he would also say: “When two people meet each other, they can make a decision about having children or not having children before they, if you wish, are certain to stay together till death separates them. From the moment you have a baby you have no right to separate because then the third party is involved and, unfortunately, children cannot make any influence on the decision of parents to get divorced”. That is how I grew up, and, as I said, my dad was an amazing dad, and I was always looking for a man who would be an amazing dad for my baby.
I have had a lot of relationships, but then at the moment when I would ask myself: “Is he the man I can spend my life with till death separates us?”, “Could this man be the father of my kids?”, every time the answer was: “No, no, no”. Obviously I was looking for the love of my life and for the father of my kids until I was 47, and that was the moment when I said: “Probably I should forget this idealistic idea of mama and papa”. Actually, being a single happy mother is as much as to have a happy mama and a happy papa.
Is it ideal? Ask me later, or probably ask my son later. But I am sure and very confident to give a lot of love and a lot of dedication to my son. Obviously, at a certain point in time, and that is probably what I would advise to every single woman and to every single girl… Like… You should freeze your eggs because even if you don’t want to have a child today, or even if you are waiting for ‘Mr. Perfect’ to come, do not live it up to the chance: freeze your eggs and get your freedom to make your decision up to the age of 50 or 51. So yes, I thought about it, you know, that’s why I’ve made the decision to freeze my eggs. Probably, at that moment in time, still hoping that Mr. Perfect is to come, because it took another 7 years to come to the conclusion: “I’m not waiting anymore, now I’m going to get a baby by myself”, but if I have a daughter one day that is what I would advise her to do. We women are always a bit victim of this biological clock and you know what you know… I mean, I think that the 21st century and the progress that science made makes us as free and as strong as men, if you wish. So now we are free to make a decision on when, how, and all on our terms.
Why Greece? obviously, this is a very big decision and it’s a big a unknown and to everyone who starts this process I would only advice: make your research and spend enough time dedicating to this project and try to look into all possible options. There are a lot of online platforms reconsolidating knowledge about those countries that are open to IVF treatment and you can also find ratings of clinics online. In my particular case, by attending a lot of webinars and getting a lot of information, I cam into contact with a UK-based organization, IVF Friends, that also proposes you online and phone consultations, and after talking to a consultant of IVF Friends Organization I got advised to go to Greece and to get into contact with Dr. Karpouzis, whom I can really highly recommend, not only because he is a very highly educated as doctor in the field of IVF, but also because he is a very big enthusiast of what he’s doing, and if you wish he’s bonding with you for the success of what you are doing. It was also a very professional and private treatment so… during the whole long-lasting process, which of course in my case took longer due to Covid, he was always consulting me by phone and in person, so there wasn’t a middleman in between. And… Funny enough, shortly before I had to fly to Greece I got infected with Covid, so we had to postpone the treatment which is when Dr. Karpouzis had to play also psychologist and psychiatrist because, of course, for me it was a big shock because I was preparing for such a long time and now I had to postpone again after having already taken medication in order for the transfer to happen.
But, you know what? I think that: no drama, no stress, do what is needed and be positive, because that is what is a big factor for success, that is its biggest motor. I can highly recommend the clinic and Dr. Karpouzis in particular.
The obvious question is: why not Belgium? why Greece? In Belgium it was not possible because I was a single woman, and because I was a woman who had just separated from her boyfriend. I went through a psychological interview with a psychologist of the clinic who asked me 25 questions, including: “What are you going to tell your kid since you are going to be an old mother? What are you going to… Children are very cruel, what if he says you’re his grandmother and not mother? How are you going to manage it all by yourself”? I found this very strange because, I mean, I was a very late-born child, so my parents were adult parents and I always took it as a positive thing.
They had time for me, they… they had made that decision consciously so I was the happiest child on the planet. So, what I’m going to tell my son about my choice and why he was born the way he was born, it will all depend on how my child will be, right? I think that was the most negative experience or the most negative dialogue I had regarding my choice, because, obviously… First of all, I talk about this choice and IVF treatment with no one but my friends, because I think it is nobody’s business how I… how I became pregnant and how I am going to… I mean, the only thing I want to say is that I became a mother on my terms, and it was a conscious decision to be a single mother.
All of my friends are very happy for me, I didn’t have any discussion regarding religion, or regarding the fact that no one is going to know who the father is… My friends are a little concerned about one thing: “What are you going to tell your company”? Obviously, I’m not going to discuss with my company about who is the father of my kid or anything. But obviously the questions will come, and… Some of my friends work for Toyota and… one of the proposals would be like: “If someone asked who is the father, you just look curiously and a little bit noddy, and say: ‘I cannot tell you because you know him’ and then you basically leave the room or change the subject of conversation”.
So that’s basically how I’m going to approach it. I work for an automotive company which consists of 99% of men and, obviously, it is like a boys club with few exemptions, and very often I find myself as the single female at the meeting table but also around dinner table, so I think that all of them could start looking at each other to guess who the lucky one is!
So I think that my son will have some features of Mr. X and some features of Mr. Z and Mr. Y. It’ll be an interesting game, I won’t, I mean… When I was growing up I thought that I was growing up in a very classical family, but thinking about it now from a Western-European perspective, probably it wasn’t. Both of my parents were engineers, as I mentioned, and my mom was a highly educated woman who worked during her whole life on top of being the chef of the family, and papa was the most loving husband and the most loving father. He worked even more than mom, he would spend half of the year on business trips. I would say that he was the strongest engineer, and he was one of the smartest men I know in my life. Nevertheless, the entire salary would end up on mama’s bank account and I don’t know if my papa ever had more than ten cents in his pockets because mama was the boss of the family, so I can say she was managing her job and the family. Probably papa was earning more because he was the one who had the most business trips, which were paid double at Soviet Russia times, but on the other hand, at home mom was the one who ruled the world. Unfortunately, my parents passed away in 2015 and if there is one big regret which I have in my life is that they’re never going to meet Viktor, my son who will be named after papa. So he’s going to have papa’s initials and, hopefully, papa’s character.
Did I make this decision now because I want to replace my whole family? I wouldn’t say so, as I said I only regret that I didn’t come to this conclusion as long as my parents were alive because they would have been over the moon to meet their grandchild. I wouldn’t say it is linked in any way to the death of my parents, I’d say it is only linked to my desire which I have always had in me of having a child and it is linked to the understanding that approaching 50s, if you want to do it you do it. I didn’t have enough or more time left, because also for IVF treatment there is a legal limit of 50 years old.
I would say that coronavirus contributed more to that. I travel a lot for my business. In my pre-coronavirus life, I would spend more time in planes and in hotels than in my own house. During coronavirus I had a time to come to my peace and to think about a lot of things. And if there’s been one thing which contributed to my decision to go ahead, it was coronavirus.
Women without children? It’s a very interesting subject, you wouldn’t believe it but I’m surrounded by women without children and most of those women without children by whom I am surrounded have been in happy relationships for a very long time and most of them are married.
Obviously, I am Russian so I am very direct, living a little bit like “my way or the highway”, so when I was confronted with a friend of mine who would have four dogs, five cats, but would never want to have a kid, I said: “Are you sure? How is it possible? You have a husband” and I was completely in misunderstanding on how… because, you know, if you are a woman who wants to have a child and the only element missing is a happy life with a husband, of course you look at your best friend who is happily married and tells you: “No, no, for god’s sake! It’s a nightmare!” right when you think of having a child, you start to sweat! So I think that at the beginning I would try to persuade Suzie to have a child to the extent that she went to see a psychologist, and the psychologist told her: “Suzie, do whatever you want in life, but never get children”. In the meantime, I have other four couples of friends where people say: “No, I don’t want to have children” and, in a way, I think that that changed my mind in the sense that if you don’t have this instinct in you, you should not have children. Children are not a status symbol. Children are not something which you get per definition. Children is something you should get only when you have a strong mother instinct in you, but nobody said we all have the same instincts, right? In a way, it’s absolutely unacceptable the pressure which society puts on us, and it’s absolutely unacceptable that it is even a subject of discussion that, if you are getting married, that is the next step, you are going to have a child. And it is completely unacceptable that everyone has to have a child. Why not everyone has a dog? Why not everyone has a cat? But why everyone has to have a husband or a wife? And why everyone has to have a child? So, I mean, I am absolutely… I am surrounded by females who do not want to have children, but on the other hand, like… me, I always wanted to have a child, I think that the way they could never influence me to not want to have a child, I could never influence them to want to have a child. So I believe it should be a conscious decision, it should be a very well thought-through decision, and you really have to know that you want it.
It’s very funny, now I read a lot of articles about pregnancy: “Pregnancy week one, pregnancy week two, pregnancy week seven…” and then I read things like: “This is a week in which probably you will have depression” and I think, if you really want to have a child, if you wanted to have a child, if it’s not that the child is there by chance, which of course can happen, how is it possible that you’re depressed if that is what you wanted? So probably, to close the brackets, you have to know what you want, that’s why you should not rush into having a child. You shouldn’t have a child to save your relationship, you shouldn’t get a child because everybody gets a child. You shouldn’t get a child because it’s a social pressure, you should get a child only if you have this strong wish to be a mother.
Talking about pressure, if I felt the social pressure? if I had stayed in Russia, probably, I would have felt a social pressure because in Russia you normally get married at 21 or 22 years old, and if you do not, then all of your aunties and uncles start to talk to you as if you are sick or something like that, saying things like: “It’s time to think about making your own family”. There is an anecdote I can tell you about my sister: my sister got my niece at 24 years old. She had to go to the hospital one month prior delivery because it was considered to be a late-birth, so they were afraid the kid would have no nails… In any case, she was surrounded by eighteen-year-olds and nineteen-year-olds who were giving birth, and at 24 years old you’re already considered an old mother. Still now we are making jokes about it, especially now that I’m going to be a mother at the age of 48. That is one bad of it.
Of course it’s changed, also for Russia, I think that now women are getting children later, but there was a bit of a pressure which I had from my parents, a very subtle pressure. My dad was crazy about kids, as I mentioned before, so he wanted to have grandchildren. But he was far too gentle and sophisticated to push for it in comparison to mom, who would call me in the middle of the day. I loved my mom to bits and we talked to each other five or six times a day, I mean, we spent a lot of time together in spite of the fact that I lived in Brussels and she lived in Novosibirsk, which is seven thousand kilometres away. Sometimes she would call me in the middle of the day taking me out of a very important meeting and I would ask her: “Mom, is something wrong?” and she would answer: “No, nothing, but it’s time for you to get children”, so I would say: “Mommy, I am in a meeting” and she would answer: “I understand, but you have to understand that career is not everything in life and you have to start to think about having children”, so I would ask: “what do you want me to do concretely? Do you want me to jump on one of the men in the meeting room? Or do you want me to tell the guys I cannot participate in this meeting anymore because my mom told me I have to make a baby now?”. So yes, there was a little bit of pressure and then I would just say: “Mommy, sorry, I have to hang up”, so she would say: “You’re so rude to your mama!” and then I would have to call her back to apologize and of course we would make it up, but yes, for her it was a big point of concern and, as I said, it’s very sad that she’s not going to meet Viktor, but I’m sure that they’re seeing it all and that they’re giving their blessings and that they’re very happy for me, for me going this way. My sister also was very sweet lately, she said: “We’ve been at the graveyard of mama and papa, and we told them about you and your project, we think they’re very happy”, so it was a very happy moment.
Why IVF instead of adoption? Because it’s simply not possible if you are… I mean, I was very happy to give a mom to a child who has no mom and no dad, and if you ask me, I would choose that one rather than IVF treatment, because, in a way, I have never wanted my child to have no father so I’ve always said: “Should I not meet the man of my dreams, I would adopt” because then you give a mom, at least a mom, to somebody who has no mom and no dad. But it’s impossible if you are a single woman over 40 years old, it’s impossible, it’s literally impossible to adopt.
In spite of the fact that I’m very independent and that I have a very good salary and that I can stand up straight to whatever it means in terms of obligations, it’s impossible. From a legal point of view it’s just… I checked different options, but from a legal point of view being a single female you are discriminated by law. And it’s stupid. But I think that society should look through its given effects. There are so many children who would need more attention and who would be happy to have a mama. Hopefully, a mama like me.
I think I will be a good mama! A loving one! I think that I am very blessed with my friends, I have a lot of… not a lot, I have… few male friends, but good male friends. I think that Viktor will have a male role around him through my friends. In terms of a nanny, I don’t mind, in all honesty, if it’s a woman or a man. At this moment, and I know that you probably consider me light-minded, but I don’t think about nanny. At this particular moment, I just hope that he’s coming to the world healthy and then we will see, but no, I didn’t think about it. It’s a good idea, I’ll think about it! On the other hand, to find a nanny who would be a serious male figure in Viktor’s life for a long period of time, I think it will be a challenging task because I think that today most of the nannies are females. But, honestly I didn’t look into it yet, I have to study it.»

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