A dedicated triathlon athlete and advocate, Yiannis brings passion, resilience and determination to everything he does.
Now he is using his platform to raise awareness and support for everyone facing fertility challenges. His commitment to breaking the silence around infertility will help drive real change.
Yiannis and his wife, Melanie, started trying for children in 2019. They didn’t really think they might be struggling to conceive until Melanie saw her GP about an unrelated issue in 2020, and they got onto a conversation about children by chance, after they had been trying for a year. The doctor decided as they had been trying for a while, and were otherwise fit and a healthy weight, to refer them for fertility investigations and potential treatment.
Yiannis said they just thought they would keep trying and didn’t think much of it, as they were both fit, healthy and young. Melanie is a Solicitor but ran regularly and eats healthy; Yiannis works for the NHS but also competes for GB in Triathlon. Although Yiannis’ sister had been through IVF she had been successful on her first attempt, so the scale of the journey they were about to embark on wasn’t really apparent to them at this time.
Yiannis was told he had only a small amount of sperm that could swim; there were changes he made to help this, including his diet and even cutting back a little on training around the time of IVF treatment. After the first IVF attempt didn’t work in October 2022 they didn’t know what the next steps were or what was happening. After finding out more they were told they had another fresh cycle attempt and potentially three further transfers (if they had sufficient embryos to freeze).
After another unsuccessful IVF transfer in February 2023, this time it hit them even harder because they did everything they had been advised to do, and more. However they tried to stay positive and hopeful as they had been fortunate enough to freeze eggs this time round, and still had another two transfers. It had however already been a very long 4 years of trying to conceive.
Over the 4 years of their fertility journey, Yiannis had mental health problems which were a big battle. Only a very few knew what he was going through at the time, but he decided to be open about this in 2023.
They found it very hard to open up to anyone about Yiannis’ mental health issues and what they were are going through with IVF. Some people just brushed it off and thought they were fine, or they just didn’t understand what they were going through. Yiannis is a positive person but because he posts things up that are positive on social media it does not show the true reflection deep down of what they are going through. So they wanted to bring awareness to infertility and let people know that your are not going through it alone, there are others out there experiencing the same battles…
Fertility Network UK is a charity close to my heart because of the issues I had trying to have children. Being a Patron for the charity is very important to me as I want to help raise the awareness of issues with Fertility which is not talked about a lot and to raise the awareness that even a healthy & fit individual can be affected.
Yiannis Chirstodoulou
