Prague – where it all began!

I was thinking about it the other day and I realised that Maya’s travelling days started as soon as she was implanted in my womb – I had chosen a fertility clinic in Prague, so only a couple of days after she started to grow she was already in the air 🙂 returning to London. 

But it was not plain sailing getting to that point.  My first trip to Prague for IVF didn’t go well and unfortunately I learnt the hard way that everything doesn’t go smoothly with travel. Whether it’s the weather, or traffic or an airline delay you can never predict things. On my first IVF trip the weather did not align with my personal plans.  I lost the first embryo I was going to have implanted (potentially Maya’s brother or sister) because “wind blew a tree onto the track” of Stansted Express. The train stopped and was delayed for one hour just a single stop before the Stansted airport exit. When I arrived at the airport and ran to the actual gate where the Ryan air flight was leaving to Prague they told me they had just shut the aeroplane door three minutes before I got there .

Despite my pleading and explaining to Ryan air staff how I would miss my egg implantation set for that afternoon, if they didn’t open the door, they didn’t care, that door wasn’t coming open again. 

Months of needles  and injecting hormones was all just a total waste of time not to mention of money and bruises from the Clexane blood thinner injections I was taking for the procedure. 

I decided for my second attempt at IVF to be sure that I didn’t miss that appointment so I arrived two days earlier in Prague and made a weekend of it with friends before inviting Maya into my womb!

After so many attempts to have a child, with boyfriends, husbands and one night stands and then a missed IVF appointment, I was convinced I would never succeed and that the IVF wouldn’t work. I had read all the stories about women trying multiple times and failing so I was prepared for the worst. I decided to have a good weekend so I would be sure to have a good time regardless of the outcome of the procedure. 

We had a great weekend discovering what a delightful city Prague is. The city hosts many unexpected and unusual tourist attractions which are good for winter time. Myself and two friends stayed in a great spacious airbnb near the centre. Our first day we did lunch in the town square in front of the Prague Astronomical Clock. After that we enjoyed the old town square and walked across Charles Bridge to feed some ducks on the shore line and take a 50 minute cruise on the river Vltava, to see the Prague Castle and other landmarks at night. 

Of course no trip is complete without seeing the Apple Museum. The weather was colder so we committed to a museum day and had been recommended to see the Apple Museum, which wouldn’t have been my first choice. I was also surprised at the 9 Euro entrance fee but overall it was a very enjoyable and well done museum with a lot of information about the founder, his first inventions and life story. I didn’t realise he had such a pained past and was not very nice to his daughter Lisa. After a paternity test they became closer and he named one of his computers the Apple Lisa.  I learned that since then the exhibition was closed in September 2020 during the pandemic and never reopened for unknown reasons. 

We followed this by going to lunch in a traditional style restaurant that we just stumbled upon called, Cafe Imperial. I tried the Kulajda which is a creamy mushroom, dill and potato soup present in a bowl of carved out bread, that is traditional to Southern Czech. We had no idea that this was a historical Michelin-guided restaurant, but were so impressed and at home at the Café Imperial that we stayed for ages, with my friends sipping beer and appreciating the unique and beautiful historic interior of the restaurant. There were lots of delicious things at this restaurant we kept ordering more dishes and nothing was less than amazing at all. And the mushroom soup, it was so good I was on the lookout for it at every Czech restaurant after that also because there wasn’t a whole lot of vegetarian options in many of the traditional Czech restaurants and the ingredients of mushrooms and dill were out of this world. 

We followed this by going to lunch in a traditional style restaurant that we just stumbled upon called, Cafe Imperial. I tried the Kulajda which is a creamy mushroom, dill and potato soup present in a bowl of carved out bread, that is traditional to Southern Czech. We had no idea that this was a historical Michelin-guided restaurant, but were so impressed and at home at the Café Imperial that we stayed for ages, with my friends sipping beer and appreciating the unique and beautiful historic interior of the restaurant. There were lots of delicious things at this restaurant we kept ordering more dishes and nothing was less than amazing at all. And the mushroom soup, it was so good I was on the lookout for it at every Czech restaurant after that also because there wasn’t a whole lot of vegetarian options in many of the traditional Czech restaurants and the ingredients of mushrooms and dill were out of this world.

It was after a good long while that we then finally wobbled out stuffed with food, pushing past the heavy wooden carved doors back into the cold. Once on the street we didn’t really know what we wanted to do so we just wandered, looking at shops and eventually we passed the Sex Machine Museum, which was also good entertainment for around forty minutes not more. I learned a lot about unique sex arrangements and machines in the past, and some which exist in the present too.  

After that my friend had heard of the John Lennon Wall so we used our google maps to guide us. We took some twists and turns and some uphill climbing but we eventually found the Lennon Wall. The wall has been around since the 1980s, and still has a lot of Beatles related graffiti but now also has famous street artists contributing peace messages The once-typical wall has been filled  with wonderful designs, relating to local and global causes and is part of a local art tour. It reminded me of my own neighbourhood in London, Shoreditch.

On our way back to the airbnb that night we passed a beautiful block in the historic part of town called Ukapra. On exploration it has some very charming apartments to rent in a great location. 

That evening we were still up for more action so managed to get tickets to a Jazz club where the venue was really small so we could truly enjoy the music close up. 

 The jazz musicians were white, which I had never seen before, since I usually enjoy Jazz in the USA, but they were good never the less and really put their all into their performances. 

The following morning I went off for my procedure at 10am on November 3 2018, while my friends continued to sightsee. It wasn’t painful but that afternoon I lay down at the Air BNB after the procedure, because they told me to keep calm. But the following day I went back to sightseeing with my friends again, this time with little Maya inside me! We went walking randomly around the city and stumbled across the Gallery of Steel. Again it wasn’t something I would normally go for but turned out really fun as they have over 100 exhibits inspired by classic movies at the Gallery of Steel, most of them made of recycled items and really unique.

We followed this by an amazing traditional Czech meal in Tast Restaurant in the historic district. After this I felt as though we had truly done Prague. 

The clinic said it was ok to fly a couple of days after the procedure so I flew back, and waited two weeks and couldn’t quite believe it when the pregnancy test said yes! My feelings went from elation to extreme fear of what I had done. So I always tell Maya she has been flying since she was two days old, and fortunately she likes it otherwise our adventures over the last four years wouldn’t have been possible!

To follow my story about Maya click here. To be inspired to visit Prague with kids click here.