In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

You’ll begin taking daily injections of fertility medication for approximately two weeks to stimulate the growth of more than one egg in your ovaries. Your doctor will perform frequent blood tests and ultrasounds to track how many eggs are developing.

Your doctor will let you know when your eggs are ready to be retrieved. You’ll then take an injection that helps your ovaries release the mature eggs. Your doctor will use an ultrasound guided needle to carefully collect the eggs while you are under mild anesthetic (asleep without pain, but breathing on your own).

An embryologist will examine each egg in the lab and select mature eggs to be fertilized.

Sperm from your partner or donor (whether fresh or thawed) are also analyzed so that the healthiest sperm can be isolated and prepared for use.

The eggs and sperm are placed together in a lab dish so that fertilization may occur, leading to the creation of embryos.

After spending three to five days growing in the lab dish, the embryos can be tested for genetic abnormalities. Preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) is a screening test that determines whether an embryo has the right number of chromosomes needed to develop into a healthy baby. PGT can also be used to screen embryos for certain inherited genetic conditions

Your doctor will let you know when one or more healthy embryos are ready to be transferred to your uterus in a minor procedure using a catheter (a thin, flexible tube) and syringe. You’ll take progesterone, a hormone medication, to improve the likelihood the embryos will implant in your uterus

Approximately two weeks after having the embryo transfer, you’ll undergo a blood test to determine whether the embryos have implanted in your uterus. If they have, you’re pregnant.