IVF
What is In vitro fertilization (IVF)?
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is one of the most established and effective fertility treatments available today. For many individuals and couples, IVF can offer a strong chance of pregnancy and provide meaningful information that helps guide future treatment decisions.
Research, such as the FASTT Trial (Reindollar et al., Fertility & Sterility, 2008), has shown that for some patients, moving to IVF sooner rather than relying on repeated ovulation induction and intrauterine insemination (OI/IUI) cycles may be more time- and cost-efficient.
One important benefit of IVF is the possibility of creating and freezing extra embryos for future attempts, giving patients more options without needing to repeat a full stimulation cycle.
The IVF process involves gently stimulating the ovaries to produce multiple eggs, retrieving those eggs, and combining them with carefully selected sperm in the lab. The developing embryos are then observed with great care until they reach a stage where they can either be transferred into the uterus or frozen for future use.
At Conceptions, we focus on building a treatment plan that is truly tailored to you. We only recommend tests that are necessary to personalize your care. Once the results are ready, you’ll meet with your physician to discuss your options and choose the path that best aligns with your family-building goals.
The IVF Process
in 5 Steps
Ovarian Stimulation
During this phase, you’ll take a combination of medications dependent on your pre-cycle test results and medical history, and you will be monitored by both ultrasound and blood tests to optimize ovarian response.
This phase lasts about two (2) weeks, and you'll return to the clinic frequently for monitoring.
Egg Retrieval
When the follicles have matured, we will schedule you with one of our physicians to have your egg retrieval.
While you're under anesthesia, a thin needle is used with ultrasound guidance to pass through the vaginal wall and into your ovaries. Each follicle is drained to recover as many mature eggs as you produced.
The entire process takes only 20-30 minutes, and you'll be able to go home that same day.
Fertilization/Incubation
After your eggs have been collected, our experienced team gets to work. While your eggs are given several hours to complete their maturation process, our team prepares the sperm.
Later that same day, each mature egg is fertilized by a carefully selected sperm. The sperm is injected, and within 24 hours we will notify you how many eggs were successfully fertilized – meaning the sperm's DNA and the egg's DNA have combined and activated.
For the next 5-6 days, your embryos will be nurtured to ensure that as many as possible grow and develop to the blastocyst stage.
Embryo Testing and Freezing
Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) can help determine which embryos are more likely to become a healthy child.
When an abnormal embryo is identified, testing tells us whether that error came from the egg, the sperm, or even both. Every embryo that has been biopsied will then be frozen using an ultra-rapid process called vitrification.
Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET)
A Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) is when a frozen embryo from a previous fresh in vitro fertilization cycle (or donor egg cycle) are thawed and transferred into a woman’s uterus.