Guide to IVF Success - Dr. Nisha Bhatnagar | Aveya IVF

In Vitro Fertilization or IVF is a series of advanced fertility related procedures designed to accomplish the fertilization of an egg outside the body of the woman in a specialized laboratory. 

This brief IVF guide concerns itself with a breakdown of the process which involves the removal of the egg from the ovaries of women and its artificial fertilization with the sperm inside a laboratory. The woman’s womb then receives the fertilized egg, called an embryo, to grow and develop into a foetus. This procedure can be carried out using your eggs and your partner’s sperm or the eggs and sperm from donors. 

Below is a short guide to the IVF procedure and the various stages that it constitutes. 

Pre-treatment

A dosage of birth control pills is prescribed to give greater control to your doctor on your ovulation after the treatment cycle starts. In the event that you fail to get your cycles on your own, your doctor may prescribe progesterone to bring about your periods. 

While you have your periods

On the second day of your period, blood work and a transvaginal ultrasound is ordered which are counted as your baseline tests. The ultrasound looks at the size of your ovaries and to check for ovarian cysts. 

Stimulation 

After the above steps have been completed, your ovaries are stimulated with fertility drugs. The doctor will look at the growth and development of follicles during ovarian stimulation. This involves blood work and ultrasound once every few days while ivf doctor monitors your estradiol levels to check the growth of the oocyte.

Maturation

Before they can be retrieved, the eggs must complete their growth and development. The final growth is triggered with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG).

Retrieval

34 to 36 hours following the administering of the hCG shot, Intravenous medication is administered to create a relaxed and painless effect for the patient while the eggs are recovered. This involves the steering of a needle through your vagina’s back wall all the way up to your ovaries and then carefully pulling in the fluid containing the oocyte.

Fertilization of the Egg

Fertilization of the egg must take place within 12 to 24 hours, for which your partner will be required to provide a semen sample the same morning as the egg retrieval. The semen sample undergoes special washing which separates the sperm from the other components of semen. 

Embryo Transfer

A small tube called catheter is passed through your cervix during the embryo transfer and through it the embryo is transferred along with a small amount of fluid. Based on the consultation with your doctor and the quality of embryos, a predetermined number of embryos are transferred.