CONVENTIONAL IVF

IVF is the process of collecting eggs and sperm then manually fertilizing them, outside the body, in a laboratory dish. The additon of a sperm to an egg produces an embryo. Good quality embryos are then transferred back into the uterus which ultimately implant and grow into a baby. IVF involves 3 steps:

1

OVARIAN STIMULATION AND MONITORING:

To increase the chances for success, a patient usually takes injections to increase the number of mature eggs produced in one month. Frequent monitoring (blood draw and ultrasound) is usually performed to monitor the response of the ovaries to the dose of medications given, thus allowing the physician to adjust the dosage appropriately.

3

FERTILIZATION AND EMBRYO TRANSFER

Embryologists fertilize the eggs with sperm in the embryology laboratory to produce embryos. The embryos take 3 to 7 days for them to develop. The physican will transfer the healthy embtyo(s) back into the uterus, with the goal of implantation in the uterus. This procedure usually does not involve any anesthesia and done with ultrasound to guide a small catheter through the cervix and deposit the embryo(s) in the best location of the uterus. The procedure takes only a few minutes and there is no recovery time. A pregnancy test is performed approximately 9-12 days after the embryo transfer to check for pregnancy. The remaining viable embryos can be frozen for future use.

2

EGG COLLECTION:

While Almost all other fertility give IV sedation to put patients to sleep for the egg collection, patients at RFC have the option to have local anesthesia only (i. e., awake) for their egg collection. The physician extracts mature eggs via ultrasound guidance. Egg retrival is a minimally invasive procedure that normally takes less then 10 minutes. patients typically can resume their normal activities on the next day.