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The next stage is egg collection. You both go back to the clinic, where the male partner is asked to give a sperm sample. Some men find there is a lot of pressure to perform, which can make them anxious about doing this, and it is may be possible to freeze sperm in advance if you are worried that this could be a problem. The woman is then heavily sedated, or sometimes completely knocked out with a general anesthetic, so that the eggs can be collected. Ultrasound is used to identify the follicles and then a thin needle is inserted into them through the vagina, and the fluid is sucked out of each follicle. Not all follicles contain eggs, but if there is one inside, it will come out in the fluid.
'I had been quite anxious about the egg retrieval I thought would be very painful. I hadn't actually realized until about a week before that they took the eggs out through the vaginal wall. In the end I had a general anesthetic so it was really that that I was recovering from. it was pretty gruelling.' Naomi, 39
The embryologist mixes the eggs and sperm together in a dish, and puts them in an incubator. The sperm won't usually fertilize every egg, but the eggs that have been fertilized should start dividing. After two or three days, one or two embryos can be transferred to the womb, or they may be left for longer to develop into blastocysts, which are more mature embryos. Not all embryos will survive long enough in the laboratory to become blastocysts, but those that do have a higher chance of implanting.
Embryo transfer is carried out when the embryo, or embryos, are ready to be replaced and is usually a straight.
forward procedure that doesn't involve any anesthetic. The embryo is put into a thin catheter and passed into the womb through the cervix. Ultrasound is used to make sure it has gone into the right place, and then you are usually asked to lie still for a little while before being allowed home. After embryo transfer, you may be given progesterone supplements to help the embryo implant in the womb.
If you have produced a good number of embryos, those you are not having replaced can be frozen. Clinics usually only freeze good-quality embryos, and not all of them will survive the freezing and thawing process.
The two weeks that follow embryo transfer, known as the 'two-week wait' is often described as the most difficult part of IVF treatment. Up until this point, you have been busily moving towards the goal of embryo transfer. Once this is done, there is nothing more you can do except wait.
'The two-week wait was horrendous. That's definitely the worst part. One day l'd be convinced I had tiny symptoms, and the next day I was convinced I had my period and it was all over. I wasn't sure whether to go back to work or not, but I thought if I didn't I was going to go insane. I'm glad I did because there would have been too much time to think about it. At least I had a bit of distraction at work' Gillian, 30
Most clinics like you to go back at the end of the two week waiting period for a blood test to see whether you are pregnant or not. Usually, the result will be a clear positive or negative, but sometimes it can be ambiguous.
Although the pregnancy hormone levels are raised, they are not as high as they should be, and there is a risk that the pregnancy will not survive. This can be a particularly difficult outcome. You cannot celebrate a pregnancy at last, neither can you go off and try to forget about it for a while. Some women who begin with a low positive go on to have perfectly successful pregnancies, for others the pregnancy is eventually lost after a period of heartache. To find out more, you can check out IVF Due Date Calculator.
