How does ivf cycle work

Although this can be emotionally difficult news to receive, every cycle is diagnostic as well as therapeutic. Your fertility doctor will gain knowledge throughout each cycle, increasing your chances of success for the next cycle. Keep in mind: a poor hormonal response from this round of IVF does not mean you'll have the same fate should you decide to continue with IVF treatments.

Sometimes, it just takes a little time to figure out the right protocol for your body. Here's why you should have hope after a failed IVF cycle. Another reason the IVF cycle can take longer than expected is the decision to have the embryos undergo genetic testing before embryo transfer. Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy PGT-A is the newest iteration of this type of testing. PGT-A can offer the highest degree of certainty for a genetically healthy child, particularly when partners are known carriers or at higher risk for passing on genetic diseases.

PGT-A testing might add weeks to the process. Whatever the cause for delay, RMA of Connecticut understands that fertility treatments can be challenging and upsetting. Should there be a delay or cancellation, your doctor and the rest of your team will review your case and make necessary adjustments - and will be with you every step of the way.

So you've had your consultation, your diagnostic testing, and you're about to start your IVF journey. This is a huge step, and you're doing whatever it takes to prepare your mind and body. Simply by reading this article, you've got a foundation of expectations. Remember: everyone's journey is unique and involves constant communication with your fertility team and partner, should you have one. What's next? Familiarize yourself with the physical experience of IVF.

What will it feel like? What sort of reactions might you have? What's normal and what's not? All these questions and more are answered here. We at RMA of Connecticut wish you all the luck in your family-building journey and hope these resources help you feel as prepared as possible for your IVF experience.

Christina works as the Director of Nursing at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut, starting at the company in Follow Us. Meet with a nutritionist to learn how you can give your body a better chance at success. Meet with a Fertility Counselor who can both prepare you for the road ahead. Download our Day Preconception Checklist to reset your body and mind before trying to conceive. What fertility testing do I need to complete before IVF?

To put it simply: a healthy body has the best chance of success. Okay, so what's next? Once diagnostic testing is complete, the IVF cycle begins. Stage 1: Oral Contraceptives - Birth Control Although it may seem counterintuitive, IVF patients must take oral contraceptives for days before starting fertility medications. Back to IVF. What happens during IVF may differ slightly from clinic to clinic, but a typical treatment follows the main steps described on this page.

You're given a medicine that will suppress your natural menstrual cycle. This can make the medicines used in the next stage of treatment more effective.

The medicine is given either as a daily injection that you'll be taught to give yourself, or as a nasal spray. You continue this for about 2 weeks. Once your natural cycle is suppressed, you take a fertility hormone called follicle stimulating hormone FSH.

FSH increases the number of eggs your ovaries produce. This means more eggs can be collected and fertilised. With more fertilised eggs, the clinic has a greater choice of embryos to use in your treatment. The clinic will keep an eye on you throughout the treatment. You'll have vaginal ultrasound scans to monitor your ovaries and, in some cases, blood tests. Before your eggs are collected, you'll have an injection of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotrophin hCG that helps your eggs to mature.

You'll be sedated and your eggs will be collected using a needle that's passed through your vagina and into each ovary under ultrasound guidance.

Some women experience cramps or a small amount of vaginal bleeding after this procedure. The collected eggs are mixed with your partner's or the donor's sperm in a laboratory to fertilise them.

In some cases, each egg may need to be injected individually with a single sperm. This is called intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection or ICSI. The fertilised eggs embryos continue to grow in the laboratory for up to 6 days before being transferred into the womb. The best 1 or 2 embryos will be chosen for transfer. Day 5 embryos are called blastocyst embryos. At this stage, the embryos have increased in size and are even more developed.

They resemble a ball of cells with fluid inside. One of the things we look for at this stage is how expanded these embryos are.

The more expanded, the better the quality of the embryo. These embryos are also classified by a number scale, 1 through 6. Grade 6 represents the best quality blastocyst. Embryos are transferred on day 3 when they are at the cleavage stage 6 - 8 cells or on day 5 when they have reached the blastocyst stage. Embryo transfer is a simple procedure that does not require any anesthesia.

Embryos are loaded in a soft catheter and are placed in the uterine cavity through the cervix under ultrasound guidance. An embryo must hatch out of its outer membrane zona pellucida before implanting in the uterine wall endometrium.

Sometimes, the zona is abnormally thick. Laser assisted hatching is a technique that allows a small gap in the zona pellucida to be made. This will aid the embryo in breaking out of this membrane and facilitates implantation.

It is a technique that is performed before embryo transfer and when doing trophectoderm biopsies. Assisted hatching is specifically recommended for patients who are over 37 years of age, have diminished ovarian reserve as determined by a day 3 FSH level, or have lower antral follicle counts.

Patients who are poor responders to gonadotropin stimulation, or have had previous failed implantation may also benefit from this procedure. Studies have shown that assisted hatching improves IVF success rates in both fresh embryo transfers and frozen embryo transfers.

Embryo cryopreservation freezing may be available to patients that have an excess number of normally fertilized embryos or high quality blastocysts that remain following embryo transfer. Embryos may be frozen at the zygote stage one day after egg retrieval, or on day 5 or 6 at the blastocyst stage.

Some patients' semen samples contain no spermatozoa due to a congenital obstruction of the sperm ducts, vasectomy, failed vasectomy reversal, or primary testicular failure. This sperm can be frozen and used for fertilization by ICSI.