Technique

With in vitro fertilization, eggs are surgically aspirated from the woman's ovary under ultrasound guidance and mixed with sperm outside the body in a laboratory dish. After about 40 hours, the eggs are examined to see if they have become fertilized by the sperm and are dividing into cells. These fertilized eggs (now called embryos) are then placed in the women's uterus, thus bypassing the fallopian tubes where this process normally occurs.

IVF is now recognized worldwide as an established treatment for infertility.

This is how the procedure takes place:

• The woman may be given certain drugs (hormones) to stimulate her ovaries to produce several eggs before the procedure to remove them.
  
  
• A surgeon then inserts a needle through the vagina into the woman's ovary to remove eggs. This procedure used to be done with laparoscopic surgery, but the needle technique is much less invasive and much easier. General anesthesia is not required for this part of the procedure, but the woman may be given some sedating medication.
  
  
• The fluid removed is examined in the laboratory to make sure eggs are present.
  
  
• At the same time, the man provides a semen sample. He is asked not to have sexual intercourse for a few days before the eggs are retrieved from the woman and before he produces a semen sample (usually by masturbation). The sperm are separated from the semen in a laboratory procedure.
  
  
• The active sperm are combined in the laboratory dish with the eggs. This may be referred to as in vitro fertilization.
  
  
• About 18 hours after this fertilization procedure, it is possible to determine if the egg or eggs have been fertilized and have begun to grow as embryos. They are incubated and observed over the next 2-3 days or longer.

• The doctor then transfers the embryos into the woman's uterus through the cervix with a catheter (a long slender tube). The woman should then remain in a resting position for the next hour or so.
  
  
• She is given certain hormones for the next 2 weeks. If implantation works (the egg or eggs attach to the uterine wall and grow), the pregnancy test result is positive.