Step 1: Consultation and fertility testing
Before anything else, you'll meet with a fertility specialist to review your medical history and run baseline tests. These typically include an AMH blood test to assess your ovarian reserve, and an antral follicle count via ultrasound to see how many follicles are developing. This stage gives you and your doctor the information needed to plan your treatment.
Step 2: Hormone stimulation injections
For around 10 to 14 days, you'll give yourself daily hormone injections to stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs in a single cycle. Some people find this manageable; others experience side effects including bloating, mood changes, and tenderness at the injection site. Everyone responds differently.
Step 3: Monitoring appointments
During stimulation, you'll come in regularly, often every one to two days, for ultrasounds and blood tests to track how your follicles are developing. These appointments are frequent and tend to be early morning. It's worth planning around your work schedule in advance, as the timing can be demanding.
Step 4: Egg retrieval
When your eggs are ready, a minor surgical procedure is performed under sedation. A thin needle guided by ultrasound collects the eggs from your ovaries. Most people go home the same day. Some cramping and fatigue afterward is normal and usually short-lived.
Step 5: Freezing and storage
Retrieved eggs are frozen using a technique called vitrification, a flash-freezing process that has significantly improved survival rates compared to older methods. The eggs are stored in liquid nitrogen at your clinic for as long as you need, with an annual storage fee.
What happens when you're ready to use them?
When the time comes, your eggs are thawed, fertilised using a technique called ICSI (where a single sperm is injected directly into each egg), and monitored as embryos for five to six days. A suitable embryo is then transferred to the uterus. The process from thaw to transfer typically takes a few weeks, following a consultation to plan the cycle.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
