IVF
IVF is the process by which a woman’s (or donor’s) eggs are fertilised with either her partner’s (or donor’s) sperm inside a glass dish, In-vitro (Latin for ‘in glass’). In order for this procedure to be carried out, the woman’s normal fertility cycle must first be suppressed, clinically referred to as ‘down regulation’. This is done using fertility drugs known as gonadatrophins, which are normally administered either as a nasal spray or injection. Down regulation can take anything between 7 to 28 days to occur with an average of 15 days. During down regulation you may have a period but this is not always the case; blood samples and scans may be used to check that you have down regulated satisfactorily. Once the normal hormonal cycle is suppressed, doctors now have control over your cycle, which enables them to stimulate your ovaries using gonadotrphins in the form of daily hormone injections. The hormone injections usualy last between 7 to 14 days, with an average of 10 or 11 days.