The ABC's of IVF

I thought I'd take a step back for some of you who aren't as familiar with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and explain the process a bit more.

The first step is to stimulate the ovaries to increase follicle production, which is done by daily injections and other medication. During a normal cycle, you typically produce 1-2 mature follicles, but with stimulation, we're trying to produce 10-15 (inside each follicle contains an egg). During this time, I'm closely monitored with bloodwork and ultrasounds to make sure my ovaries aren't being over-stimulated and to watch the growth of the follicles.
Once they've matured, an injection of hCG is needed to induce ovulation, but instead of letting the eggs naturally ovulate, they are retrieved through a minor surgical procedure (called follicular aspiration) which uses ultrasound imaging to guide a hollow needle through the vaginal wall and into the ovaries. The eggs are removed from the ovaries using the hollow needle and stored in a vial. Don't worry, sedation and anesthesia are used for this procedure!
For insemination, we've chosen to use a procedure called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Through this procedure, a single sperm is injected directly into an egg to achieve fertilization. It's amazing what they can do with such small cells! This almost ensures fertilization, rather than putting the eggs and sperm into a petri dish to duke it out. Once the eggs are fertilized, we now have embryos!
The embryos are closely monitored for cell division and allowed to grow for 3-5 days. During this time, the embryos are "graded" for quality and the decision is made when to transfer them and how many. Some embryos may not make it through this process and the ones that do and are not transferred, will be frozen for future cycles.
The transfer is much like the many IUI's I had, and is much simpler and quicker than the retrieval. And after this...the waiting game and the prayers begin. I'll continue with progesterone medication to balance the hormones in my body to support a pregnancy, if in fact a pregnancy occurred.
If we have a failed cycle, we can use our frozen embryo's for our next cycle(s) and if we don't have any frozen's to use, then we'll start the process all over again. And when we're lucky to achieve pregnancy, our frozen embryo's can be stored up to 10 years for use later in life when and if we decide to add to our family. Imagine telling your child they were once frozen!

Hopefully this quick overview helped! There is a lot to know and it still overwhelms me when I think about what we're going to be tackling, but knowing we're one step closer to the end of our journey makes it all worth it.