EP #15 – IVF Timeline: Sharing is Caring
[00:00:00] Tanja: Hello and welcome back to today's session. Today, I'm going to talk about the IVF timeline. The IVF timeline can be very, very helpful if you are preparing for an IVF program but you don't know exactly how this will go about. So today, I'm taking you through this timeline so that you get a good introduction into how the steps are being lined out and what's happening during your IVF program.
[00:01:10] So it all starts with your 1st appointment here. Your very 1st appointment is with your IVF doctor. The IVF doctor will actually share more at the clinic with you on how he or she can help you during the IVF program. Usually, also, the IVF doctor would want to monitor you and schedule a second appointment and that appointment is to do usually a scan of your ovaries, and to look at how many follicles you usually have growing, and also to see whether there is a difference between your left ovary as well as your right ovary.
[00:01:57] When everything looks good and everything is ready to go, your doctor will want to start your IVF procedure or IVF hormone stimulation on your day 2 of your menses. So, usually the steroid will be aligned with your menses, which means that you would give a call to your doctor's clinic on day one as soon as your menses have arrived, and then you will start to inject yourself with those hormones that are called FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormones). This will be done for a period of approximately 10 to 12 days.
[00:02:42] During those 10 to 12 days you will be asked to do hormones injections. Your doctor will advise you exactly to how much the quantity will be, and how to manage those injections. Nurses are usually very, very helpful, and they are all here to show you on how to do it.
[00:03:02] For those that are in very close contact with the doctor, the doctor may want to see you on day 5 as well as on day 7, and on day 9. And this is simply to monitor the progress of follicles that are growing, and to see how you're responding to the hormones. On day 9, this is when your doctor will decide on which day the procedure will take place to do the egg retrieval.
[00:03:38] Egg retrieval is usually the day where also not only the woman goes into the clinic to retrieve the eggs, but also where the man would actually provide a sample of their sperms so that the IVF laboratory would have the eggs and the sperms available for fertilisation. Fertilisation is done on that same day and that is simply after doing a washing of your sperms as well as preparation of the eggs. So, if you're scheduled to go in early morning for your procedure here of the egg retrieval, your eggs and sperms will be fertilised in the afternoon by the team of embryologists.
[00:04:33] After that, we consider that to be day 0, and then is a waiting time, and that depends on the clinic's fertilisation process, whether they are actually freezing eggs on day 2, or transferring eggs on day 2, or whether they do it on day 3, or whether they wait until day 5. There is no right or wrong. There is different philosophies to that, of course. And your clinic, or the embryologist or your IVF doctor will advise you exactly on what their procedures are.
[00:05:14] Once you have reached whichever day, your embryos will be either transferred in a so-called fresh cycle, or they will be first frozen, and then you will come back for an embryo transfer. I'll walk you now through how it works for a frozen embryo transfer because that's a very common procedure in many clinics to do.
[00:05:43] If you go for a frozen embryo transfer, your embryos will be frozen on a specific date. Usually it's either day, 3 or day 5. You will take some time out here to really take a little break, a holiday, to give you also a physical break and an emotional break, especially also to wash out all the hormones that your body was trying to absorb during the hormone stimulation period.
[00:06:17] And the earliest you can come back is one month later. That's when you will be going back a bit about a week before embryo transfer to monitor the uterus lining and to start taking progesterone. Progesterone is the hormone that helps to build the uterus lining to make it thick and soft, and really a cozy environment for your embryo to nest in and to implant.
[00:06:45] Once the doctor is giving all the thumbs up for your embryo procedure to take place, you will be asked to come back. We call this the frozen embryo transfer, in short, FET, and that's when you will go through the procedure of the frozen embryo transfer. It usually takes only like 5min to maximum 10min to transfer the embryo back into uterus.
[00:07:14] Now, after that will be the time where you will need to wait for 2 weeks. Those 2 weeks can sometimes be a little bit a mixture of emotions, because finally, the procedure is over. And finally, you feel really, really relieved that everything went so well. On the other hand, there is also sometimes a little bit of that build up that we can see towards the time when you are asked to come back for a pregnancy test.
[00:07:49] The pregnancy test is usually done with a blood sample. So, the doctor will want to take some blood from you and send it in into the laboratory to check whether there is the pregnancy hormones visible, and if yes, how much it is, and that will actually confirm whether or not there is a pregnancy detected.
[00:08:16] Now, if we all look at the emotional the emotional journey of an IVF during this time here, I would say, to be maybe a little bit more mindful around certain days. So, research shows that the egg retrieval as well as the embryo transfer belong to the highest stressors that someone can experience during an IVF journey. It doesn't mean that this will occur to you as well. The only thing that I'm trying to convey here to you is that this is a time where you may want to just add up certain things that are just doing you good, that are helping you to feel well balanced, that are helping you to feel in a good place.
[00:09:09] So, especially during the hormonal injections and around egg retrieval as well as during embryo transfer. And the 2 weeks after that, this is where I would highly and strongly advise you to do many, many good things. So, all the activities that help you to feel good, or journaling, or a gratitude, or breathing, or going out with some friends, and having a nice, lovely dinner, or spending time with people that you really like, that you feel when you are surrounded by them, you're just filled with so much kindness and good energy.
[00:10:03] So, all the things that are helping you to feel that you are in a good place are the right things to do during these times over here that I mentioned here. We will follow up with some more strategies in the coming podcasts. This is just to give you an overview. And I'm seeing right now it can be a little bit overwhelming. But please take it step by step. Don't jump into the future right away. Stay in the present with each of these steps here.
[00:10:40] Wishing you all the best. And if you have questions, please reach out to us in the comments, or email, or however, you find it the easiest for you.
