Determining if IVF is Right for You
The road to a successful pregnancy is long and often challenging, even in the best circumstances. If you’ve been trying to start a family for several months or even years without success, you likely – and understandably – have many questions and emotions. There may be feelings of frustration, discouragement, and exhaustion. Additionally, you may be considering alternative methods like IVF, or in vitro fertilization to become pregnant.
At Viera Fertility Clinic, we believe education is empowerment and we want to help you understand all of your options. Additionally, we understand this is a difficult time and the sheer amount of available information about fertility can be overwhelming. One of the most common types of fertility treatment, and the one we get by far the most questions about, is IVF. According to the CDC, 1-2% of babies born in the U.S. are conceived via IVF. It has the highest success rate of any assisted reproductive technology (ART).
However, fertility treatments aren’t one-size-fits-all and IVF is not necessarily the best option for everyone. To determine if it is right for you, it’s important to first understand what IVF entails.
Understanding IVF
By definition, in vitro means, “outside the living body and in an artificial environment.” In other words, egg fertilization happens outside the body. The fertilization happens in a medical lab, where ideal conditions can be created and controlled. This doesn’t take place in a single visit; IVF is a complete cycle with several components and multiple doctor’s appointments.
In most cases, IVF begins with you giving yourself a course of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) injections at home. This helps you produce as many eggs as possible. The eggs’ development is monitored closely until they’re mature. They are then extracted in our Melbourne fertility clinic in a simple outpatient procedure. Next, your eggs are fertilized in our lab with sperm – either your partner’s or a donor’s.
After close monitoring, the highest-quality embryo is chosen for transfer into your uterus. The implantation of the egg can take several days, but at this point you are officially pregnant! About two weeks after the egg transfer, we’ll give you a pregnancy test to confirm successful implantation. Our Melbourne IVF doctors will watch over you closely for the first several weeks. However, in most cases, you will start seeing your regular obstetrician at about 10 weeks into the pregnancy.
Who is a Good Candidate for IVF?
You should be in good overall health to be a strong candidate for IVF. Beyond that generality, it’s an excellent option for people experiencing many different causes of infertility.
- Couples who have been trying to conceive for longer than six months
- Women who suffer from PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), Endometriosis, or blocked fallopian tubes
- Situations where there are male infertility issues
- Women who have not had success with other fertility treatments, including IUI
Contact Our Experts
Contact our Melbourne fertility clinic to schedule an appointment today so we can help you decide if IVF is right for you. If we determine together that it’s not, we’ll guide you through your other fertility treatment options. Thus, we will come up with the best strategy to help you become pregnant. We’re here for you and we look forward to taking this journey with you!