Fertility Therapy

When undergoing IVF/ICSI fertility therapy, there are a few things your specialist will consider:

  • the length of time you have been trying
  • your and your partner’s fertility assessment results
  • the female partner’s age
  • the need for donor gametes.

If you are undergoing IVF/ICSI treatment, it is important to know that your treatment cycles are treated the same by your fertility doctor, specialist, nurses and scientists until it is time to add the eggs and sperm together. It is at the fertilisation stage that IVF and ICSI treatment differ. Below are the steps involved in our IVF/ICSI procedure.

IVF and ICSI Treatment Procedure

  1. When you have seen one of our IVF/ICSI specialists, they will instruct you how to arrange your first blood test through our Canberra clinic.
  2. Our IVF/ICSI clinic will book your first blood test to check your baseline hormone levels during or immediately after a menstrual cycle.
  3. Based on your blood test results, our clinic will advise you when and how to begin your IVF/ICSI treatment medication. This medication can be administered at home. If you are unsure how to self-administer the medication, your fertility nurse will be able to guide you through this process. 
  4. You continue the medication for the duration of time prescribed by your IVF/ICSI specialist. You also have blood tests for your hormones and ultrasound scans for your ovaries at regular intervals throughout this period.
  5. Once you have reached high enough hormone levels and grown follicles (these contain the eggs for fertilisation) on your ovaries, your specialist and our clinic will jointly arrange a time for you to undergo an egg collection.
  6. You will self-administer a special medication approximately 36 hours prior to your egg collection. This is called the trigger injection and allows the growing eggs to reach maturity prior to the egg collection procedure.
  7. You attend a private hospital to have your eggs collected by a fertility specialist and fertility scientist. This is day 0 of growing embryos.
  8. Your eggs will be taken to the laboratory and processed, ready for either in vitro fertilisation or intra cytoplasmic sperm injection treatment.
  9. The sperm sample is processed either for IVF or ICSI fertilisation depending on the sperm sample quantity and guidelines directed by your fertility therapy specialist.
    • IVF treatment: The sperm is carefully placed over the collected eggs and incubated in controlled conditions for 18 – 20 hours.
    • ICSI treatment: The sperm is processed to allow the fertility scientist to inject one single sperm into one single egg individually. These eggs are then incubated in controlled conditions for 18 – 20 hours.
  10. The fertility scientists check the eggs for signs of fertilisation after the initial 18 – 20 hours incubation period and inform you how many total eggs have shown signs of fertilisation. This is day 1 of growing embryos.
  11. The eggs, now called embryos, are grown in the incubator until day 5. On day 5 the fertility scientist checks the embryos for suitability. The suitable embryos will be either transferred into the female partner and/or frozen for future use. For those patients undergoing an embryo transfer, this is a quick procedure, about 10 minutes, conducted at the fertility clinic and feels similar to a pap smear.
  12. The fertility nurses will give you instructions following your embryo transfer and give you a date and time for your next blood test.

Book an IVF/ICSI Consultation

If you’d like to undergo IVF/ICSI testing or discuss fertility therapy, book an IVF/ICSI consultation at our Canberra clinic. Our doctor Steven Adair and his specialist team are here to support women and men, single women and same-sex couples through our services.

Get in touch

Whether it’s to book a consultation or discuss options, Dr Steven Adair and his team would love to hear from you.

For all appointments and enquiries, send us a message by filling out the enquiry form or call (02) 6163 9677.

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