IVF is the last resort in fertility treatment. In-Vitro means "in-the glass", thereby In- Vitro Fertilization is fertilization occurring in the glass petri dishes in the embryology laboratory. In-Vivo ("inside-the-body") Fertilization, on the other hand, is the natural process of fertilization occurring inside the body after sexual intercourse during natural conception. Anything we do in the fertility clinic that requires fertilizing the egg in the laboratory is called IVF.
Some of the unique services we can offer you include:
Embryoplasty - to improve the quality of your embryos thereby increasing their implantation potential.
Algorithm IVF - to improve the rate of fertilization for patients wishing to avoid ICSI and letting their eggs be fertilized naturally.
High-Resolution ICSI - to ensure that high-quality sperm is used for insemination.
No Eggs Left Behind - to maximize the number of eggs recovered.
Pristine Culture Environment - to eliminate stressors on the developing embryos.
No Stress Sperm Preparation - to avoid sperm DNA fragmentation
Low-Stress ICSI - to increase probability of fertilization and possibly result in better quality embryos.
On Your Eggs' Schedule - to maximize the number of resulting embryos for our patients
IVM - to increase the number of embryos we can work with.
No-Stress Egg and Embryo Handling - to avoid stress and allow better embryo development.
No-Stress Egg Maturity Assessment - to ensure eggs are mature before undergoing stressful oocyte processing procedures.
Multi-Source Culture System - like having insurance to avoid having all the embryos being compromised in case of suboptimal batch of culture media.
Rescue ICSI - especially for patients that produce low number of eggs and fail the initial attempt of fertilization.
No-Stress Labeling - to avoid volatile organic compounds affecting embryo development
Labware Detoxification - to prevent exposing eggs and embryos to any oxidative and volatile organic compounds.
Always-Fresh Culture System
Gender Only Testing - to avoid possibly discarding embryos in case of false positive results from other genetic testing methods.
IVF has many variations and components and variations of its components. Variations in IVF medications can range from IVF without using any medications (Natural Cycle IVF) to using very few medications (Low Dose IVF) to using varying doses of medications (Conventional IVF). Variations of IVF components include traditional insemination, assisted fertilization using Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), genetic testing of embryos (PGD, PGS, PGTa, PGTm, PGTsr) varying types of petri dishes, culture media, incubators, micromanipulation tools, embryo culture techniques,
The traditional IVF cycle involves the following:
1. Ovarian Stimulation. This is done in "Conventional IVF" and in "Low-Dose IVF" so that the patient can produce more than one egg that can be retrieved. "Natural Cycle IVF" and "In-Vitro Maturation IVF" do not involve ovarian stimulation.
2. Egg Retrieval involves a procedure in the operating room where the contents of the ovarian follicles are aspirated into test tubes, and a process in the embryology laboratory whereby the contents of the test tubes are poured into a petri dish where the hunt for the eggs begin to identify and subsequently isolate the eggs into the egg culture dish.
3. Fertilization of recovered eggs by allowing the eggs and sperm to interact by themselves or by assisted fertilization using micromanipulation called ICSI
4. Fertilized eggs are cultured in embryo culture media for the following 2 to 5 days.
5. During the 2 to 5 days of embryo culture, the embryos could undergo embryo freezing, assisted hatching, or embryo biopsy.
6. The final step is Embryo Transfer where the best quality embryo is placed in the best spot inside the patient's uterus.
7. Pregnancy is usually assessed in 10 to 12 days after embryo transfer.