What to expect

First consultation

Around 45 minutes. History from both partners, review of any previous records, examination and ultrasound where appropriate, and a plan for investigation. If you have had treatment elsewhere, the first consultation is spent reconstructing what happened.

Bring: all previous test results, cycle summaries, embryology reports and discharge letters. Photographs of documents are fine.

Investigation

Usually two to four weeks. Blood tests are timed to the cycle; HSG and hysteroscopy are scheduled in the first half of the cycle. Many of these can be done locally if you are travelling.

An IVF cycle, visit by visit

Stimulation: roughly 10–12 days. Daily injections, self-administered at home. Monitoring by ultrasound and blood tests every two to three days — these appointments are early morning, typically before 9 a.m., and cannot be moved to the afternoon because timing determines the decision made that day. Expect four to six monitoring visits.

Trigger and egg collection. A final injection timed precisely, then egg collection about 36 hours later, under sedation, as a day case. You go home the same day.

Laboratory: 3–6 days. Fertilisation and embryo development are reported to you as they happen.

Transfer. A short procedure without anaesthetic, or embryos are frozen for transfer in a later cycle.

The two-week wait. Blood test for pregnancy about two weeks after transfer.

Who you will see

Me, at each consultation and each monitoring visit. Egg collection and embryo transfer are performed by me. Laboratory work is carried out by the embryology team at Paras Health.

If the cycle does not work

You will hear from me directly, not from a coordinator. We meet within a week or two to go through what happened step by step, what it suggests, and what — if anything — I would do differently. That review is part of the treatment, not an extra.

Common questions