Traditional IVF

Since the very first treatment cycle in 1978, IVF has helped countless hopeful mom’s and dad’s become parents. Nearly 15% of all the IVF cycles performed in the U.S. every year are performed right here in New York City where fertility specialists like Generation Next Fertility use science, advanced technology and techniques, and a patient driven approach to success to help one patient get pregnant or help them stay pregnant.

When most people think about IVF or in vitro fertilization they have questions about the process and effectiveness. In short, a traditional IVF cycle can be highly effective just after one cycle attempt when compared to OI or IUI. It can also reduce the risk for multiples like twins and triplets.

Not every patient case is right for IVF, but it has been shown to be highly effective for treating infertility especially after other treatments have been explored. Your GNF provider may recommend a traditional IVF cycle based on several factors including your age, genetic background, treatment history, recurrent miscarriage, or sperm motility or morphology. A traditional IVF cycle consists of a few but critical steps:

Infertility Workup

Before we start an IVF cycle, we need to understand you and your body. If you’re new to GNF we’re likely to perform a comprehensive infertility work-up to understanding your hormone levels.

After the work-up is completed within 30-days or less, we’ll have a better sense of your natural levels of FSH (follicle stimulating hormone), E2 (estrogen), or P4 (progesterone), or AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) – all essential building blocks of success. Though bloodwork and an ultrasound examination, we’ll get a better picture of what the issues are and how best to solve them.

Ovarian Stimulation

With the “Google Maps” of an infertility an work-up in hand, we’ll have a better sense of which direction to go in order to get to destination success. In a traditional IVF cycle, our objectives are to stimulate your ovaries to generate as many eggs or oocytes as possible using a class of medications called gonadotropins (ex. Follistim, Menopur, Gonal-F).

In the case of traditional IVF, more is better when it comes to eggs recruitment. Typically, ovarian stimulation will last 7-10 days but everyone is different. Once a single egg reaches 17MM in size, you’ll be instructed to take what’s called a trigger short to spur final egg development and maturation. This trigger shot of hGC will be given at night and you’ll come in the following morning for an egg retrieval.

Egg Retrieval

36-hours or so after your hCG injection you’ll come to our office for your egg retrieval. Under light sedation and using ultrasound guidance, your GNF provider will aspirate or retrieval your eggs from your ovaries.

The process takes about 15-20 minutes, and you might feel some discomfort for a few hours afterwards. Your eggs are immediately transferred to our IVF lab where our embryologists will fertilize your eggs and begin the process of developing embryos.

Fertilization and Embryo Development

Using a process called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), the embryologist directly injects one sperm directly into an egg to spur fertilization. Your GNF provider may recommend ICSI when low sperm motility (movement) or low sperm count is an issue.

At GNF we practice a process called extended embryo culture which means letting the embryos grow the blastocysts stage of development usually five or six days later before we cryopreserve the embryo for a transfer later.

Embryo Transfer

Congratulations, it’s transfer day! At GNF, we performed what’s called a frozen embryo transfer for most patients. Just a few years ago, IVF centers were putting embryos back just a few days after fertilization. However, recent data supports the process of cryopreserving embryos and waiting 30-days to do a frozen embryo transfer (FET). FET’s have been shown to improve implantation rates and provide a more natural obstetrical experience.

How is traditional IVF and Natural IVF?

At GNF, we’re focused on our patients not just protocols and offer both traditional IVF as well as Natural or minimal stimulation protocols for our patients.

The difference between traditional and natural IVF is basically the amount of stimulation medications used. In a traditional IVF cycle, we turn off your natural hormone levels and artificially stimulate with up to 4,000 IU’s of gonadotropins to help recruit as many eggs as possible. In contrast, in a natural IVF cycle, we use very low doses of gonadotropins to compliment your natural hormone levels to recruit just 1-2 eggs for retrieval.

Our data shows that a low dose natural IVF cycle can help those who have been unsuccessful with a traditional IVF treatment protocol.