Michelle, biochemist at inviTRA, tells us about the process of reciprocal IVF:
The steps of the reciprocal IVF process are basically the same as IVF using an egg donor. The difference here is that the egg donor is your partner. The woman selected to be the genetic mother will undergo ovarian stimulation. This process is whereby, with hormonal medication administered to the woman, many eggs are developed within the ovaries. This will be carefully monitored by ultrasound and, when sufficient size and maturity of the eggs has occurred, the oven pickup will be programmed. This oven pickup, also called a follicular puncture or an egg retrieval, is a simple surgery which is carried out under mild anesthetic or mild sedation. In this process, the woman will have the eggs aspirated from her ovaries.
Following this process the eggs will then be taken to the laboratory. In the laboratory, they will be fertilized by donor sperm. This sperm may be from an anonymous donor (in many countries donation of the sperm is an anonymous and altruistic act) or if you are in the United States you may have chosen to have a sperm donor. Either way, the sperm will have been previously frozen (even if it is donated sperm) and it will have to be thored, check the survival of the sperm, it will be processed and capacitated ready to then provide the fertilization of the eggs and the sperm. The sperm will be mixed with the eggs or, alternatively, if intracytoplasmic sperm injection is used, a sperm cell will be selected by the specialist and injected directly into the egg cell. After the fertilization process, the embryos are allowed to grow for a few days in the laboratory.
When the embryos are ready, the very best embryo will be selected for the embryo transfer. While the embryos are developing, the mother who is going to carry the baby will undergo preparation of her endometrium. This can be done in a natural cycle (when the endometrium prepares naturally) but it is more likely that she will undergo hormonal medication with progesterones and estrogen in order to make sure that the endometrium (which is the lining of the uterus) is at the correct thickness to increase the chances of implantation.
When the embryos are ready and the endometrium is ready, the embryo transfer will take place. Usually, only one or possibly two embryos are transferred into the uterus and any remaining embryos can be vitrified, which is cryogenically preserved for later use.
Possibly, the most difficult step of the process is the next bit, which is the two week wait before you can take the pregnancy test to see if the treatment has been successful. It is important in the two week wait, sometimes called the beta wait, not to perform a pregnancy test as false test results can be obtained due to to the hormonal medications taken in the process. After the two week wait you can take the pregnancy test.
