Navigating the Emotional Rollercoaster of Infertility During the Holidays
The holidays can be emotional, especially if you’ve been struggling with infertility. Here are some ways you can prioritize your well-being.
What's Involved With IVF?
In most cases, conception is fairly straightforward. However, not all people seeking to become pregnant are part of a heterosexual couple. For single women, same-sex couples, and couples with fertility issues, IVF can be the key to starting or enlarging a family.
At University Reproductive Associates, with offices in Hasbrouck Heights, Wayne, and Hoboken, New Jersey, our fertility experts offer in vitro fertilization for people seeking to become pregnant where traditional methods can’t work or have failed.
What’s involved with IVF?
During IVF, the eggs are removed from fallopian tubes, fertilized with sperm, and implanted into a uterus. There are multiple steps to the process, and there may be multiple people involved.
The egg donor
For the person whose eggs will be fertilized, the IVF process begins with hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries, mature the eggs, and “ripen” the follicles (fluid-filled sacs inside the ovaries that hold the eggs.)
Once the eggs are mature, we use aspiration to remove them safely using a transvaginal wand. Then we put the eggs in a glass dish. That’s where the in vitro part of the name comes in; in vitro is Latin for “in glass”.
The sperm donor(s)
Next, the sperm is collected. That can be from one man, several men, or an anonymous donor picked from a “catalog.” The sperm is either added to the glass dish for insemination, or we may inject each egg directly with sperm in a process known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
The carrier
Once healthy embryos form, we transfer them into the carrier’s uterus. That may be the person from whom the eggs were harvested or a surrogate. The hope is that the fertilized eggs will implant in the uterine wall and pregnancy will result.
Success rates for IVF
IVF is a popular and highly successful form of fertility treatment. It accounts for 99% of fertility treatment procedures and boasts a 50% success rate (meaning it results in a live birth) in women under the age of 35.
IVF has another advantage: in people with concerns about hereditary genetic anomalies, genetic testing can be carried out on the embryos before they are implanted. That allows parents with genetic markers for specific diseases or fatal conditions to choose healthy embryos for implantation and development.
To learn more about the IVF process and determine if it’s right for you, call 201-288-6330 for an appointment at the location closest to you or visit our contact page for more options.
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