Before starting your IVF treatment, please make sure that you have appropriate, current means of communicating with your team. Ensure you have your nurse’s phone line and email, the after-hour emergency line phone number, and your doctor’s email. Also, ensure that you have indicated your preferred phone line contact and that we have your current e-mail. All pre-cycle investigations and checklists must be complete before starting, including completed consents, fee payments and injection teaching.
Please ensure that you had a discussion with your team regarding:
– The type of sedation of choice for egg retrieval should be discussed with your IVF team.
– The number of embryos to be transferred.
– The option of sperm freezing as a backup. This option should be discussed if your partner may have difficulty collecting sperm sample on the day of egg retrieval or he may not be available.
IVF treatments consist of two phases:
The first is superovulation where you will be taking fertility injections on a daily basis. The dose will be titrated by your doctor based on information obtained by blood work and follicular ultrasound measurements. The information will be communicated to you through your primary nurse regardless of which location you go to. You may see a different nurse after the monitoring studies in order to attend to your immediate needs. These will, of course, be communicated to your primary nurse and physician. This phase of ovarian stimulation usually requires 10 days of injections and ends with an ovulation trigger: Ovidrel or HCG.
When you start your period, please call your nurse on the first day of your menstrual bleed in order to initiate your ovarian stimulation phase (which usually takes takes10 days (9-12-day range). Again, please ensure that you have submitted all your consents and fees and have purchased your medications before your period starts to avoid unnecessary delays and stress.
The second phase is the Embryology lab phase, which starts with the egg retrieval (36 hours after ovulation trigger) and ends with the Embryo transfer 3-5 days after the egg harvest.
Instructions for fertility drugs related to dose change or triggers are through phone calls and/or emails. They will follow every clinic visit. Those communications can occasionally be as late as 8 pm. Therefore, your timing to administer your fertility drugs should be in the evening after 8 pm. Please refer to the OI section (Ovarian stimulation with injectables).
Please refrain from sexual activity by treatment day 9. No restrictions prior to that. Abstaining from intercourse, for more than 7 days, is not advisable. Your male Partner must be available on the day of the egg retrieval to provide a sperm sample unless a sample is already frozen and there are no plans to collect a fresh sample. If your partner has difficulty collecting a sample on demand, freezing a sperm sample as a backup is advised. Men with very low sperm counts will also be asked to freeze a sperm sample as a backup before starting the ovarian stimulation.