What an IVF cycle actually looks like, week by week

When people say 'I am doing IVF', they usually mean a sequence of six distinct phases over six to eight weeks. Most clinics break it down differently in their leaflets. We are using the patient experience as the spine, not the clinic workflow.

1. 1

   1. Down-regulation or natural start

   Some protocols start with two to three weeks of medication that quietens your own cycle so the clinic can control timing. Other protocols (antagonist or natural-cycle IVF) skip this. You will know which protocol applies because it changes which days you start injections.

2. 2

   2. Stimulation, around 10 to 14 days

   Daily injections of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) push your ovaries to grow several follicles instead of one. Scans every two to four days track the size and number. This is the part that most people find physically demanding: bloating, mood swings, and the discipline of daily injections at the same time each day.

3. 3

   3. Trigger and egg collection

   When the follicles are the right size, a final 'trigger' injection ripens the eggs. Egg collection happens about 36 hours later under light sedation. It takes 15 to 30 minutes. Most people go home within a few hours and feel sore for a day or two.

4. 4

   4. Fertilisation in the lab

   Eggs are mixed with sperm (conventional IVF) or each egg is injected with a single sperm (ICSI). Embryos are watched in the lab for three to five days. Not every egg fertilises, not every embryo divides well. The clinic will update you each day with numbers, which can be emotionally hard.

5. 5

   5. Transfer or freeze-all

   A single embryo is usually placed in the uterus on day 3 or day 5 (blastocyst). Some clinics freeze all embryos and transfer in a later cycle to give the lining time to recover from stimulation. Frozen-embryo-transfer cycles are increasingly common.

6. 6

   6. Two-week wait, then test

   About 9 to 14 days after transfer, a blood test (or home pregnancy test, depending on clinic) confirms whether the cycle worked. Many people describe this as the hardest part. If positive, an early scan follows in two to three weeks. If not, the clinic talks through what was learnt and what comes next.