IVF/ICSI

What Is IVF?

In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) involves putting the eggs and sperms together. By natural selection, the egg will usually allow only one sperm to enter and this usually leads to the fertilisation process in the laboratory. After fertilisation, the embryos are allowed to grow for a short period of time before being placed into the uterus. A successful pregnancy can be confirmed about 2 weeks later.

What Is ICSI?

Intra-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) involves injecting a single sperm into each egg to allow fertilisation to occur in the laboratory.



- Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation and Monitoring
Every morning, Lew has been injecting me with Gonadotrophin just below my belly button for a week to stimulate the growth of the follicles in the ovaries. After 7days, an ultrasound scan is performed to determine the number and size of the growing follicles. They only found 6 small follicles so they asked me to continue with Gonadotrophin for 2 more days. After another ultrasound, no additional follicles but existing ones grew a bit. After another day of Gonadotrophin, two new grew and the 6ones reached the desired size. Finally the doctor said that we're ready so an injection of HCG is given and gonadotrophin was discontinued. The HCG is required for the final maturation of eggs before the egg collection. The egg collection is scheduled about 36 hours after the HCG injection.

- Egg Collection (Oocyte Pick Up)
This morning, I went for egg collection. The eggs are collected through a special needle attached to an ultrasound probe. I was under sedative during the procedure. Dr Loh was able to extract 3 eggs. During recovery, I was hooked to a blood pressure monitor and every 15 minutes, the nurse checks on me. We went home after a while, with some pain at my lower abdomen.

- ICSI
ICSI is performed on the day of oocyte pick-up. During the procedure, a single sperm will be injected into each egg via a microneedle. So from now til tomorrow, we are praying that fertilisation will occur so we will have embryo transfer on Monday.

- Embryo Transfer
Jan12: We came back at KKIVF for the embryo transfer today. Dr Loh informed us that only 2 eggs have developed into embryos from the 4eggs that were retrieved last Saturday. The procedure was quite fast, with Lew watching. We got to see the embryos n the screen before it was transfered. We even had a picture, one is already divided into 4 and the other one was faster as you cannot count the divisions anymore. Both were re-placed back to my uterus guided by ultrasound. The nurse was kind and she let us stay for a while. I was so afraid to walk or move around. Then Lew purchased some more medicines and injections(again!). I got to take more injections so the embryos will have a higher chance of implanting. They also gave us the form for the insurance plan that we were required to take. They said it is mandatory to get insurance for each embryo transfer since some babies born under IVF had complications. If ever the pregnancy didn't go through, your money is already lost. And the more embryo transfered, the higher the insurance. We went home, and Lew instructed me to just stay in bed for at least 6hours so I obliged.



- Next stop, pregnancy test.. on January 29!

***Pictures and some text were taken from KK Hospital website.