s with standard IVF treatment, you will be given fertility drugs to stimulate your ovaries to develop several mature eggs for fertilisation. When your eggs are ready for collection, you and your partner will undergo separate procedures. Your partner may produce a sperm sample himself by ejaculating into a cup on the same day as your eggs are collected. If there is no sperm in his semen, doctors can extract sperm from him under local anaesthetic. Your doctor will use a fine needle to take the sperm from your partner’s: If these techniques don’t remove enough sperm, your doctor will try another tactic. He’ll take a biopsy of testicular tissue, which sometimes has sperm attached.
This is called testicular sperm extraction (TESE) or micro-TESE, if the surgery is carried out with a microscope. TESE is sometimes carried out before the treatment cycle begins, and under local anaesthetic. The retrieved sperm are frozen. Any discomfort felt by your partner should be mild and can be treated with painkillers. After giving you a local anaesthetic, the doctor will remove your eggs using a fine, hollow needle. An ultrasound helps the doctor to locate the eggs. The embryologist then isolates individual sperm in the lab and injects them into your individual eggs. Two days later the fertilised eggs become balls of cells called embryos. The procedure then follows the same steps as in IVF.
The doctor transplants one or two embryos into your uterus and through your cervix using a thin catheter. If you are under 40 you can have one or two embryos transferred. If you are 40 or over you can have a maximum of three embryos transferred if using your own eggs, or two if you’re using donor eggs. Extra embryos, if there are any, may be frozen in case this cycle isn’t successful. Embryos may be transferred two to three days after fertilisation, or five days after fertilisation. Five days after fertilisation the embryo will be at the blastocyst stage. If you’re just having one embryo transferred (called elective single embryo transfer, or eSET), having a blastocyst transfer can improve your chances of a successful, healthy, single baby.