Checking For Pregnancy After Your IVF Procedure

So you and your husband have tried every suggestion from your friends and the Internet on how to get pregnant naturally, from practicing a healthy lifestyle to Eastern medical practices. It might be time to put aside your aversion to artificial methods and resort to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in order to conceive. ART refers to methods used to conceive through artificial or partially artificial means, primarily by surgically removing eggs from a woman’s uterus and mixing them with sperm in vitro (in the laboratory).

The most popular ART is in-vitro fertilization or IVF. In IVF eggs and sperm are united in the lab and then implanted in the woman’s uterus. There are a number of reasons why couples may resort to IVF, including damaged fallopian tubes, low sperm count, ovarian problems and abnormal uterus shape.

Women undergoing IVF first have to take medications that induce ovulation, to trigger the ovaries to produce several mature eggs. The eggs are then harvested and mixed with sperm to produce a zygote (fertilized egg). After the harvesting process the woman may experience pain in the abdomen or pelvis, and may suffer some nausea or vomiting a day after the procedure.

The zygote will be cultured until it becomes an embryo; the embryo will then be cultured for two to five days. It is then transferred to the uterus in the hope that the woman will become pregnant. If there are left over viable embryos after the transfer, they are cryogenically preserved for later use.

Twelve to fourteen days after IVF the couple should return to the clinic for a pregnancy test. The test checks the woman’s blood for increasing levels of the pregnancy hormone Beta HCG.

If the IVF procedure is successful and the pregnancy test is positive, then the woman is asked to take the test again at two to five day intervals to check for rising levels of HCG. HCG levels which do not rise as quickly as they are supposed to might indicate there is a problem with the pregnancy, such as ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy that happens outside of the womb).

After the pregnancy has been confirmed, an ultrasound test will be performed five weeks after the embryo implantation to check if the pregnancy is normal and to see if there is more than one embryo.

One word of caution for women who have undergone IVF: they may experience some vaginal spotting or bleeding after the procedure. This is normal and not an indication that they are having their period or that embryo implantation has not been successful. They still have to return to the IVF clinic for a pregnancy test to confirm if they are conceiving.

If a couple is hesitant about IVF, there are other ART procedures they can consider: GIFT (Gamete Interfallopian Transfer), ZIFT (Zygote Interfallopian Transfer) and TET (Tubal Embryo Transfer). In GIFT, fertilization of the egg happens inside the fallopian tubes, while in ZIFT, the egg is fertilized in vitro and implanted in the fallopian tubes. TET is similar to ZIFT except that the egg is transplanted at a later stage of development. GIFT is particularly popular with many infertile women since it is seen as the ART most similar to natural conception.

Eddy Kong and his wife, Esther are victims of infertility. Over the last 5 years, they gather enough research and personal experiences to publish a book, “How To Increase Your Odds Of Conceiving”. They have 2 kids and 1 more coming up. They lives in Singapore city and spends their time teaching others how to get pregnant naturally and getting their infertility treated. Their latest book, “How To Increase Your Odds Of Conceiving Secrets” is available at http://www.17mininfertilitysecrets.com/tips/index.html