IVF is the most effective treatment for women with absent, blocked or damaged fallopian tubes and it is used to treat other causes of infertility too. The process involves collecting eggs from the woman’s ovaries, fertilizing them with the partner or donor’s sperm and transferring the embryos back into the uterus five days later (at the blastocyst stage of development). At our clinic egg collection is performed under mild sedation. The eggs are collected using a minor vaginal procedure performed under ultrasound guidance where a special needle is directed alongside the ultrasound probe, through the vaginal wall and into the follicles growing in the ovary. The fluid in each of the follicles that usually contains an egg is then aspirated into a test tube for the embryologist to assess. It is difficult to predict the number of eggs available from the ultrasound scan picture. We therefore frequently collect fewer eggs and occasionally more eggs than we had anticipated. During the embryo transfer we will show you your embryos via a camera we have located under the microscope and the embryos are then placed through the cervix into the uterus using a small, soft catheter and the procedure is painless (similar to a smear test) and requires no anaesthetic. We encourage partners to attend the transfer.