How long is the IVF process?

If you’re considering IVF, you’ll naturally be curious about what to expect. How life might look over the next few months, what you may need to plan for, and if all goes well, when is the soonest you might be pregnant?  

An IVF cycle takes six to eight weeks on average, but there are lots of factors at play. Our fertility experts are here to offer a helpful and realistic overview of the process and what can affect how long each stage takes.   

Fertility assessment and initial consultation 

If you’re planning to have IVF at a private clinic like TFP Fertility, there are two routes to get started.  
 
You might have already seen a fertility doctor within the NHS, who can then refer to you a clinic for treatment as a private patient or an NHS patient.  

Alternatively, you can self-refer. The first step is to have a fertility assessment, where a specialist doctor carries out blood tests and scans to measure your ovarian reserve.  

If you’re planning to conceive using sperm from a partner or co-parent, they may need to do a sperm analysis.  

At your first consultation, your consultant will discuss your results with you and together you can decide on the right treatment plan for you, which may be IVF.  

When putting together your IVF treatment plan, there are other factors to consider that could affect the overall timeline. We’ll support you to fully explore all your options and what they mean for your treatment.  

These include: 

• Whether you’re planning to use your eggs in a treatment straight away or freeze them for future treatment  

• Whether you’ll use an egg donor or sperm donor 

• Whether you and your partner or co-parent wish to do carrier screening, which checks if you carry genes for conditions like cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease 

• Whether you want to screen your embryos for these genes or other chromosomal abnormalities, which is called preimplantation genetic testing (PGT)  

• If you’re recommended to have any vaccines first to minimise the risk of miscarriage during pregnancy, such as chicken pox or rubella  

• Having your finances ready if you’re paying for treatment yourself  

Before you start IVF, you’ll visit your clinic again for a consent appointment and meet with a specialist fertility counsellor to help with the emotional toll of fertility treatment.  

Egg retrieval

Throughout ovarian stimulation, you’ll visit the clinic several times for scans to see if your eggs are ready for retrieval, and to check how you’re responding to your stimulation medicines.  

At TFP Fertility, we may be able to offer these monitoring scans at a satellite clinic closer to home, so that you don’t need to travel so far for every appointment.  

When your scan shows that your eggs are ready to be retrieved, you’ll administer the trigger injection at home. This contains human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), which encourages the eggs to mature.  

Approximately 36 hours later, you’ll visit the clinic for your egg retrieval appointment. The procedure takes around 15 to 20 minutes, though you’ll be at the clinic for a few hours while you prepare and recover from the procedure. You’ll need a friend or family member to accompany you to the clinic to help escort you home.  

Learn more about IVF and the retrieval procedure.  

Embryo transfer

If your embryos develop into healthy blastocysts, the next step is embryo transfer.  

The timing of your transfer depends on whether you’re having a fresh transfer or if your embryos need to be frozen first, for example, if you’re having preimplantation genetic testing (PGT).  

A fresh embryo transfer is carried out when the blastocysts are ready on day five or six. You’ll visit your clinic for the procedure, which is simpler than egg retrieval.  

If you’re having a frozen transfer, you’ll need to wait for the results and prepare your womb lining again for implantation. This can take at least six weeks and you can choose to delay it further if needed.  

In some cases, a fresh embryo transfer might not be possible if you were overstimulated during ovarian stimulation. Although your consultant carefully monitors your dose and your reaction, some people respond strongly to the injections.  

You’ll need some time to recover, so your embryo transfer may be delayed slightly. This can be frustrating, but by letting your womb recover before the transfer, your fertility specialist aims to give you the highest possible chances of success.