Is IVF a Difficult Treatment?

IVF treatment is not a difficult treatment method medically. Patients’ daily work is not disrupted, spouses can continue their lives. The procedures performed in IVF treatment are painless and painless. You can go home after treatment and check-ups without the need for hospitalization. With today’s technology and conditions, the difficulties in the treatment process have been reduced to a minimum, and a painless, painless system has been presented to patients. Therefore, although zero discomfort is not guaranteed, it should be known that it will not affect normal life physically. The only difficulty of IVF treatment may be psychological. As a result, IVF treatment is a very comfortable and painless technique thanks to new medical techniques and developments.

What is IVF Treatment?

IVF treatment is an indispensable treatment for couples who want to have a baby using new medical techniques when pregnancy cannot be achieved through natural means. This treatment aims to achieve this in a laboratory environment when the female reproductive tract, the ovaries, and the male reproductive tract, the sperm, cannot be fertilized through natural means.

In this treatment, the female and male reproductive cells are kept in an environment suitable for body temperature for 2 days. During this period, approximately 50% of the eggs are fertilized. The fertilized eggs are finally placed in the patient’s uterus. After this procedure, pregnancy is observed in half of the women, but some of these pregnancies may be at risk of miscarriage or may miscarry. There is more than one method for this treatment. There are 5 different methods in total. Couples who want to have in vitro fertilization should start the treatment on the 2nd or 3rd day of their menstrual period. First, the ovaries are examined by ultrasound, and if no problems are seen, the estrogen level in the blood is checked. If the treatment is deemed appropriate, one of the appropriate methods is selected according to the patient’s age, cause of infertility, and ovarian level, and the treatment process is started, and hormone therapy is started for the ovaries. While these procedures continue, the patient is subjected to several specific tests at certain intervals.In vitro fertilization methods include:

IVF Stages

Egg Development

• During this process, the effects of hormone drugs given to the egg are observed and the dosage of the drug can be increased or decreased accordingly.
• The growth of the follicles and the determination of estrogen levels are the greatest source of information for the egg cracking and collection period.
• This process takes between 10 and 15 days
• The egg collection process is applied to our patient 36 hours after the cracking needle.

Egg Collection Procedure

• In order for this procedure not to be painful, the procedure is performed under anesthesia.
• It is performed with transvaginal ultrasonography.
• In this procedure, the fluids in the ovaries are collected and it is checked whether eggs have formed inside. If eggs have formed, they are removed. If egg formation is not observed, it is attempted to reach eggs that may have remained in the follicle with the help of fluid.
• Egg collection procedure takes approximately half an hour.
• After the procedure, the patient is kept under control for 1 hour and can return to their daily life and home.
• The next procedure is the fertilization procedure and the mature eggs taken from the follicles are selected and fertilized.

Fertilization Process

• After the mature eggs are selected, fertilization is performed outside the body, in a laboratory environment, with sperm taken from the prospective father on the day of egg collection.
• This process can be done with a classical method such as leaving the sperm and egg alone, or another method to increase the chance of fertilization, microinjection, can be applied.
• The fertilized eggs are observed in a special culture environment and when they become suitable, the best quality is selected and transferred to the uterus.

Embryo transfer

• It is a painless procedure.
• Beforehand, the cervix is cleaned with special fluids and after the transfer, the patient can leave the hospital. Then, the waiting period is passed.
• A pregnancy test is applied to the patient 2 weeks after the transfer.

After embryo transfer

The process from embryo transfer to pregnancy test can be a bit painful from a psychological perspective. Because our patient will be constantly worried about whether she is pregnant or not. Our advice to you is to stay calm during these 2 weeks and prepare yourself for any situation that may be good or bad. As with any treatment, it is possible to get positive or negative results in IVF treatment. However, there is one thing that should be known and researched that IVF treatment gives the best result in the 2nd or 3rd attempt.

In this process, exposing yourself to intense stress can cause you to get unwanted results and can also trigger different diseases.

Take up new hobbies and act calm. Focusing your attention on a different area will be beneficial for you. *Don’t let the test result discourage you. Don’t give up trying. The patient and her spouse who learn that they are not pregnant as a result of the test may become hopeless and think that they will not be able to have a child, and couples who experience financial loss during the IVF treatment enter a more difficult phase than the waiting period and therefore immediately go to their doctors with the question of why the IVF treatment was unsuccessful.

Things to Know Before Starting Treatment

The most important thing to do before starting treatment is to tell the family about the success rate and failure rate.

Families should know that if the first attempt is unsuccessful, a second attempt can be made and thus positive responses can be obtained.

IVF is not a difficult treatment; the psychological state of the patients constitutes the main difficulty.

The psychological conditions of the patients in IVF treatment affect them much more. The real difficulty of the treatment lies here. Under normal conditions, every couple who starts the treatment knows that there is never 100% success. Despite this, the couple can condition themselves for success and in this case, they may experience disappointment. Getting pregnant or not getting pregnant after treatment are both very normal results. Patients should not drive themselves to despair. For most patients, not getting pregnant is a more likely outcome. Considering all these negativities, it should be known that IVF treatment is actually only a trial method. Instead of falling into despair after unsuccessful attempts, it is necessary to be a little more hopeful for new attempts.

There is a certain age and duration for a woman to remain fertile, and any attempts that can be made at a young age should be made to the end, as the efforts made to become a mother at an age when she has lost her fertility can be even more upsetting.

Why was my IVF treatment not successful?

This question generally comes up as, “Why were we unsuccessful despite the transfer of high-quality embryos?” This question is one of the topics that has been researched since the beginning of the treatment. Currently, all technological research in the treatment is based on, “How can we determine the best embryo?” Research and new technologies are in front of us with all their possibilities in this regard. Today, embryo selections are generally decided by looking at their appearance. Embryos that we think are in really good condition can be good at most 70% and faulty in the rest, so the body does not allow pregnancy with the embryo it finds incomplete. This is the reason why pregnancy does not occur naturally whenever we want. Our body has a much finer analysis ability than us, so we may have chosen embryos that have a margin of error no matter how sufficient we think they are. Of course, there are reasons other than embryos for IVF treatment to have negative results: In cases such as the patient’s uterine lining not being sufficient for the baby to hold on, the embryo may prevent pregnancy despite being good.

As a result of all this, if pregnancy is still not present after 3 attempts, the problem should be thoroughly investigated with some special tests. As a result, IVF treatment is a painless and comfortable technique thanks to new medical techniques. As we have stated, what makes the treatment difficult is the unprepared psychology and traumas. We recommend that you get through this process with your loved ones and without despair.