What happens in the Fertility Lab?
In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is made up of four main components: · Ovarian stimulation · Egg retrieval · Embryo transfer · Embryo freezing. Understanding each of these components is important, but between egg retrieval and embryo transfer lies a crucial step that patients cannot directly observe, the embryology lab. Important decisions about your eggs and embryos are made in the lab. Not knowing what takes place there can make it seem like a black box. After egg retrieval, the embryologist identifies the eggs from the surrounding follicular fluid and places them inside a labelled holding dish. The embryologist then moves the eggs into individual wells within a drop dish and looks under a microscope to examine the maturity of the eggs. There are three stages of egg maturity - g...