With the increase of infertility patients and the growing maturity of IVF technology, IVF is being chosen by more and more infertility patients. However, many people are not clear about what IVF is and how the treatment process works. In general, IVF involves removing several eggs from the ovaries, combining them with the male partner’s sperm in a laboratory to form an embryo, and then transferring the embryo to the uterus where it will implant in the mother’s uterus and become pregnant. “The following are the main stages of the IVF treatment process: 1. Enter the cycle. The first step is to officially enter the IVF treatment cycle. Most of the cycles are performed on the second day of the woman’s menstrual cycle to check the woman’s basal endocrine and sinus follicles to select the appropriate ovulation protocol. 2. Ovulation promotion. Ovulation promotion is the most crucial step after entering the IVF cycle. The doctor selects the ovulation protocol based on the woman’s basal endocrine and sinus follicles, and adjusts the dosage of medication according to the ultrasound monitoring of follicle development and endocrine situation to obtain multiple healthy mature eggs. 3. Egg retrieval. The eggs are retrieved 34-36 hours after the night injection. The egg retrieval needle is guided by vaginal ultrasound through the vaginal vault and directly to the ovaries to aspirate the eggs. The egg retrieval takes less than half an hour. 4. Sperm retrieval. The male partner should abstain from sex for three days, but no more than seven days, before the sperm retrieval, using masturbation. The male partner will collect the sperm on the day of the female partner’s egg retrieval. After the sperm retrieval, the semen will be sent to the laboratory for sperm separation. 5. Sperm-egg union and formation of embryo. After egg retrieval, the treated sperm and eggs are placed in the same Petri dish and co-cultured for 18 hours, and then fertilization can be observed under a microscope. If the sperm quality is too poor to allow natural fertilization, fertilization can be forced by single sperm microinjection (second generation test tube). The fertilized egg can develop to an 8-16 cell stage embryo in 48-72 hours of in vitro culture. At this time, the number of embryos to be transferred will be decided based on the patient’s age, previous pregnancy and the quality of the embryos, and the excess embryos can be frozen and preserved. 6. Embryo transfer. Embryo transfer is performed by using a very thin embryo transfer tube to draw the embryos into the tube and then placing them on the endometrium through the uterine opening. The embryo transfer procedure is similar to a general gynecological examination and does not cause pain or discomfort during the placement of the embryo in the uterus. 7. The results are usually determined on the 14th day after the transfer by an HCG blood test. This is the process of one cycle of IVF, do you understand it all?