Therapy Start
Embarking on Fertility Treatment
"I don't feel like a real woman, because I can't have children."
Against the background of their involuntary childlessness, women and their partners talk about such concerns and many other thoughts and feelings. In most cases, they have been struggling in vain for quite some time to overcome their infertility issues. According to statistics, one in five couples is faced with such or similar problems. What can be done about it?
In order to finally realize their dream of having a child, many couples seek medical assistance and therefore turn to an IVF center. In the majority of cases, the cause of infertility can be reliably identified through targeted investigations and overcome by using various possibilities available in the field of assisted reproduction.
Your journey towards the long-awaited baby
Backed by our expertise and longstanding experience, we are committed to helping infertile couples realize their dream of having a healthy child - and this if possible as early as in the "first therapy cycle". This requires the creation of optimum conditions in order to succeed at the first attempt.
Our experience gained over the last 30 years allows us to precisely know how to work out a therapy regimen, what exactly is necessary to make it successful and what methods should be applied so that all couples can benefit from improved chances of getting pregnant.
The sequence of a treatment is depicted below and is to serve as an initial orientation for interested parties. In a personal discussion, your attending physician will inform you in detail about what to expect from IVF treatment that is exactly tailored to your own particular situation.
Infertility
The precise causes of infertility in women/men need to be explored by our specialists. Subsequently, they can determine the appropriate treatment for each couple.
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The single steps involved in IVF treatment
1. Desire to have children
We offer couples, who have been trying to conceive for a long time but have so far failed to achieve a pregnancy, the possibility to get informed for free and without commitment, on the available options for treating infertility - via information evenings that are held at regular intervals or during a telephone conversation.
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2. Arranging an appointment
Once the decision is made to undergo fertility treatment at our IVF center, an appointment for the initial consultation will be arranged. In order to prepare for this medical consultation, each couple receives an information pack with helpful documents, such as a checklist on the required medical results.
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3. Initial consultation
This individual medical consultation includes comprehensive advice as well as the analysis of the medical findings. This is geared towards tailoring the treatment exactly to the couple's individual needs in order to increase their chances of success. The attending physician will also discuss with you the legal framework, the costs and potential risks associated with the treatment. If desired, the couple can also have the first preliminary examinations (ultrasound, measuring the uterine cavity length) carried out on this date.
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4. Stimulation phase
Treatment usually starts with the stimulation phase. This means that the woman undergoes a tailored hormone therapy to stimulate her ovaries to produce multiple follicles, each of them containing an oocyte. A customized therapy plan will help her to carefully follow the given instructions and time schedule. The number and growth of the follicles are monitored and evaluated at regular intervals by ultrasound.
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5. Egg Collection
The removal of the eggs from the woman's ovaries is a minor procedure performed under short anesthesia on an outpatient basis at our IVF center. 3D ultrasound is used to visualize the follicles. The eggs contained therein are retrieved from the follicles via the transvaginal approach. At around the same time, the husband/partner is required to produce a semen sample.
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6. Fertilization of the ova in the laboratory
Directly following the retrieval, we thoroughly assess both egg and sperm quality (e.g. degree of maturity, morphology). Subsequently, the mature egg cells are fertilized by selected spermatozoa in the laboratory (IVF/ICSI/IMSI). They are then transferred into a special culture medium and placed in an incubator in order to grow into embryos.
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7. Embryo Transfer (max. 2)
State-of-the-art laboratory technology enables a precise monitoring and evaluation of embryonic development. Once the embryos have reached a certain stage of development (blastocyst = embryo capable of implanting), one to a maximum of two embryos are selected and loaded into a thin catheter, in order subsequently to be gently placed into the woman's uterine cavity (embryo transfer). In an ideal scenario, embryo transfer is carried out on the fifth day following fertilization which, after "natural" conception, corresponds to the time when an embryo has travelled via the fallopian tube to the womb in order to attach to the uterine wall.
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8. Pregnancy
2 weeks after the transfer, the couple can take a pregnancy test (where appropriate, continue taking the medication) to find out whether embryo implantation has occurred. There is no way to actively encourage or even force implantation to happen. You can only try to avoid disturbing this process by adopting a healthy lifestyle (reduce stress, do not smoke and do not consume alcohol etc.). We hope that everything will work out fine and we wish with all our hearts that you will achieve a successful pregnancy.
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9. Birth
Each time parents get in touch with us to notify us of the birth of their children, we are overjoyed at the thought of having this wonderful task.
"Our shared success is the birth of your child!"