In traditional IVF, a person’s ovaries are stimulated with hormone medication to produce multiple eggs, which are extracted in a procedure called an ‘rgg retrieval’ or ‘egg collection’. In the lab, the eggs are then inserted or combined with sperm to fertilize them and create one or more embryos. After these embryos develop for three to five days, an ‘egg transfer’ is arranged. You can choose if one or two embryos are transferred back into the uterus of the person carrying the baby. Most UK clinics medically advise on one embryo being transferred; however it is your choice you can transfer two. They tend to prefer transferring two if you are over the age of forty, or have fertility issues. In Europe & Asia however, you can choose to transfer up to three embryos. After the ‘egg transfer’ it is again a two week wait until test day to take a pregnancy test, but many clinics say to test around day 10 onwards.

With Reciprocal IVF the eggs are retrieved from one person & will be cultivated in the lab & then transferred to another. This is a treatment whereby one is the ‘biological provider’ of the embryo & the other the ‘gestational carrier’. This means that both mothers or parents can be involved in the creation of the child.