Conventional IVF (in-vitro fertilization) with donor sperm involves the incubation of mature oocytes and sperm cells, in this case coming from a donor, in a laboratory dish in order to allow fertilization to take place.

Because the success rate of an IVF procedure is dependent on the number of mature egg cells available, most female patient undergo hormonal stimulation (Controlled Ovarian Hyperstimulation (COH) – (1)) in order to

produce an optimal number of mature oocytes.

When donor sperm is used, the sperm sample has to be thawed (defrosted) on the day of the egg retrieval procedure (Egg Retrieval– (2)). Only frozen quarantined donor sperm is used at New Life Specialized Medical Center of Gynecology in order to insure that all the required tests have been passed by the donor before any of his semen samples are used. These tests provide evidence that the donor is free of any infectious diseases.

Once the egg cells are isolated and the semen sample is thawed, they are both transferred into a special type of Petri dish, to allow in vitro fertilization – IVF (In-vitro Fertilization – (3)). The fertilized oocytes (embryos) are grown in carefully controlled laboratory conditions until they are ready to be transferred into the female patient’s uterus (Embryo Transfer – (4)). During their development in the laboratory (day 2 – day 6), the embryos are monitored and their development is evaluated daily in order to select the highest quality embryos for transfer. All remaining viableembryoscan be frozen for later use.