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Ideally, the doctor will want you to produce several eggs in a single cycle. The techniques used vary a little between clinics and specialists but, in general terms, the overall process remains the same.

First, your menstrual cycle is suppressed so that the doctors have greater control when it comes to stimulating the production of eggs. The usual way of suppressing your cycle is with either a long-acting injection given once per month or a nasal spray taken daily. These are usually started before a specific fertility treatment cycle.

The hormones that are injected are called gonadotrophins and they stimulate the body to trigger egg production. They are injected either into a muscle or under the skin depending on the preparation used. Many women, after being shown how to do this, are comfortable injecting themselves at home, so avoiding the need to attend clinics for injections.

The response of the ovaries to this stimulation is checked by ultrasound. The frequency of checks will depend partly on your response to treatment, but will usually occur around two to four times. (Some checks involve measuring hormone levels in the blood.) An ultrasound probe is inserted into the vagina and the doctor is then able to see each ovary and the eggs developing within.

Once the eggs have reached maturity after ten to twelve days, a further injection is used to finalize the maturation of the eggs. This injection must be given about 36 hours before the eggs are collected and so timing is critical. This form of ovulation induction often stimulates the production of several eggs, which can be very useful as, after fertilization, there may be several embryos resulting from one cycle of treatment. Any embryos not used in this ‘fresh’ cycle of IVF can be stored and used over several subsequent cycles without the need to go through ovulation induction again.