What is IVF?

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]IVF is in vitro fertilization. It's a kind of assisted reproductive technology, ART. It's not the only form of ART. There's also intrauterine insemination, which is commonly referred to as the turkey baster method, and there's timed intercourse. But IVF is really the most invasive and the most expensive option. It's usually something people climb up to. They kind of go through the other stuff, the less invasive stuff, the less expensive stuff first and end up with IVF. Or sometimes their diagnosis or their particular situation will warrant going to it directly. Sometimes people call it a miracle. I think it's just meticulously executed science. It's quite an invasive procedure, though. Patients are pumped full of hormones so that they can produce a crop of eggs rather than the usual just one. And then those eggs are mixed with a sperm sample and the lab and the lab has to be under very strict conditions of the temperature, the oxygen level, the nutrients. Then you got to throw a whole bunch of luck in there, too. And hopefully fertilization occurs and then if that fertilized egg can turn into an embryo and that embryo can make it to three, four, five days, then that embryo can be transferred into the uterus and fingers crossed it'll snuggle up into the endometrial lining and nine months later become a baby. But it's a very involved process.