Fertility Treatment Progression

With so many options available today for assisted reproduction, it might be intimidating to consider what your journey could look like. The truth is that every experience at Boston IVF is entirely unique. After learning about your personal circumstances in detail, your care team will develop a methodical approach to treatment that will progress gradually, as needed.

How does treatment for infertility typically progress?

Your clinical team is motivated to help you or your partner get pregnant with as little intervention as possible, escalating treatment only as needed. Extensive testing provides the information needed to determine where you start your journey. 

If testing indicates that your infertility is caused by an issue that requires gynecological surgery, this may be all the treatment you need or a necessary precursor to fertility treatments. You should know that many gynecological surgeries are performed laparoscopically with a very quick recovery time of just a couple of days.

Here is a typical treatment progression for infertility, but not all patients will need all steps. 

• Testing 
• Medication and optimizing natural fertility through non-medical lifestyle changes including exercise, diet, and smoking cessation
• Gynecological Surgery (if needed) 
• Ovulation Induction + Timed Intercourse
• Ovulation Induction + Intrauterine Insemination 
• In Vitro Fertilization

What factors influence treatment progression?

Their decision-making is influenced by other factors as well:

Urgency:

The sense that you need to get pregnant right away, or that you have more time available, will influence the rate that your treatment progresses, or the treatment that your clinical team decides to start you with. Many people who arrive at Boston IVF have already been trying for a while, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to urgently leaping right into IVF.

Clinical Factors:

Your testing as well as your partner’s (if you have one) will provide a lot of information to your care team regarding how you might respond to certain treatments. This will heavily guide their recommendations.

Your Wishes:

You may have ideas about what you are or are not willing to do in terms of treatments. You also could have timing considerations of your own that you want to work around. Your wishes may fluctuate as you are in the process. Your care team will take all of this into account when planning the path forward.

Insurance:

For an infertility diagnosis, some insurance providers require that you exhaust certain, less-invasive treatment options including ovulation induction and/or IUI, before moving on to IVF. 

Treatment Response:

As you are going through treatment, the way you are responding will help determine what to do next if a cycle is not successful. Perhaps your doctor will just make a few tweaks to the medications; perhaps they’ll want to totally change up the approach. They’ll always be monitoring your response closely to decide your next moves.