What to Expect During Your IVF Journey: A Step-by-Step Guide

Medically Reviewed by Dr. Silvana Chedid on August 31, 2026

Starting in vitro fertilization brings a mix of hope, curiosity, and questions about exactly what happens next. IVF follows a defined sequence of steps, from initial testing through ovarian stimulation, monitoring, egg retrieval, fertilization, embryo development, transfer, and the wait for a pregnancy test, each with its own appointments, timing, and physical experience. Knowing what happens at each stage, and what your body may feel like along the way, can make the process feel far less unpredictable.

At Chedid Grieco, we have spent 30 years guiding individuals and couples through in vitro fertilization and other reproductive treatments, and our team has helped build nearly 9,000 families along the way. We hold FDA and NY Department of Health (NYDH) licensing, and our practice is one of only eight outside the United States authorized to operate under an NY tissue license. Every treatment plan we build is customized to the person or couple in front of us, never treated as one size fits all.

What Is the IVF Process Like?

In vitro fertilization is the process of combining eggs and sperm outside the body in a laboratory setting, then transferring the resulting embryo into the uterus. According to a national report on assisted reproductive technology use, IVF accounts for the overwhelming majority of ART procedures performed each year. The process is broken into a set sequence of stages, and while the exact timeline shifts based on your body’s response, most patients move through the same general steps.

The guide below walks through each stage of the IVF journey in the order you will experience it, starting with your initial consultation and testing and continuing through your pregnancy test.

Initial Consultation and Diagnostic Testing

Your IVF journey opens with an initial consultation at our office in Miami. Plan for a longer visit than a typical checkup, generally 60 to 90 minutes, since this appointment covers your full health history, any previous fertility treatments, and a conversation about your goals for building your family. You will also meet the coordinator who stays in touch with you throughout your treatment, answering questions between appointments and helping you track next steps.

Diagnostic testing at this stage usually includes bloodwork to check hormone levels, a transvaginal ultrasound to evaluate ovarian reserve, and an assessment of your uterine lining, along with any additional testing your case calls for. Once your results come back, your doctor reviews them with you in detail and builds a treatment plan around what your body actually needs, rather than a standard protocol applied to everyone. This is also the visit where we walk through logistics, since your consultation happens in Miami while your treatment itself takes place at our clinic in Brazil.

Ovarian Stimulation Protocol

Once your protocol is set, you begin ovarian stimulation, a period of self-administered hormone injections designed to encourage your ovaries to develop multiple mature eggs instead of the single egg a typical cycle produces. Most patients inject medication daily for approximately eight to twelve days, and our team walks you through the injection technique, storage, and timing before you start so it feels manageable rather than intimidating. A follow-up video or phone check-in is usually scheduled a day or two after you begin, so any questions about the routine get answered early.

Side effects during this stage, such as bloating, mild soreness at the injection site, or mood shifts tied to hormone changes, are common and expected. Your dosage may be adjusted partway through based on how your body is responding, which is why this stage is paired closely with monitoring rather than treated as a fixed, unchanging schedule. Toward the end of stimulation, you will take a trigger injection on a precisely timed schedule to complete the final maturation of your eggs before retrieval.

Monitoring Appointments

While you are stimulating, you will have monitoring appointments every two to three days, each combining bloodwork with a transvaginal ultrasound to track follicle growth and hormone levels. These appointments determine whether your medication dosage stays the same, increases, or decreases, and they are what your doctor uses to time your egg retrieval precisely.

Because monitoring happens frequently during a short window and retrieval itself takes place at our clinic in Brazil, this is the stage where the structure of consultations in Miami and treatment in Brazil becomes most relevant to your day-to-day planning. If you are still working out how to structure travel around your monitoring and retrieval dates, our overview of what to expect when combining fertility treatment with travel walks through how that timing typically works.

Egg Retrieval

Egg retrieval takes place at our clinic in Brazil once your monitoring shows your follicles have reached the right size. You will receive conscious sedation, so you are comfortable and unaware during the roughly 20 to 30 minute procedure, in which your doctor uses an ultrasound-guided needle to retrieve the eggs from each ovary.

Afterward, you can expect to feel groggy from the sedation and mildly crampy or bloated for a day or two. Most patients rest for the remainder of that day and feel back to their normal routine within 48 hours, though your care team gives you specific guidance based on how your retrieval went.

Fertilization Method: Conventional Insemination vs. ICSI

On the same day as your retrieval, your eggs are combined with sperm in our laboratory using one of two methods. With conventional insemination, eggs and sperm are placed together in a culture dish, allowing fertilization to occur on its own. With intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, our embryologist injects a single sperm directly into each mature egg, a technique used when fertilization is less likely to happen on its own.

Your doctor recommends the method suited to your specific case as part of your treatment plan, so you know in advance which approach your embryologist will use. Either way, fertilization is checked the following day to see how many eggs successfully fertilized.

Embryo Culture and Development

Fertilized eggs, now embryos, spend the next three to six days developing in our laboratory under continuous monitoring. Embryologists track each embryo’s cell division and structure daily, watching for the embryo to progress toward the blastocyst stage, a more developed structure typically reached around day five or six.

Not every fertilized egg continues developing at the same pace, and it is normal for some embryos to stop progressing along the way. Your care team keeps you updated during this window, and by the end of it, you will know how many embryos are available to consider for transfer or for freezing.

Embryo Transfer: Fresh vs. Frozen

Once your embryos have developed, your doctor discusses whether a fresh or frozen blastocyst transfer fits your situation better. A fresh transfer takes place just days after retrieval, while a frozen transfer involves freezing your embryos and transferring one in a later cycle, once your body has had time to recover from stimulation or once additional testing is complete.

The transfer procedure itself is brief and typically painless, performed without sedation using ultrasound guidance to place the embryo into the uterus. Any remaining embryos of good quality can be frozen and stored for future use, giving you options for additional attempts or future family building without repeating retrieval.

The Two-Week Wait

The period between your embryo transfer and your pregnancy test, commonly called the two-week wait, is often the most emotionally demanding part of the process. It is normal to notice mild cramping, light spotting, or bloating during this time, and none of these symptoms reliably indicate whether the cycle has worked.

We encourage patients to keep gentle routines during this stretch rather than overanalyzing every physical sensation, since early pregnancy symptoms and the effects of hormone medication can look very similar. Your care team remains reachable throughout this period if you have questions or concerns.

Pregnancy Test and Next Steps

About two weeks after your transfer, you will have a blood test measuring hCG levels to confirm whether the cycle resulted in a pregnancy. This blood test is more reliable at this stage than an at-home urine test, so we ask patients to wait for the scheduled draw rather than testing early.

If your test is positive, your care team schedules follow-up bloodwork and an early ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy is progressing as expected. If the result is not what you hoped for, your doctor reviews the cycle with you and discusses what the next steps could look like, whether that means a frozen transfer from remaining embryos or adjustments to your protocol for a future cycle.

Your IVF Journey Starts With Chedid Grieco

Dr. Silvana Chedid has spent 30 years in reproductive medicine and introduced ICSI to Brazil, work that has contributed to nearly 9,000 families built through our clinic. We are FDA-licensed and NYDH-licensed, perform approximately 1,200 cycles a year, and remain one of only eight practices outside the United States authorized under an NY tissue license. Our female-led team builds every treatment plan around the person in front of us, and we welcome LGBTQI+ individuals and couples at every stage of care.

Every stage of the process outlined above, from your first consultation to your pregnancy test, is one our team walks through with patients regularly, and we structure the Miami-to-Brazil model so the logistics stay as predictable as the medicine. If you are ready to talk through what your own IVF journey could look like, we are here to answer your questions and help you understand your options. Reach out through our contact form to schedule your Miami consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions About the IVF Journey