IVF involves taking eggs from the woman, fertilizing them in the laboratory with her partner's sperm and transferring the resulting embryos back to her uterus 2-6 (usually 3 or 5) days later.

Though this is a simple explanation of IVF-ET, the procedure is a very complex one involving five steps;

1. stimulation of the woman's ovary with hormone injections to produce more eggs
2. removing the eggs from the body (egg collection procedure)
3. obtaining the partner's semen(sperm)
4. fertilization of the eggs in the laboratory
5. placing the embryos in the uterus (embryo transfer procedure)
6. using further medications to strengthen the uterus (womb) until the day of the pregnancy test.

If there are extra embryos left after the embryo transfer procedure, they are frozen and used at a later stage to attempt pregnancy again.

Since the first IVF-ET carried out in 1978 over a million babies have been born using this method. It is an effective treatment for almost all causes of infertility.