If you're considering IVF, you'll naturally be curious about what to expect. How life might look over the next few months, what you may need to plan for, and if all goes well, when is the soonest you might be pregnant?
An IVF cycle takes six to eight weeks on average, but there are lots of factors at play. Our fertility experts are here to offer a helpful and realistic overview of the process and what can affect how long each stage takes.
Roughly how long each stage takes. Timings are typical and can vary.
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Fertility assessment, consultation and planning | Up to 2 weeks |
| Preparing for IVF (if suppression is needed) | Up to 2 weeks |
| Ovarian stimulation (at-home injections) | About 2 weeks |
| Egg retrieval and fertilisation | 1 day |
| Embryo development | 5 to 6 days |
| Embryo transfer | Fresh: when ready. Frozen: at least 6 weeks later |
| Two-week wait | 2 weeks |
IVF is a common fertility treatment that helps people conceive when they have challenges conceiving naturally. It involves several stages, set out below with rough timings.
Each stage of an IVF cycle, with roughly how long it takes.
There are two ways to start: an NHS fertility doctor can refer you to a clinic (as an NHS or private patient), or you can self-refer. The first step is a fertility assessment, with blood tests and scans to measure your ovarian reserve, plus a sperm analysis if you're using a partner's or co-parent's sperm. At your consultation you discuss the results and agree your plan.
A few choices can affect the timeline:
Before starting, you'll return for a consent appointment and meet a fertility counsellor.
The most hands-on stage: at-home injections stimulate egg production, with regular clinic scans to track your progress.
You may start stimulation straight away, which makes the cycle shorter, or take an extra two-week step first to suppress your natural cycle, which aims to get more follicles ready so more eggs can be retrieved.
During stimulation you attend several monitoring scans, which may be available at a satellite clinic closer to home. When your eggs are ready, you take a trigger injection (hCG) at home to mature them.
About 36 hours later you attend for retrieval, a 15 to 20 minute procedure. Expect a few hours at the clinic to prepare and recover, and arrange for someone to take you home.
Your eggs are fertilised in the lab on the day of retrieval, using partner, co-parent or donor sperm. This can be done passively (eggs and sperm mixed to fertilise naturally) or, where there are male fertility factors, with ICSI (a single sperm injected into each egg).
The fertilised eggs then develop for five to six days into blastocysts, which gives higher success rates.
If healthy blastocysts develop, the next step is transfer, and the timing depends on whether it's fresh or frozen. A fresh transfer is usually on day five or six and is simpler than egg retrieval.
A frozen transfer, for example with PGT, means waiting for results and preparing the womb lining again, which takes at least six weeks and can be delayed further if needed. A fresh transfer may also not be possible if you were overstimulated; letting your body recover first improves your chances.
After transfer, a pregnancy test is only reliable after two weeks, and many people find this the trickiest stage.
It's a good time for self-care and support, and we're only a phone call away. At the two-week mark you take the test, and we'll support you with the result and your next steps.
Ready to consider treatment? Learn about IVF or speak to our team.
Speak to our patient support team for advice about your options and to book your first consultation with a fertility expert.
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