Word: egges
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Essential to in-vitro fertilization, of course, is retrieval of the one egg normally produced in the ovaries each month. Today in-vitro clinics help nature along by administering such drugs as Clomid and Pergonal, which can result in the development of more than one egg at a time. By using hormonal stimulants, Howard Jones "harvests" an average of 5.8 eggs per patient; it is possible to obtain as many as 17. "I felt like a pumpkin ready to burst," recalls Loretto Leyland, 33, of Melbourne, who produced eleven eggs at an Australian clinic, one of which became her daughter...
When blood tests and ultrasound monitoring indicate that the ova are ripe, the eggs are extracted in a delicate operation performed under general anesthesia. The surgeons first insert a laparoscope, which is about ? in. in diameter, so that they can see the target: the small, bluish pocket, or follicle, inside the ovary, where each egg is produced. Then, a long, hollow needle is inserted through a second incision, and the eggs and the surrounding fluid are gently suctioned up. Some clinics are beginning to use ultrasound imaging instead of a laparoscope to guide the needle into the follicles. This...
Once extracted, the follicular fluid is rushed to an adjoining laboratory and examined under a microscope to confirm that it contains an egg (the ovum measures only four-thousandths of an inch across). The ova are carefully washed, placed in petri dishes containing a solution of nutrients and then deposited in an incubator for four to eight hours. The husband, meanwhile, has produced a sperm sample. It is hardly a romantic moment, recalls Cleveland Businessman Popela, who made four trips to Cambridgeshire with his wife, each time without success. "You have to take the jar and walk past a group...
Second and third attempts will become easier and less costly with the wider use of cryopreservation, a process in which unused embryos are frozen in liquid nitrogen. The embryos can be thawed and then transferred to the woman's uterus, eliminating the need to repeat egg retrieval and fertilization. Some 30% to 50% of embryos do not survive the deep freeze. Those that do may actually have a better chance of successful implantation than do newly fertilized embryos. This is because the recipient has not been given hormones to stimulate ovulation, a treatment that may actually interfere with implantation...
Richard and Diana Barger of Virginia could be a textbook case of an infertile couple. Diana's fallopian tubes and left ovary are blocked with scar tissue, ironically the result of an intrauterine device (I.U.D.) she used for three years. Even if an egg did manage to become fertilized, the embryo might be rejected by her uterus, which has been deformed since birth. Richard has his own difficulties: his sperm count is 6.7 million per milliliter, considerably below the number ordinarily required for fertilization under normal conditions. Says Diana: "I never thought getting pregnant would be so difficult...