In vitro fertilization is a process that consists of several steps. 

• Ovulation induction: Special medicine is prescribed to help a woman’s ovaries produce many eggs, which will help increase the chances of pregnancy. 

• Egg retrieval: Once the eggs are mature, they are harvested by inserting a needle into the ovarian follicle. 

• Fertilization: The eggs are combined with sperm in the laboratory setting in a glass petri dish. 

• Embryo development: The fertilized eggs are now considered embryos and are carefully monitored during the incubation process. 

• Embryo transfer: The healthiest embryos will be transferred to the uterus for implantation. 

If an individual or couple has been trying to achieve pregnancy for over one year, a consultation with our specialists might be appropriate. Women with blocked or no fallopian tubes, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome and other tubal issues often turn to IVF for help in overcoming their infertility. 

IVF is not for everyone. As a woman approaches her 40s, egg production slows down. Using donor eggs, even a woman who does not produce her own eggs can benefit from IVF.

At U-M Health, we believe everyone deserves access to compassionate, high-quality fertility care. We work with many insurance plans and are committed to helping you understand your coverage and financial options. 

The encouraging news is that many individuals and couples have insurance coverage for their initial consultation and diagnostic testing, and some plans also include benefits for fertility treatments such as intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilization (IVF). If your plan does not include fertility treatment coverage, we offer a 60% self-pay discount (excluding medications and third-party services), along with payment plan options designed to help make care more accessible.

Once your provider and you have created a treatment plan specific to your care, estimates can be provided. As part of the process, our financial counselor will also request any prior authorizations required by your insurance plan. Please note that prior authorization is not a guarantee of coverage or payment; the terms of your specific insurance plan ultimately determine available benefits. 

Depending on several factors, from the time that you and your physician decide that IVF is the treatment plan for you, to the time of your pregnancy test can be as short as 6 weeks, but it would be more common for that time to be between 10 and 14 weeks. We will work with you to help you understand what tests and evaluations need to be performed, in what order.

Pregnancy rates for IVF vary by age, but even in patients with the highest potential for a pregnancy after an IVF cycle, there are sometimes negative results. At your consultation, we will review your prior IVF cycles with you and review your goals and expectations for a possible repeat cycle. Our team will discuss your history at our weekly patient review conference, where our team of physicians, nurses, and laboratory staff will determine whether we can improve upon your stimulation protocol, or whether the chances of a successful cycle remain low. For most patients, we will determine that there is a protocol we can try to give a good chance of pregnancy. For some patients, we will instead recommend consideration of IVF with donor eggs or adoption.

Our care team approaches each patient as an individual. We use many pieces of information to plan an IVF treatment cycle and estimate rates of success, but only under rare circumstances would we be able to offer IVF after the 43rd birthday with a woman’s own eggs. Success rates do vary by age, but our team's goal is to offer the technology of IVF to every patient with a reasonable chance of pregnancy. More detailed information can be reviewed with your care team at the time of your consultation. 

The process of IVF involves pre-testing (blood tests and procedures), medication administration to stimulate the ovaries (daily to twice-daily injections), monitoring (via ultrasound and blood tests), egg retrieval, embryo transfer, and medication to support a possible pregnancy (daily medications - usually injections). 

As with any medical treatment, there may be side effects, including hot flashes, pain at the injection site or, in rare cases, ovarian hyperstimulation. From the beginning to the end of the process, your care team will be monitoring you and addressing any concerns. They will adjust your treatment to keep your chances of success high and side effects low.

The Center for Reproductive Medicine has a very successful IVF laboratory with pregnancy rates, per embryo transfer, exceeding national rates. For information about our success rates, please visit our SART Clinical Summary Report. 

Assisted reproductive technology, or ART, includes advanced fertility treatments such as IVF. These treatments involve specialized laboratory techniques to support the best possible outcomes.

U‑M Health has been a leader in ART for decades, founding its ART laboratory in 1984. Our team helped pioneer technologies and laboratory methods that are now used worldwide, bringing deep experience, innovation and careful attention to every step of your care. This history means your treatment is guided by knowledge gained from years of advancing fertility medicine.

Our laboratories meet the highest national standards and are fully certified and inspected by CLIA, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the FDA. We are a proud member of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) and follow evidence-based guidelines established by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).

This long‑standing commitment to innovation, safety, and excellence means you can feel confident knowing your care is guided by leaders in the field—focused on supporting you, your goals and your growing family.

Andrology Laboratory 

• Complete semen analysis 

• Antisperm antibody testing 

• Retrograde semen analysis 

• Sperm cryopreservation 

• Fertility preservation for cancer patients 

• IUI sperm preparation 

• Donor sperm insemination 

• Testicular sperm extraction (TESE) 

• MicroTESE 

IVF Laboratory 

• Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) 

• PICSI 

• Laser-assisted hatching 

• Low oxygen blastocyst culture 

• Frozen blastocyst transfer 

• Ultrasound-guided embryo transfer 

• Biopsy for preimplantation genetic screening or diagnosis (PGS/PGD) 

• Blastocyst vitrification 

• Oocyte vitrification 

• Fertility preservation (Fertile Hope participant) 

• Donor eggs 

• Elective single embryo transfer