Esther Marbán, a gynaecologist specialising in fertility at the Tambre clinic in Madrid, tells us if there is any difference in the performance of the techniques in single motherhood:
Of course, everything will depend on the technique the patient is using. So, if we are talking about intrauterine insemination, we just need to give a small amount of medication normally to make one follicle or even two follicles grow in the patient's ovaries. Then, when the follicles are ready to ovulate, we prepare the sperm sample at the laboratory to introduce a small amount of that sample in the uterus. However, if we are talking about IVF, the process is like more complicated in terms of first we need to stimulate the patient's ovaries, then we need to retrieve those eggs (that will be fertilized at the laboratory with the donor sperm sample) and then we wait for 5 days to check how the embryos develop. Depending on the last decision of the patient in terms of checking the embryos before transferring them, the patient will need to do the embryo transfer or, if she decides to check the embryos before doing the embryo transfer, we won't do the embryo transfer at that moment and the embryos will be checked first and then, if there are healthy embryos to transfer, we will do the embryo the embryo transfer afterwards. However and finally, if we are talking about embryo adoption or egg donation treatment, the patient doesn't need to have the ovaries stimulated, we will just do a preparation of the uterus with the aim of having that uterus in the best conditions. Then, the egg donor (in case she is undergoing an egg donation treatment) will do the ovarian stimulation. As soon as we have the eggs and the embryos ready, the patient will undergo the embryo transfer. So, it's much easier treatment for them.
