IVF with sperm donation

During your first visit, your fertility specialist will assess your medical history and discuss treatments, including potential health checks to personalise your treatment and enhance your chance of a successful pregnancy, such as bloodwork and ultrasounds.

Once your test results are back, your doctor will review and confirm your treatment plan. Before finding a suitable sperm donor, you’ll need to agree to the plan and estimated costs provided by your dedicated Patient Coordinator.

Our Donation Team will assist you in selecting your ideal sperm donor from our carefully screened and non-anonymous donor pool. Our clinic, hosting one of Portugal’s largest sperm banks, also collaborates with international banks within the European Union. We recommend reserving an adequate number of sperm samples from the selected donor for your current treatment and future options, such as pursuing a second child with the same male donor.

All our sperm donors undergo pre-screening for genetic tests, and we encourage our patients to consider extended genetic screening for compatibility. 

After confirming the costs, your treatment begins. Your doctor will design a personalised hormonal medication plan to stimulate the recruitment and growth of multiple mature eggs in your ovaries. We’ll closely monitor the cycle’s progress, ensuring the number and size of growing follicles align with obtaining viable eggs.

Under the guidance of ultrasound monitoring, a skilled IVF doctor performs the egg retrieval procedure while you’re under sedation, which typically lasts about 15 minutes. Later that day, our team member will coordinate with you to schedule the embryo transfer. The eggs retrieved are carefully placed into a specialised culture medium for further processing.

In our IVF lab, the frozen sperm sample from your donor undergoes optimisation to isolate the most vigorous sperm. In conventional IVF methods, eggs are combined overnight with a sample containing a large number of spermatozoa, facilitating fertilisation. Alternatively, our embryologists may opt for a technique known as Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). With ICSI, each mature egg is directly injected with a carefully selected sperm to enhance fertilisation rates.

After fertilisation, your embryos are kept in a special incubator (Embryoscope®) until the scheduled transfer. Our Embryoscope® and AI algorithms ensure round-the-clock monitoring of their growth. In freeze-all cycles, any obtained embryos are safely vitrified for future use.

During the embryo transfer, your doctor will carefully place one or two embryos in your uterus to support pregnancy. In freeze-all cycles, Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) is performed. Extra viable embryos will be frozen for future use in case of a second child or if the initial attempt doesn’t succeed. After the embryo transfer you will need to wait for 12 days for a pregnancy test.