Ontario Fertility Program (OFP) Funded IVF Cycles Now at Pollin. No Waitlist! - Learn More
IVF BASICS
One of the first questions almost every patient asks is some version of the same thing: how long is this actually going to take?
It's a reasonable question, and one that most clinics answer with a vague range that doesn't tell you very much. This article gives you the real answer: a complete, stage-by-stage breakdown of what happens during an IVF cycle, how long each phase takes, and what you'll actually experience along the way.
Every patient's timeline is different. But the structure is consistent, and understanding it makes the whole process feel considerably less overwhelming.
How Long Does an IVF Cycle Take?
A single IVF cycle, from the first day of your stimulation medications to your pregnancy test, typically takes four to six weeks. When you include the initial consultation, testing, and preparation that happen before stimulation starts, the full process from first appointment to pregnancy test result is usually three to four months for most patients.
If you're doing a frozen embryo transfer (which most Pollin patients do), the transfer cycle adds another four to six weeks after your egg retrieval and embryo freeze.
Here's how it all fits together.
Before any medications start, your care team needs a complete picture of your fertility health. This phase includes your initial consultation, diagnostic testing, and sometimes a short priming period to prepare your ovaries.
Step 1: Initial Consultation
Your first appointment at Pollin is a comprehensive consultation with one of our Reproductive Endocrinologists and Infertility (REI) specialists.
Every Pollin physician holds Fellowship certification from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCSC). This is the highest standard of specialist certification in the country. This consultation is covered by OHIP.
You'll discuss your medical history, your family building goals, any previous fertility treatment, and what an IVF cycle at Pollin looks like for your specific situation.
Don't have a referral from your family doctor? Not a problem. Pollin coordinates referrals on your behalf before your appointment. It's a five-minute process and we handle it entirely. You focus on showing up.
Step 2: Fertility Testing
Following your consultation, your doctor will order a series of baseline tests. These typically include:
Your results determine your personalized stimulation protocol — the medications, doses, and timing specific to your cycle. These results are available in the Pollin App as they come in, so you can review them before your follow-up appointment and arrive with informed questions.
Step 3: Cycle Priming
Some patients are prescribed a short course of birth control pills or estrogen before stimulation begins. This isn't a delay, it's a clinical strategy to coordinate your cycle timing and optimize your ovaries' response to stimulation medications.
Stimulation is the engine of the IVF cycle. The goal is to encourage multiple follicles, the fluid-filled sacs in your ovaries that each contain a developing egg, to grow simultaneously. In a natural cycle, one follicle develops and ovulates. In an IVF cycle, injectable medications override that process so your team can retrieve multiple mature eggs.
Step 1: Starting Medications
Stimulation typically begins on Day 2 or Day 3 of your menstrual period. You'll self-administer injectable medications, usually a combination of FSH, LH, or hMG, once or twice daily for approximately 10 to 14 days.
Giving yourself injections is one of the parts patients worry about most before they start, and one of the things that tends to feel manageable much faster than expected.
The Pollin App includes step-by-step administration videos for every medication in your protocol, daily reminders, and a medication log so nothing is missed or doubled. Your entire medication schedule is in the app from day one.
Step 2: Monitoring Appointments — What to Expect
During stimulation, you'll come in for monitoring appointments every two to three days. These are early-morning visits — most patients are in and out within 30 to 45 minutes — and they include:
Your doctor reviews the results and adjusts your medication dosages accordingly. The goal is to grow follicles to a target size of approximately 18–20mm before retrieval, without over-stimulating. Most patients have three to five monitoring appointments during stimulation. The frequency increases as retrieval approaches.
Step 3: Getting Your Results
This is where patients at most clinics spend a significant part of their cycle waiting — for a phone call that tells them how things are going.
At Pollin, your monitoring results, follicle measurements and bloodwork, are available through the Pollin App the same day, typically within hours of your appointment.
You can see your follicle count, individual measurements, and how your numbers are trending over time. You don't have to wait for someone to call, and you don't have to try to remember what your nurse said three days ago.
Your care team is also available through secure in-app messaging if you have questions about what your results mean.
Step 1: The Trigger Shot
When your follicles have reached the right size and your hormone levels indicate your eggs are ready, your doctor will prescribe a trigger shot. A precisely timed final injection that matures the eggs and prepares them for retrieval. Timing is critical: retrieval is scheduled exactly 35 to 36 hours after the trigger injection.
You'll receive clear instructions through the Pollin App, including the exact time your trigger shot needs to be administered. This is not a window. It's a specific time, and the app reminder ensures it isn't missed.
Step 2: Egg Retrieval Day
Retrieval is a minor surgical procedure performed under sedation at the Pollin clinic. Your fertility doctor uses an ultrasound-guided needle, passed through the vaginal wall, to aspirate the fluid from each mature follicle. Each follicle may contain an egg, which is immediately identified and assessed by the embryologist in the adjacent lab.
The procedure itself takes approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Most patients spend another one to two hours in recovery before going home. You'll need someone to drive you. You'll hear from your embryologist the following morning with your fertilization report.
This is the phase patients often describe as the hardest, not because of anything physical, but because you're waiting and there's nothing you can do.
Step 1: Your Fertilization Report
The morning after retrieval, your embryologist will share your fertilization report: how many eggs were retrieved, how many were mature, and how many fertilized successfully. This report is delivered through the Pollin App.
Fertilization rates vary depending on egg and sperm quality. It's normal, and expected, for the numbers to decrease at each stage. Not every mature egg fertilizes. Not every fertilized egg develops into a viable embryo. Your care team will explain what your numbers mean for your specific situation.
Step 2: Embryo Development and Grading
Fertilized eggs are cultured in Pollin's laboratory for five to six days, developing from a single fertilized cell to a blastocyst, the stage at which embryos are most commonly transferred or frozen.
What makes the Pollin lab different is what's happening during those five days. Every embryo is monitored continuously using EmbryoScope+ time-lapse incubation, a system that captures images of your embryos every ten minutes without ever removing them from the controlled environment of the incubator.
Each embryo is then assessed using CHLOE™ AI by Fairtility, the world's first transparent AI-driven embryo quality decision support tool, which helps your embryologist select the embryo with the best chance of developing into a healthy pregnancy. You receive a personalized embryo quality report as part of your cycle.
Step 3: Genetic Testing — PGT-A (Optional)
If you've elected to do preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A), a small biopsy of cells is taken from each blastocyst before freezing. The cells are sent to a genetics laboratory; results typically take two to three weeks.
PGT-A identifies embryos with the correct number of chromosomes before transfer. This can reduce miscarriage rates and improve the chance of a successful transfer, particularly for patients over 35 or those who have experienced prior pregnancy loss.
Most Pollin patients do a frozen embryo transfer rather than a fresh transfer. Freezing allows your body to recover from stimulation fully, allows time for PGT-A results if applicable, and lets your team optimize the timing of transfer for the best uterine environment.
Step 1: Preparing Your Uterus
The FET cycle begins with medications, typically estrogen, to build the uterine lining to the right thickness. After approximately two weeks, progesterone is added. Your lining is monitored with ultrasound appointments, similar to stimulation monitoring but typically fewer.
Step 2: Transfer Day
Embryo transfer is a straightforward procedure — no sedation required for most patients. Your doctor places a single embryo into the uterus using a thin catheter guided by ultrasound. The procedure takes approximately 15 minutes. Most patients return to normal activity the same day.
The two-week wait, the period between embryo transfer and pregnancy test, is something almost every IVF patient describes as emotionally challenging. You're not doing anything. You're just waiting. Every symptom is analysed. Every absence of a symptom is analysed.
A few things worth knowing:
Your care team is available through the Pollin App throughout the two-week wait. If you have questions or concerns, secure in-app messaging connects you directly to the right member of your team — without a phone call, without hold music, and without waiting until the next business day.
Your pregnancy test is a blood test, a quantitative beta-hCG, conducted at the clinic. It's more sensitive and more precise than a urine test, and it gives your team a number rather than just a positive or negative.
Your test date is marked in the Pollin App from the day of your transfer. Your result is delivered through the app as soon as it's available.
Whatever the result, your care team will contact you to discuss next steps, whether that's scheduling an early ultrasound or planning for another cycle.
IVF is not a single-attempt process for many patients, and a cycle that doesn't result in pregnancy is not a failed cycle, it's clinical information. It tells your team what your ovaries respond to, how your embryos develop, and what adjustments may improve outcomes in a subsequent cycle.
Most patients who ultimately achieve pregnancy through IVF do so across more than one cycle. Your Pollin physician will review the full cycle data with you and discuss a clear plan before you make any decisions.
How many monitoring appointments does IVF require?
Most patients have three to five monitoring appointments during the stimulation phase, plus two to three during a frozen embryo transfer cycle. The exact number depends on how your ovaries respond to stimulation.
Can I work during an IVF cycle?
Most patients continue working throughout stimulation and monitoring. Monitoring appointments are early morning and typically brief. You'll need the day of egg retrieval off, as sedation is involved, and many patients take egg retrieval day and the day after away from work.
How long after egg retrieval is the embryo transfer?
If doing a fresh transfer, it occurs five to six days after retrieval. If doing a frozen embryo transfer, the more common approach at Pollin, transfer typically happens four to six weeks after retrieval, following a preparation cycle.
Does Pollin offer OHIP-funded IVF?
Yes. Pollin participates in the Ontario Fertility Program (OFP), which funds IVF cycles for eligible Ontario residents. There is no waitlist at Pollin for funded cycles. Out-of-pocket costs include medications (typically $6,000–$8,000) and certain add-on services.
To learn more about the OFP program at Pollin, click HERE.
How do I get my monitoring results at Pollin?
Your bloodwork and ultrasound measurements are available through the Pollin App the same day as your appointment, no waiting for a callback. You can also message your care team directly through the app if you have questions about your results.
Do I need a referral to start at Pollin?
You don't need to arrive with one. If you don't have a referral from your family doctor, Pollin coordinates it on your behalf before your appointment, it's a five-minute process and we handle it entirely.
To learn more about IVF at Pollin, click HERE.
To learn more about the cost of IVF, click HERE.
Pollin Fertility was founded in 2023 with a mission to develop the most advanced clinical, digital and IVF lab technology to improve the fertility patient experience and treatment outcomes.
Pollin’s first flagship clinic is located at 2360 Yonge St. in midtown Toronto.
To learn more about the fertility treatments and services offered at Pollin visit www.pollinfertility.com
To book an OHIP covered consultation with one of our fertility specialists or click the link below.
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