What is egg retrieval and how is it performed?

Egg retrieval is actually harvesting the eggs that are essentially present in the ovaries. During stimulation we give hormones, so that the follicles in the ovary grow and mature an egg in each of the follicles. And these eggs cannot be seen by ultrasound, they can only be harvested by a procedure called an egg collection. What we do in this procedure, we put the patient to sleep but a needle is passed with the aid of the ultrasound machine into each of these follicles that is present in each of the ovaries, and probably multiple follicles in each of the ovaries. An echogenic needle which you can see very well on ultrasound is passed into each and every of this follicle. Each follicle is pricked with this needle and the contents of each follicle are drained out. The fluid that comes out of each of these follicles is then passed over to the lab, where the embryologist decants the fluid and looks for the egg And of course there should be an egg present in typically around 80 percent of these follicles. These eggs are harvested and then kept in the incubator in the laboratory so that’s what an egg collection is.