Once we collect the eggs, they are not yet ready for insemination. We need to wait for a couple of hours to allow them to de-accumulate and remove the external layer of cells. We confirm the maturity of the oocytes by ensuring that the nucleus is mature. Once we confirm their maturity, typically within 1 or 2 hours, we can proceed with ICSI to fertilize the eggs.
After our egg retrieval, we do it on the same day (like four hours after the retrieval), we do the injection of the sperm into the oocytes and we have to wait till the next morning to see if they fertilized. The biologist is the one that does this and they actually let us know how many of the eggs that we have were mature, where the metaphase II and how many of those metaphase II that they inject were fertilized.
We inseminate the eggs typically four hours after the egg collection. In scientific terms, we collect the eggs at 36 hours after the trigger injection, wee fertilize the eggs or expose them to the sperm at around 40 hours post trigger and we would see whether these eggs have fertilized or not the following morning. For example if a woman had an egg collection this morning, her eggs would be subjected to the sperm at around one or two o’clock in the afternoon and the following day in the morning at eight o’clock , we would come and check if the eggs have fertilized, and how many have fertilized.
