Many women find themselves ready for motherhood whether they have a partner or not. Fortunately, due to incredible advances in reproductive medicine, safe and effective family building has never been more possible for single women who would like to become mothers.

Pairing IUI or IVF with Donor Sperm

Dr. James Douglas and the rest of the IVF Plano team have many patients who have decided to pursue motherhood as single women.
If you have not tried to conceive, and are unsure of your fertility potential, Dr. Douglas will run baseline testing.

A fertility evaluation might reveal underlying issues that leading edge fertility treatments can address. Single women have two options for assisted pregnancy at IVF Plano, depending on their fertility situation:

Intrauterine insemination, or IUI: IUI is the most common choice for single women without significant fertility issues. This is a procedure where Dr. Douglas transfers specially processed sperm directly into a woman’s uterus at her most fertile time. Depending on the woman’s fertility situation, hormonal treatments may be recommended to trigger ovulation and/or increase the likelihood of implantation.

After the insemination, there is a wait of 10 – 12 days to see if there was a successful fertilization and implantation. If there’s a positive pregnancy test, the pregnancy will be monitored in the early stages to make sure it’s progressing in a healthy way.

In vitro fertilization, or IVF: If there are significant fertility issues, Dr. Douglas might recommend trying IVF. With IVF, the woman first will have hormonal treatments to prepare for an egg retrieval procedure. Once sufficient good-quality eggs are collected, the eggs are combined with the donor sperm in the lab to create several embryos. In cases where the mother-to-be has poor egg quality, donor eggs might be recommended to increase chances for success.

Once the embryos mature, our IVF lab selects the best embryo(s) to transfer back to the patient’s uterus for implantation. The remaining good quality embryos can then be frozen for later use. The patient takes hormonal treatments before and after the IVF procedure to increase the likelihood of ovulation, implantation and successful pregnancy. As with IUI, after the IVF procedure there is a wait of 10 – 12 days to see if there was a successful fertilization and implantation.

If you are not ready to become pregnant right now, we can discuss fertility preservation, and freezing your eggs.

We would love to meet with you to discuss the best path to pregnancy. Contact us to schedule a consultation with the IVF Plano team to get started on your motherhood journey.