The Initial Consultation

Please fill in our questionnaire. We will contact you to discuss any questions and to arrange a date for your Initial Consultation appointment. You need only one day for this appointment, but we suggest that you do not fly in and out on the same day, in order to avoid stress and rushing. Many of our patients choose to come for their Initial Consultation on a Monday or Friday in order to arrange an enjoyable weekend stay in St. Petersburg.

You need to arrange a visa, flights and a hotel corresponding to these dates.

You arrive at AVA-Peter and meet the doctor who has been personally assigned to you. You need to bring with you your passport, any medical test results and reports about previous infertility treatments, plus several colour photographs of yourself (taken either recently or when you were in your 20s or 30s). These should include 2 clear photographs of your head and face (1 looking into the camera and 1 of your profile) plus another photograph of you standing. The doctor discusses your wishes with you and carries out a number of medical tests. This enables us to assess whether you need treatment to clear up any problems before you are treated. Under Russian law, all of these tests need to be valid to the point of Embryo Transfer, so some will need to be carried out again in your home country before you return.

We discuss the sperm test results, which are available very quickly, and ask you when you wish to start treatment. We can be flexible and always aim to fit treatment around your own schedule. During your Initial Consultation, we discuss, plan and fix the schedule of your next visit, which will be for Embryo Transfer. We also discuss your preferences in terms of choosing a donor, and will start looking to match you with the most suitable person who is available to donate within the timeframe most convenient for you. We also create an individual treatment plan for you and give you a prescription for your medication. You can buy this medication in our on-site pharmacy. Alternatively, you may prefer to use the medication details we provide to ask your local doctor to provide a prescription for you. This is only possible if you are confident that your local doctor will be willing and able to do this. If there is any doubt, we advise you to buy the medication at our on-site pharmacy as we cannot send you medication from Russia.

. You return to your home country and remain in contact with us while we match you with the best donor. You will receive non-identifying information about your donor, including relevant medical details and physical characteristics. If you agree to use this donor, we confirm that all parties are ready to go ahead with treatment. If you would prefer another donor, we look through our databank again.

Only after you have accepted the donor and the dates, we e-mail you the invoice for your payment. The payment should be made by money transfer not later than 2 weeks before the donor starts taking medication (the ‘stimulation phase’).

In most cases, you start to take oral contraceptive tablets (prescribed by our doctor) in order to synchronise your menstrual cycle with that of the egg donor. One week before taking the last tablet, you may have a single injection of a ‘down-regulating’ drug. This will allow optimal synchronisation with your donor by ensuring your ovaries remain inactive until after the Egg Collection of the donor. After finishing the tablets on the date agreed, you stop and a ‘withdrawal bleed’ (a period) follows a few days later.

. After your ‘withdrawal bleed’, you follow our instructions (which we discussed and wrote down for you during the Initial Consultation) to prepare for the Embryo Transfer. This typically involves having a scan one week after the last contraceptive tablet (i.e. a few days after your ‘withdrawal bleed’ has started) to confirm that your womb lining is thin. You need to ensure you have a doctor able to do this, and you need to tell us the result of the scan. Oestrogen treatment then begins. This usually involves taking oestrogens in the form of tablets, patches and/or gel. You start taking progesterone (usually in the form of vaginal pessaries or cream) 5 days before the planned Embryo Transfer. (Depending on whether you are using frozen or fresh sperm, this will be just before or just after you return to St. Petersburg.)

The dates of your second visit (for Embryo Transfer) will already have been agreed and fixed at your initial visit, and you will have received a detailed individual treatment plan. Please ensure you arrange a visa, flights and a hotel corresponding to these dates. If you are using fresh sperm, we advise you to arrive in St. Petersburg 2 days before the Egg Collection is planned. You need to arrive 2 days in advance as the exact date of Egg Collection depends on the donor’s response to her medication, and can therefore be up to two days earlier or later than planned. Your visit will last 9 days. If you are using frozen sperm, you should arrive in St. Petersburg 2 days before the Embryo Transfer is planned. Your visit will last 5 days. The exact date of the Egg Collection will be known only 3-4 days beforehand, but it is definitely not advisable to wait until this stage to arrange your a visa, flights and hotel.

You return to St. Petersburg. If you are using fresh sperm, your partner will need to produce this on the day that the donor’s eggs are collected (unless you use a sperm donor). We advise the male partner not to ejaculate (during sexual intercourse or through masturbation) for 2-5 days before producing his semen sample. If you are using frozen sperm, we defrost this for use on the day of Egg Collection and you do not need to be present in person. The exact date of the Egg Collection will be known 3-4 days beforehand. Once fertilised, the eggs become embryos and are grown in our laboratory for three or (more usually) five days. After five days, they are known as blastocysts. We transfer one or two of the best embryos into the womb of the egg recipient, according to how many embryos you want to have replaced. If you wish, we can freeze any good-quality embryos remaining.