Of every step in IVF, the egg retrieval is the one women dread most. You know something happens to your ovaries, but nobody tells you exactly what. Your head fills that gap on its own, usually with the worst version.
What strikes me: clinics describe this day in two sentences and move on to the lab. That is thin, for a day you have had circled for months.
So here is the day, hour by hour. And here is why the appointment lands so suddenly.
What happens during an IVF egg retrieval?
During a retrieval, the doctor collects the eggs from your ovaries. Guided by ultrasound, a thin needle passes through the vaginal wall into each follicle. The fluid is drawn off and taken straight to the lab. You get pain relief or light sedation. The collection itself usually takes 15 to 20 minutes.
Your eggs sit inside follicles, small fluid-filled sacs in your ovaries. You cannot see them without ultrasound. The doctor empties each sac, and the lab then checks whether an egg came with the fluid.
Not every follicle yields an egg. That is normal, and it says little about the quality of what does come out. What happens next depends on the technique used: that difference sits in the piece on IVF versus ICSI.
What does the day itself look like?
You are usually there for half a day, no longer. You arrive in the morning, often fasting, get a drip, and move to a recovery room afterwards. You stay there for roughly two hours. Someone has to collect you, because sedation rules out driving yourself. The rest of the day is for resting.
| Moment | What happens | How it often feels |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger, 34 to 36 hours earlier | Injection at home, at an exact time | Nerves, little else |
| Arrival, often early morning | Intake, drip, final ultrasound | Waiting is the hardest part |
| Preparation, about 30 minutes | Pain relief or light sedation via the drip | Drowsy and far away |
| The retrieval, 15 to 20 minutes | Follicles emptied under ultrasound | Pressure low in your belly |
| Recovery room, 1 to 2 hours | Blood pressure and pain checked | Cramps, like a period |
| Home, around midday | You hear how many eggs were collected | Relief, and sometimes emptiness |
| The evening | Rest, warmth on your belly | Tired, tender belly |
These times are a direction, not a promise. Every clinic works slightly differently, and your own schedule comes to you in writing beforehand.
When is your retrieval scheduled?
That call is made during stimulation. Your clinic follows your follicles on ultrasound and tracks your estradiol in blood. Once enough follicles are big enough, you get a trigger injection with hCG. The retrieval follows roughly 34 to 36 hours later. That narrow window is why your appointment feels so abrupt.
During stimulation you come in every few days. The scan counts your follicles and measures their diameter. Your estradiol (E2) climbs alongside, because ripening follicles produce this hormone.
Say you take your trigger at 10 in the evening, then your retrieval sits about 35 hours later. That margin is tight for a reason. Collect too early and the eggs will not let go. Collect too late and your own ovulation gets there first.
Your LH and FSH are often measured too, partly to see whether your body is starting an ovulation by itself. Your hormones set the moment, not the calendar.
What is OHSS and how common is it?
OHSS stands for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Your ovaries overreact to the stimulation, and fluid leaks out of your blood vessels. In a Danish registry, a severe form occurred in about 1.2% of 186,168 stimulated cycles (PMID 33543701). Severe OHSS is rare, and it explains why your clinic watches you so closely.
A review of 29 prediction models kept finding the same risk factors (PMID 40826343). The ones named most often: antral follicle count, estradiol on the trigger day, the number of eggs retrieved, PCOS, age and AMH.
That is why a doctor looks at your AMH before stimulation starts. A high AMH usually points to many follicles, which can be a reason to dose more gently. In one centre the cutoff sat around 3.3 ng/mL, with reasonable predictive value (PMID 21882017). That is a single study, so read it as a direction.
Research suggests AMH and antral follicle count predict ovarian response about equally well (PMID 37370145). Neither one beats the other. What an AMH number can mean at your age sits in this piece on your AMH value.
Does this make you anxious to read? Understandable. Yet this is exactly why you come in for monitoring so often.
Which blood values matter around your retrieval?
Around a retrieval it is mostly about estradiol, which shows how your follicles are ripening. Your clinic also watches LH, to stay ahead of an early ovulation. Your AMH and antral follicle count were measured earlier, because those help set your dose. Together they steer the timing of the day.
We are a lab, not a clinic. We do not perform retrievals and we do not set doses. What we can do: measure your hormones before your trajectory starts, so you walk into that conversation with numbers.
An IVF blood test gives you the baseline values. If you want thyroid and vitamins alongside them, look at the complete IVF blood test. If you are still orienting, the fertility assessment is a calmer starting point.
How do you feel afterwards?
Most women feel cramps that resemble period pain, and are tired for the first day. Some light bleeding can belong to it. Which painkiller you may take differs per clinic, so ask beforehand. The symptoms usually settle within a few days. Call your clinic if the pain climbs instead of fading.
I hear from many women that the day ran differently than they feared. Not pleasant, but doable. What they call the hardest part afterwards is the waiting, not the procedure.
Ring your clinic with rising abdominal pain, a quickly swelling belly, nausea or breathlessness. Those are the warning signs they point you to. Thuisarts describes the same signals in plain language, and the NHG follows a comparable line for GPs.
What can you do to prepare?
Arrange someone to collect you and stay with you that day. Put the exact trigger time on two alarms, because that timing drives everything. Ask your clinic what you may still drink that morning. And keep the rest of the day empty: you will be tired, even when it all runs smoothly.
Practically, it helps to bring loose clothing and to put a hot water bottle ready. Plan nothing for the afternoon, not even that one video call.
And do not expect yourself to be brave. Being scared of a retrieval is not weakness, it is a normal reaction to something unknown.
How big your chance is per attempt depends on far more than this one day: that sits in the piece on success rates per attempt. If you came from another route, the explainer on IUI shows how those steps follow each other. The full trajectory sits in the guide to IVF.
Want to do something now? Write your questions down for your next monitoring scan. Ask how many follicles they expect, and ask for the timing of your trigger. With those two numbers the day suddenly becomes far less abstract.
References
- Tomás C, Colmorn L, Rasmussen S, Lidegaard Ø, Pinborg A, Nyboe Andersen A. Annual incidence of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Dan Med J. 2021. PMID 33543701.
- Liu J, et al. Risk prediction models for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2025. PMID 40826343.
- Ocal P, Sahmay S, Cetin M, Irez T, Guralp O, Cepni I. Serum anti-Müllerian hormone and antral follicle count as predictive markers of OHSS in ART cycles. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2011;28(12):1197-1203. PMID 21882017.
- Liu Y, Pan Z, Wu Y, Song J, Chen J. Comparison of anti-Müllerian hormone and antral follicle count in the prediction of ovarian response: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Ovarian Res. 2023. PMID 37370145.
- Thuisarts and NHG. Public information on fertility treatment and IVF. Available via thuisarts.nl.
Every blood test result at Lunara includes a professional assessment by a BIG-registered doctor. For treatment decisions, discuss your results with your GP.
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