I want a baby at 55

I am a 55 year old married woman without a child. I want to undergo IVF so that I can at least have a child since I don’t want to adopt. Kindly let me know what it entails.

Felicia (by SMS)

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is the most effective, commonly performed and final infertility treatment in the world. It is a sequence of procedures that involves fertilisation of an egg outside a woman’s body in a specialised lab. It is often performed after other methods of trying to get pregnant have failed. The first step is to identify a good and professionally proficient facility to carry out the procedure. Apart from many of the specialist and teaching hospitals in the country, a number of private fertility clinics exist for the same procedure. Once this is done, the attending doctor will then explain the remaining steps in the procedure such as; testing and ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval, fertilisation, embryo transfer among others to you. In addition, since IVF is not cheap, the budget and payment arrangement will also be explained to you.