How It Works: Your Journey Step by Step
Most of the anxiety around IVF abroad comes from not knowing what happens next. So here is the entire journey, from the first message you send to the day of your pregnancy test, with timings, what you will feel, and what you need at every step. No surprises, no vague promises.
From First Message to Pregnancy Test in About 6-10 Weeks
The whole journey is shorter and simpler than most patients expect. You spend most of it at home: consultations happen by video, tests are done at your local clinic, and for many treatments your medication starts at home too. You only travel to Cyprus for the part that requires our laboratory and our doctors, which is typically 5 to 10 days. Then you fly home, and 12 days after your embryo transfer you take a blood test near home.
Two things make our version of this journey different. First, you get one named coordinator from day 0 to your pregnancy test and beyond, one person who knows your file, answers your WhatsApp messages and never makes you repeat your story. Second, everything clinical happens inside Kamiloglu Hospital, Kyrenia Medical Center, a full hospital with surgical theatres, an intensive care unit and a resident anaesthesia team, not a standalone clinic that has to call an ambulance if something rare goes wrong. The eight steps below apply broadly to all treatments; your personalised plan will adapt the details to your case, whether that is IVF with your own eggs, egg donation or any other programme.
Your Complete Patient Journey
Eight steps, each with what happens, how it tends to feel, and what you need to prepare. Save this page; patients tell us they come back to it at every stage.
Day 0
First Contact
You reach out however suits you: our contact form, WhatsApp or a phone call. Within 2 hours, your personal coordinator replies, a real person, not an autoresponder, and the same person who will guide you through everything that follows. She will ask a few gentle questions: your age, how long you have been trying, any diagnoses or previous treatments, and whether you have test results you can share. Photos of old results are fine; nothing needs to be formal at this stage.
How it feels: sending the first message is often the hardest part of the whole journey. There is no commitment in this step, and no one will pressure you; many patients tell us they simply felt relieved that someone finally listened.
What you need: nothing except a brief medical history and any previous test results, if you have them. If you have none, that is completely normal too.
Within 48 hours
Free Video Consultation
Within 48 hours of your first contact, you have a 30-45 minute video call with one of our fertility specialists, the actual doctor who would treat you, not a salesperson. The doctor reviews your medical history and any results, explains what they suggest in plain language, gives a preliminary treatment recommendation and answers every question you bring. Bring a written list; no question is too small or too awkward, and couples are welcome to join together from different locations.
How it feels: patients consistently describe this call as the moment the process stops being abstract. You will hear an honest assessment, including, where relevant, an honest "this treatment is not right for you".
What you need: a quiet 45 minutes, your questions, and any results you gathered. The consultation is completely free and carries no obligation whatsoever.
Within 1 week
Your Personalised Plan
Within a week of your consultation, you receive a detailed written treatment plan by email. It contains your recommended protocol and why it was chosen for you, the exact all-inclusive price in writing with no hidden fees and a clear list of what is and is not included, a proposed timeline with suggested travel dates, and the list of pre-treatment tests to complete at home. You can compare it line by line against any other clinic's quote, and we encourage you to; our pricing page shows the same numbers publicly.
How it feels: this is where vague hope turns into a concrete plan with dates and figures. Take your time with it; the plan does not expire and nobody will chase you with countdown offers.
What you need: time to read, discuss with your partner if you have one, and send back questions. Most patients refine dates once or twice before confirming.
2-4 weeks before travel
Pre-Treatment Preparation at Home
You complete a short list of blood tests and scans at a clinic near home; we send the exact list so nothing is missed and nothing is repeated unnecessarily. Our team reviews every result remotely and adjusts your plan if needed. If your treatment involves ovarian stimulation, your medication is prescribed now, and for most patients it starts at home on day 2-3 of the cycle (see the medication guide below). Meanwhile your coordinator confirms your travel dates and helps you book flights and one of our partner hotels near the clinic.
How it feels: busy but structured. The first self-injection is a milestone most patients dread and then find surprisingly easy; your coordinator is on WhatsApp for every "is this normal?" moment, evenings and weekends included.
What you need: the test list done, flexible flight tickets (we explain why in the FAQ), and a passport valid for at least six months.
Travel day
Arrival in Cyprus
Your coordinator arranges a private transfer from Ercan Airport or from Larnaca if you fly to the south, so you are met by name and driven straight to your hotel in Kyrenia. The same day or the next morning, you visit our clinic inside Kamiloglu Hospital for an initial ultrasound scan and blood work, and you finally meet your doctor and coordinator in person, the same people you have been speaking to all along. The clinic is minutes from the partner hotels, and our travel guide covers flights, hotels and what to pack in detail.
How it feels: a mix of nerves and excitement that usually settles within hours. Putting faces to the voices on WhatsApp matters more than patients expect, and Kyrenia itself, a calm Mediterranean harbour town, helps.
What you need: your passport, your medication in hand luggage with its cool bag, and your flight details shared with your coordinator so the driver is waiting.
5-10 days in Cyprus
Your Treatment
Now the part that requires us. You have short monitoring visits, an ultrasound and sometimes a blood test, usually in the morning, with the rest of each day free. Your doctor fine-tunes medication doses based on how your follicles respond. When they are ready, egg retrieval takes 15-20 minutes under light sedation given by the hospital's resident anaesthesia team: you are comfortably asleep and remember nothing. From the next morning, our embryologists send you daily updates on how your embryos are developing, in plain language, not just lab codes. Finally, the embryo transfer: a painless procedure of 10-15 minutes, no sedation needed, and you watch on the ultrasound screen as your embryo is placed.
How it feels: the retrieval day brings nerves beforehand and mild, period-like cramping afterwards. The daily embryo updates are emotional, celebrate the good days, and know that some embryos stopping is biologically normal. Transfer day is, for most patients, quietly joyful.
What you need: someone does not need to accompany you, but no driving on retrieval day; eat nothing from midnight before retrieval; come to transfer with a comfortably full bladder. We brief you on all of it.
1-2 days after transfer
After Treatment: Rest, Then Home
After transfer we ask you to take it easy for 24-48 hours: rest at your hotel, gentle walks, no heavy lifting, no swimming or hot baths. You leave with your post-transfer medications (usually progesterone support) and written instructions covering exactly what you may and may not do, what twinges are normal and what should prompt a message to us. Most patients fly home 1-2 days after transfer; flying does not affect implantation. And your coordinator does not disappear at the airport: she stays available on WhatsApp through the entire wait.
How it feels: the strange calm after weeks of activity. Many couples use these last days as a short holiday, breakfast by the harbour, a slow drive along the coast, before heading home to wait.
What you need: your medication schedule (we set phone reminders with you), loose comfortable clothes for the flight, and patience for the step everyone finds hardest: the two-week wait.
12 days after transfer
Pregnancy Test
Twelve days after your transfer, you have a beta-hCG blood test at a clinic near home, more reliable than a home urine test, which can mislead in both directions this early. You share the result with our team the same day. If it is positive: congratulations, and we stay with you, advising on medication, arranging the follow-up blood test and guiding you to the first ultrasound around two weeks later. If it is negative, our doctor calls you personally to talk it through, reviews your full cycle, and explains honestly what we would do differently next time, when you are ready and only if you want to hear it.
How it feels: the most intense day of the journey, whichever way it goes. Whatever the number says, you will not face it alone; guiding you through either result is part of our job, not an optional extra.
What you need: a blood draw appointment booked in advance for day 12, and our WhatsApp thread open. Please do not test early; we explain why in your instructions.
Want This Timeline With Your Dates on It?
Tell us your situation and we will map these eight steps onto your calendar, with exact pricing, within a week. Free, and no obligation.
Starting Your Medication at Home: What It Actually Involves
For most patients, the medication phase happens in your own bathroom, not in Cyprus, and it is far less daunting than the word "injections" suggests. Here is what each medication actually does, in plain language.
Stimulation injections (FSH). Brands like Gonal-F and Menopur contain follicle stimulating hormone, the same messenger your own body uses every month to grow one egg. The injections simply turn the volume up so that several follicles grow at once instead of one, giving us more eggs to work with. You inject a small dose under the skin of your belly once a day, usually in the evening, for around 8-12 days. The needle is short and fine, like an insulin pen, and most patients say the anticipation is far worse than the pinch, which lasts a second.
The antagonist injection. A few days into stimulation, a second small daily injection (such as Cetrotide) is added. Its only job is to stop your body ovulating early, it keeps the eggs safely in place until we are ready to collect them. Same tiny needle, same quick routine.
The trigger shot. One final injection, timed to the hour, tells the eggs to complete their last stage of maturation. Egg retrieval happens about 36 hours later, which is why this one has an exact time on it; your coordinator will confirm it with you twice. By this point you are usually already in Kyrenia, and we can give it at the clinic if you prefer.
Worried about injecting yourself? Almost everyone is. You receive step-by-step video guides you can rewatch at 11pm with the pen in your hand, written day-by-day schedules, and a coordinator on WhatsApp who has talked hundreds of patients through their first injection. Partners often take over the injecting; some patients ask a local practice nurse instead. Side effects are usually mild, some bloating, tender ovaries, mood swings similar to PMS, and we tell you exactly which symptoms warrant a message to us. If you are on a donor egg or embryo programme, you skip stimulation entirely: your preparation is tablets and patches with, at most, the progesterone support everyone has after transfer.
Every package we quote states clearly whether medication is included, and our team can usually arrange prescriptions you can fill at home. The full breakdown is on our pricing page.
The Emotional Side
Clinics are good at describing procedures and bad at acknowledging what treatment actually feels like. So let us say it plainly: IVF is emotionally intense, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. You will likely swing between hope and fear, sometimes within the same hour. Hormonal medication amplifies emotions; tearfulness during stimulation is chemistry as much as circumstance. Waiting for each piece of news, the scan, the egg count, the daily embryo updates, creates a rhythm of small hopes and small griefs that nobody warns you about. None of this means you are coping badly. It means you are doing IVF.
The hardest stretch for almost everyone is the two-week wait between transfer and pregnancy test. Treatment is over, the appointments stop, and you are home with nothing to do but notice every twinge. Our honest advice: plan those twelve days deliberately. Fill the calendar with gentle, absorbing things, work if it helps you, films, slow walks, dinners with people who know. Stay off the symptom-checker forums after dark; early pregnancy symptoms and progesterone side effects are nearly identical, so your body cannot give you the answer early, and neither can a home test. And do not test before day 12, a too-early result is wrong often enough to cause real pain in both directions.
If you have a partner, know that you may process the journey at different speeds, and that this is normal, not a warning sign. One of you may want to talk through every scan; the other may go quiet. Partners often feel helpless because the injections, scans and procedures happen to one body while two people carry the hope. The most useful thing a partner can do is small and practical: manage the medication alarms, come to the video calls, take over the cooking during stimulation, be the one who messages the coordinator when the other cannot face it.
And this is the part where we differ from most of the market: your coordinator is there for emotional support, not just logistics. She has accompanied hundreds of patients through this exact journey, knows what week two of the wait feels like, and will not brush off a 9pm "I am panicking, is this normal?" message with a brochure answer. Patients with a previous failed cycle carry an extra layer of fear into every step, and we treat that openly rather than around it; if that is you, our failed IVF page was written for you. You are allowed to find this hard. Our job is to make sure you never find it hard alone.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Process
The questions patients ask most about the journey itself. For everything else, see our full FAQ.