Let's understand the basic steps of IVF:
1. **Stimulating Egg Production:** A woman is given medicines to help her ovaries produce multiple eggs, similar to how a plant grows many fruits.
---2. **Egg Retrieval:** Once the eggs are mature, a doctor carefully collects them from the woman's ovaries using a thin needle. This is like carefully picking ripe fruits from a tree.
---3. **Sperm Collection:** The man provides a sperm sample, which is then prepared to select the healthiest sperm. Think of it as filtering out the best quality seeds.
---4. **Fertilisation (In Vitro):** The collected eggs and selected sperm are placed together in a special dish in the lab. Here, the sperm fertilises the egg, forming an embryo. This is the 'in vitro' part, meaning 'in glass'.
---5. **Embryo Culture:** The fertilised eggs (now embryos) are kept in the lab for a few days to grow and develop. This is like nurturing a sapling in a nursery.
---6. **Embryo Transfer:** One or more healthy embryos are carefully placed into the woman's uterus by the doctor. This is similar to planting the nurtured sapling into the main field.
---7. **Pregnancy Test:** After about two weeks, a pregnancy test is done to see if the embryo has successfully implanted and pregnancy has begun.
ANSWER: IVF involves fertilising an egg outside the body and then transferring the embryo into the uterus.