In vitro fertilization and embryo transfer at North Shore University Hospital: initial experiences.

No technical difficulties were encountered in visualizing follicles and obtaining aspirates at laparoscopy. At least one oocyte was aspirated in 90% of these women. While the majority of eggs inseminated subsequently cleaved (73%), no pregnancies occurred despite seemingly atraumatic embryo transfer in nearly all women. As two pronuclei were visualized in the majority of cases, one cannot invoke polyspermy as a cause of failure of subsequent embryo development; nor is it possible at this time to segregate those abnormalities in the egg, at the time of oocyte retrieval, from those encountered by normal preimplantation embryos in an abnormal uterine environment, perhaps secondary to hormonal aberrations coincident with gonadotropin stimulus.