The Two-Week Wait · September 2026

Two-week stay or split trip? How to schedule IVF in Medellín

The two ways to schedule IVF in Medellín — one long 2–3 week stay through fresh transfer, or a split trip with home monitoring, a week for retrieval and a return for FET. Day-by-day.

How many days you need in Medellín depends on one decision: fresh transfer or freeze-all. Make that decision with your clinic first; the calendar falls out of it.

Model one: the single stay

You arrive on day one, start (or continue) stimulation injections, have monitoring scans every two or three days, trigger around day ten to twelve, have retrieval thirty-six hours later, and — if you're doing a fresh transfer — transfer a day-three or day-five embryo and rest a few days before flying. Total: about eighteen to twenty-one days.

It's the simplest logistically. One flight each way, one apartment, one set of leave to arrange. The downsides are that three weeks is a long time away from work, and that fresh transfer is used less and less: freeze-all lets the body recover from stimulation before transfer and gives time for PGT-A results if you want them.

Model two: the split trip

Most international patients now do this. You start stimulation at home, with baseline and early scans at a local monitoring clinic that sends results to Medellín. Around day six or seven you fly in for the final scans, trigger and retrieval, then rest two or three days while the embryology report comes in. Fly home. Weeks or months later — when it suits you — you return for a frozen embryo transfer: a few days of final lining checks, the transfer itself, and a day or two of rest. Visit one is about nine or ten days; visit two about four or five.

You need a monitoring clinic at home that will do scans and bloodwork without treating you. In the US these exist in most metro areas and charge per scan. Ask the Medellín clinic what they need transmitted and in what format — it's routine for them.

Choosing between them

Things that move the dates

• A slow or fast response to stimulation shifts retrieval by a day or two either way. Book the return flight with change flexibility.
• Retrieval is scheduled to the hour around the trigger shot. Don't plan anything else that morning.
• Lab schedules: some clinics batch certain procedures on set days. Ask early.
• Colombian public holidays (there are many, often on Mondays) can close pharmacies and shift scan days.

Keep reading

Information only, not medical advice. Costs are 2026 ranges from clinic quotes and published sources; they change and vary by clinic and protocol. Confirm everything with a written quote and your own physician.