The Two Week Wait

What is the “Two Week Wait?”

Women and couples who use assisted reproductive technology cycles (IUI, IVF, ICSI, etc.) ultimately enter a “two week waiting period”. This is the time between the end of the fertility treatment cycle and results of the beta hCG blood test – that provides confirmation of pregnancy.

The two week wait period is typically filled with hope and anxiety and many women and couples struggle to abstain from using a home pregnancy test while awaiting results. In order to avoid a skewed confirmation of pregnancy, Reproductive endocronolgists typically recommend waiting until either the menstrual cycle has begun or the scheduled blood test before self-testing for pregnancy.

Another special real journal entry (by J) on the emotional journey of the Two Week Wait is shared below:

The cherry on top- AKA “The Two Week Wait”

Well, they don’t just say this journey consumes you! It has been 6 days since my embryo transfer and I have learned that the hard part just began. While the hard core medications and procedures are behind us, I am now in my two week wait until our answer.

Shockingly- this is the hardest part of all! On July 30th, I shall know what the future holds.

This wait is torturous. I vacillate between feelings of optimism and sheer helplessness and sadness. One moment I am consumed by excitement, while in the other I am a miserable wreck. Time ticks by with endless days, hours, minutes, seconds, nanno-seconds. I am unable to settle my mind, quit my anxiety or clear my head. I have become a chaotic mess of nerves, all entangled in a knot, that has been lodged deep down in the pit of my stomach. This is a nightmare.

To test or not to test? That is my question. I must have googled this option several hundred times in the last 6 days. If I test before my beta, there is a chance I will get a false negative. And testing close to beta with a negative can assure me a massive meltdown. My body and mind ache to prolong the unknown as if it is the known I dread the most it will not be in my reality realm until it must be there. In the same breath I take, screams from the pits of my everything yearn “MUST KNOW”!!!!!!!!!!!

The plan for now: hold off on buying pregnancy tests as long as possible in fear of using too soon. I have absolutely no idea how long this plan will hold.