What you need to know: Surviving the two-week wait

Undergoing fertility treatment can mean lots of appointments, frequent tests, and high anxiety. One particularly difficult part of the process for many patients is the two-week wait. This time from either the egg release-ovulation, the intrauterine insemination, or the IVF embryo transfer until the pregnancy blood test result is collectively called the two week wait. It often feels fraught with nervousness and anticipation, mixed with a twinge of excitement that you’ll soon find out if you’ve got a baby on board. The team at our Northern Louisiana fertility center wants to offer support and tips for getting through this challenging part of infertility treatments including the IVF cycle.

What is the two-week wait in IVF?

To get pregnant naturally, you have intercourse during your fertile time of the month, hope for the best, and take a pregnancy test at the first missed period. For couples and individuals undergoing IVF, the process involves more steps.

During an IVF cycle, your partner, or a sperm donor, provides sperm, which are combined with the eggs retrieved by our fertility specialist. The resulting embryos are monitored in the IVF lab for proper development. At the appropriate time, the highest-quality embryo is transferred back into the uterus, so that implantation into the uterine lining can occur.

The two-week wait is that time period after the transfer (actually only 9 days after a blastocyst stage embryo transfer), but before you can glean accurate results from a pregnancy blood test.

Helpful hints for getting through this part of your IVF cycle

We understand that the waiting can create feelings of stress and anxiety. Obsessing about a potential pregnancy will only make things worse. Consider these do’s and don’ts to make the wait more bearable.

• Do distract yourself. Carry on as normally as possible. Continue routine exercise. Pick up a good book. Take a walk. Live your life.
• Don’t analyze every bit of nausea or any unusual twinges. It’s hard not to wonder if that headache, tiredness or other weird symptom could mean you are pregnant, but try not to read into anything.
• Don’t take an at-home pregnancy test. You’ll come back to our office at the right time for a blood test, which is a much better indicator of whether you are pregnant and how likely the pregnancy is to “stick.” At-home pregnancy tests are not as sensitive as blood tests, so it’s best to just wait and get the most accurate information. Also, home tests done too early can pick up the hCG trigger shot done before retrieval and give a falsely positive pregnancy test result.
• Do lean on your support system. Connect with other friends who are trying to conceive; family members you trust; and of course, your partner.
• Don’t use Dr. Google. You can find almost anything on the internet, and not everything you read will be accurate or reassuring. Resist the urge to search for signs of early pregnancy or odds of IVF success.

When you are trying to get pregnant, all you want is two blue lines and a positive pregnancy test. The two-week wait during an IVF cycle can feel like two years, but we are here to help. Contact our office for more information or to book an appointment with the IVF experts at our North Louisiana fertility center.