2WW / 2 Week Wait

Now begins the hardest part of IVF, waiting to find out if the embryos stuck, if you are in fact pregnant. It is called the 2 week wait because you have to wait for all the meds to be out of your system and for the natural HCG to get into your system from pregnancy. If you watched Friends, you saw Phoebe goes through a similar experience but not all the details when she become a surrogate for her brother and his wife. She had five embryos transferred and that afternoon she went home did a pregnancy test that turned up negative and then later another that turned up positive. Well unfortunately that is not how it goes! The first test on egg transform more often than not will turn positive because of the meds still in your body. But you don't really know until at the very least day 10 but most clinics say day 14. My doctor had arranged for us to do our blood test on July 15th. Now July 14th should have been my test day but that is a holiday. I'm thinking of doing a test on that Friday anyway, I guess we'll see :)

Here is how my 2ww went and at times, it wasn't pretty :)

Friday : eggs in, came home layed around, but since there wasn't as much pain as last time I didn't feel like laying around, it was too hard to watch my husband do things. I want things done my way! LOL

Main symptoms overall of the 2ww: Different symptoms from 1st try are in Red.

• Crampy with a general all over uncomfortable feeling
• Gas! But unlike the first time it was not as frequent. it could still clear a building but there was time between passes to catch your breath :)
• Breast soreness! By the second week I was convinced I had two invisible men hanging onto each breast swinging the pain was so bad!
• Tender and very sore nipples. If i brushed them against something or Reg touched them, hell was to be paid they hurt that much at times.
• Frequent urination, one sip of water = a litre in the toilet later, day and night.
• The most puzzling symptom was a very heavy feeling in my uterus. Like it was filling up and getting ready to drop. I have seen a few others with this same symptom.

Now I had kept my 2ww diary on a forum I frequent. Unfortunately we had some very "assholish" hackers who decided they needed the server for themselves and after all was said and done, everything recorded for the month of July was destroyed, gone, lost forever, including my every thought and qualm during this. So I cannot give a day to day on this, just a general experience.

Day 1 to 7 You know I have to say, except for the symptoms above, I had nothing out of the ordinary. I was tired at times, I was a little hungrier than normal at times. But generally I went about my life as I should. I continued to work since I work from home. This first week I did not leave the flat, I stayed in the whole week. I told my husband I was not taking any chances and we had everything I needed right there. See we live on the fifth floor, no elevator, that's a lot of steps to climb and I just wasn't risking it.

Day 8 We did go out, went out for lunch, did a little shopping where I searched for a skirt to wear as the bloating was still with me, it hadn't gone done from treatment and hardly anything fit me!

Day 9 to 11 More of the same, no new symptoms, the heaviness is still there. Although on day 11 I ventured out to the store and bought a few things. I had my backpack and honestly I think I bought too much as I was in pain when I arrived back at the flat, tried to carry too much. of course then I was terrified I ruined everything so relaxed the rest of the night.

Day 12 Same old stuff but Reg did bring home two pregnancy test earlier in the week and I got them out on this day and just looked at them, terrified. But I think I am going to try one tomorrow. i'm thinking positive, and last time my period arrived on Day 13, so what can it hurt? I've thought positive the whole time,from day one I've acted like I was really pregnant. We cancelled our plans for a trip north to a wedding and a visit to Hervé, already assuming it will work.

Day 13 Now I have this day in Red as it signifies the stupidity that I manage at times. So l had planned to get up early, really nervous but had two tests so figure I would try one out. If it is negative I can try again tomorrow. I was nervous but ready. So I stumbled to the toilet at 6am, pulled the pee stick out of the box, looked at it and decided "well I must pee on this part" and proceeded to pee. Well I must say it was a messy job and I must also confess that I did it wrong! I forgot to take the cap off and peed directly on the window where the results are supposed to be! So I thought, damn took the cap off and decided to just "dip" it in the toilet. I mean I must have peed two litres so there had to be more pee than water in there. That didn't work, obviously! LOL So it didn't show negative or positive, in fact it showed nothing! In my defense, I never performed a pee on a stick test before ok? When I was last pregnant so many years ago the doctor tested me. I did not confess to Reg that I screwed up, I said it was just a bad test and we'd try again the next morning. I confessed much later, but not that day :)

Day 14:Ok if tomorrow wasn't a holiday today would be my official test date. The thing that sucks about tomorrow being test day is it is a saturday and I won't get my results till Monday! Anyway, as you can tell from the no tears post, my period did not arrive yet! I'm taking that as a good sign, so good of a sign that I did a pee test today. I peed in a cup and then proceeded to test the right way. Believe it or not the pee stick showed POSITIVE yes a BFP. Although I am excited and so is Reg it is a quiet excitement as we are too scared to trust this test. We'll go to the lab tomorrow morning.

Day 15 Ok today was the official test day, went to the lab early around 8am and the technician told us we could call for the results at noon. They won't have the hcg's ready but they will be able to tell us if it is positive or not. So we headed to his parents, crossed our fingers and were very secretive and went around the house to make the phone call. Well guess what? We are going to be parents!

YES WE ARE PREGNANT!!! BIG FAT POSITIVE RESULT!!!

I want to make a note here that I did not do anything special. no:

• pineapple juice
• brazillian nuts
• accupuncture
• Zita West book or anything concerning her

Now I noted this because I see lots of women trying to do everything right, going out of their way with special and expensive things to help them along. I don't know if they really help or work but I know mine worked without any of that extra stuff.

Now what I did do:

• stopped smoking during the stimming process so I was smoke free for egg colllection although I did have a cigarette the day before they put the eggs back telling my hubby it would the last for a long long time!
• stopped drinking alcohol as soon as the eggs were collected, well I don't drink a lot anyway, and usually only with company so that wasn't a problem.
• drank lots and lots of water and milk during my stimming process, keeping myself hydrated and hoping the milk would make my eggs better quality, and they were excellent quality this time

I hope this has helped some of you and I really wish everyone luck that is going through any fertility treatment! Who knows, we have two more ivf treatments we can take for free, perhaps I'll be back in a year trying for another :) Good luck & God bless!