The 2 week wait
For me the 2 week wait for your results was the hardest part of the IVF process. I’ve read blogs where people have said this, but didn’t really understand it as there are no injections, no procedures!
After embryo transfer, day 1-2 my ovaries felt uncomfortable and I began reading everything my body did. Every twitch, pain I kept thinking ‘is it working’. I went back to work, as the clinic informed us to lead a normal healthy lifestyle, but take it easy. No heavy lifting, hot tubs, coffee etc.
I started to think about everything I did. And I started to have anxiety. Day 2-4 was very busy at work, and I began to think about what ‘take it easy’ meant. Work was stressful, but then I had the added stress of ‘is work stress going to cause a negative result?’, ‘is work stress healthy for me?’
Due to anxiety I struggled breathing too. Walking up one flight of stairs would make my chest tight, walking into office from the car park would make my chest tight. The clinic informed me to drink plenty of water.
Day 6 I started spotting. I googled this for hours. What does this mean? Is it too late for implantation bleeding? Is this the beginning of a period? I had my fingers and toes crossed hoping it was implantation bleeding but deep down I knew it was too late for this, and it was the beginning of my period. My husband has never been so interested in the flow of my period until now! Every time I went to the bathroom I would give him updates. ‘I’m still spotting brown’, ‘I’m sporting red/brown’, ‘Very little spotting’.
Blood test 1) 19th Dec
Day 10 Results day! I was excited, nervous but deep down we knew this didn’t work. I had cramps and was still spotting, but for it to be implantation bleeding it should have been earlier but also only last 2-3days.
We both worked from home in the afternoon so we would be together when we got our results on the phone. We anxiously waited. At 3pm I finally got the call. I put it out loudspeaker so we could both listen in together.
The nurse informed me it was neither positive nor negative. My HCJ was 22 and I was in the grey area. In needed to be over 50 for a positive, or 0 for a negative. We were devastated. We were hoping to have closure on this today. The nurse explained I needed to have another blood test in 2 days’ time, and hopefully we will have our results then.
We still had a tiny bit of hope, however this went to no hope when I began to bleed heavily in the 2 days before my next blood test.
Blood test 2) 21st Dec
On the 21st December we waited for our results again. The phone rang, we put it on loudspeaker…. And my HCJ Level was 32. I was still in the grey area and therefore still didn’t have closure. My heart sank – ‘why is this happening to me’ – we just want closure now!
The nurse had informed us, it is very unlikely this will be a positive result however to completely close this round of IVF they needed a negative result of 0. She therefore suggested if we came back to the clinic for another blood test in a weeks’ time (due to bank holidays around the festive period).
At this point, my husband and I knew it was a negative but felt really low about not having the confirmed result.
We agreed I didn’t need to act like I was pregnant and I would have a few drinks at xmas and we would go on a spa break to unwind and relax and put this round of IVF to bed. We informed our close family and friends of our negative result too as we were fed up of providing everyone with updates everytime I had a blood test.
Blood test 3) 31st Dec
We felt this was really unnecessary and was for a paperwork purposes. We finally got a negative result.
The end of round 1!
Its really sad we didn’t get a positive. However we didn’t take it too badly. I think this is because 1) we had frozen eggs so the next time wont be as lengthy 2) as I started spotting/ bleeding the news of a negative result was gradual and 3) I kept reminding ourselves there is only a 30% success rate!
We are now both feeling positive for the new year, new start and hopefully our little tiny toes will begin developing at some point this year. We have been informed I need to have 2 periods ( of which 1 was in the 2 week wait) so ensure all the meds our out of my system before we can start the next round with our frozen eggs.
What will we do differently?
I think the next time round, I will take the two week wait off work to avoid any stress. Part of me feels the stress at work caused a negative result. You can’t predict if you will be busy or quiet at work – by chance Day 1-3 of my two week wait work got incredibly busy and stressed myself out worrying about the impact it would have on our result.
Also, especially towards to end, I felt like I had a list of people to call as those close to us waited anxiously for our results too. I didn’t like this at the end – so I think the next time round we will inform few people of exact dates; blood tests, transfer, collection etc.
Fingers crossed, 2019 is our year xxxxx
Annie's IVF Journey 