Thursday, May 24, 2007

THE FIRST CYCLE

After their embryo transfer, our recipients, Jenny and Erin, stayed in a hotel near the clinic. To give themselves the best chance of the procedure working, Erin was on bed rest for a couple of days until it was time to fly home.

Now began the two week wait. Until the pregnancy test two weeks after the transfer, there is no indication whether or not a woman who has completed an embryo transfer is actually pregnant. This is a nail-bitingly stressful time. The intended mothers would be cataloguing each twinge, wondering if a bit of spotting was a sign that the embryo was implanting in the womb, or being rejected, and generally on pins and needles.

Many women can't wait the full two weeks and use early home pregnancy tests to try and get an indication of whether or not the transfer worked. Jenny and Erin were no exception.

The problem with these tests is they are not certain. It is hard to tell exactly when the developing early pregnancy might produce enough hormones to register on the test. In other cases, a "chemical pregnancy" produced by the drugs one takes to do the IVF cycle could indicate a pregnancy where none exists.

With all of this in mind, I waited to hear what Jenny and Erin's early tests were revealing.