The dreaded two-week wait. This is the time when you wait to find out whether you are officially pregnant or not. Or in my case, it is technically the dreaded 9-day wait, because I transferred my 5-day old embryo. Even though five days are knocked off my wait time, it is still a stressful time. It’s more like a low-grade stress. I’ve been coping by zoning out in front of the TV, trying to distract myself.

 

Catch up on my previous FET posts here.

 

 

Recently I asked on Instagram whether you all chose to wait for your hCG blood results from your doctor, or if you took a home pregnancy test before your two week wait was over. I was actually surprised that most of you said that you chose not to wait, and took a home pregnancy test. A decent amount of you said that you take multiple tests during this time. Some of you said that the main reason you wanted to do it at home is that it felt so impersonal to hear the results from someone they don’t even know from the clinic. It’s understandable that you want to share that moment with your partner, whether it’s good or bad news it’s nice to actually have someone you love with you for support.

But my husband and I talked it over and we agreed that for us, it was best if we waited for official results from the doctor’s office. I wanted zero mystery, and so did he. Between false positives and false negatives, it’s just not worth it to us. I have recently come across several infertility Instagram accounts that have talked about how heart breaking it was to get a false positive with a home pregnancy test. All of the initial joy and excitement can make your heart sink so quickly with a false positive. 

During my Two Week Wait I occasionally posted on my different social media accounts with pictures from my trip, and updating everyone how everything was going. Some people messaged me and said they were surprised that I am choosing not to do a home pregnancy test and said to me, “I can’t do that, I would have gone crazy.” But I feel like I would have actually gone crazy if I did test myself. Because knowing myself, and what I used to do, I would have been testing daily like I see other women doing. Not to say they are crazy, but I would have been locked into an all-consuming circle of thoughts that usually sounded something like this:

It’s Friday night and I won’t be able to do an hCG blood test until Monday at my doctors office. I’ll call them then. Maybe I’ll try a test here at home in the mean time. Is it too early to test?

(Googles earliest time to test and learns that each home pregnancy test is different.)

Here we go…

The instructions say a faint pink line is pregnant. Is that a faint pink line? Hmm.. (squints hard)

Or is that a “shadow line?” Because I’ve heard a shadow line isn’t really pregnant.

If I turn it slightly to the side the line looks pink on the edges. So does that mean it’s actually a pink line?

Maybe if I take a photo of it and post it in my infertility group they could help me figure it out.

But what if the lighting isn’t good enough for all of them to see? 

(Takes 10 photos and analyzes the clearest one to post, then uploads for others to analyze as well).

Looks like about half of them are saying “pregnant” and congratulating me. Wow look at all those smile and heart emojis they are giving me. Maybe I am pregnant.

But it looks like a decent amount of others are saying “not pregnant” and telling me “So sorry, sending hugs your way.” 

Some people are also saying “I don’t know” or “it’s too hard to tell.”

Seems to be a real mixed bag of responses. Now I’m even more confused.

Hmmm…I see here this other person took a picture of their pregnancy test and inverted the colors to see the line better. Maybe I should try that. Dang, I already threw away the test. I’ll have to do this all over again.

And on, and on it goes…

No thanks, I don’t want to deal with that again. And even digital pregnancy tests can have false positives or say “Error.” So they aren’t completely fool-proof. Plus they are expensive. You’ve probably seen other women posting photos of their cheapies (cheap home pregnancy test strips), with hand written dates or time in their cycle when they took their test. Not one, not two, not even three, but it seems to me the average amount of cheapies used during the typical two-week wait seems to be six. That’s six days of doing a home pregnancy test. Six times to analyze a pee stick, maybe post it online, and wait to hear what others think. I’ve also seen women doing it for their entire two-week wait. 

That is a hard pass for me. I know how my mind works and I would drive myself bananas if I did it every day. Can you understand now, why I chose to say hell no to a home pregnancy test this time? I’m so over it. If you’ve followed our timeline you’ll know I’ve experienced pregnancy losses and I haven’t had a baby yet. Truth be told, a home pregnancy test means nothing to me anymore. I don’t get excited about taking them and instead I actually dread them. I don’t breathe a sigh of relief when it looks positive. Instead I question when the other shoe will drop, because based on my own experience it always does. 

For me, seeing my baby healthy and alive on the ultrasound monitor has so much more meaning than a “maybe” pink line on a pee stick. Although I don’t recall the exact statistic, I’ve heard that once you hear your baby’s heartbeat your odds of miscarriage go down quite a bit. Although I’ve never been able to make it far enough to hear my baby’s heartbeat, in the past I’ve been able to see my baby’s heartbeat in two different pregnancies. That was really amazing, to actually see life inside of me with a tiny little heartbeat fluttering away. These are the types of milestones I look forward to and I hope for again in the future.

 

Did you use a home pregnancy test during your two-week wait? If so, when did you take it? What advice would you give other women who are in their two-week wait? Comment below.