After 5 failed IUIs, before conceiving and giving birth to her son, Barb offered this advice to fellow Choice Moms in the book "Choice Mom Guide to Fertility":
Posted February 2, 2010 at 10:30 AM
After 5 failed IUIs, before conceiving and giving birth to her son, Barb offered this advice to fellow Choice Moms in the book "Choice Mom Guide to Fertility":
For anyone who is scrutinizing every little twinge and nausea during the two week wait, you should be aware of some timing. It takes the egg a minimum 5-6 days to travel to the uterus and implant. It's usually more like 7-10 days, since the fertilized egg really can't "hatch" and implant itself before about day 6 (which is why day 5 blastocyst IVF transfers are more successful than 3-day IVF transfers).
If you are feeling any "symptoms" before day 6 or 7, they are not necessarily pregnancy symptoms but symptoms of the rising hormone levels in your body that are part of your normal cycle. Progesterone is a hormone that your body naturally produces during the second half of your menstrual cycle and it's responsible for many of the symptoms of PMS... which are the same symptoms of pregnancy.
I know it's excruciating to be waiting for two full weeks, and how much you analyze and scrutinize every little twinge, because I did it too. But really, until about day 6-7, any symptoms you have are not symptoms of pregnancy but symptoms of the rising progesterone in your body.
HCG is the hormone that will spike when the embryo actually implants, and that usually happens around day 7-10, which is why home pregnancies (which measure HCG) don't work before then.
Good luck to anyone in the 2 week wait. I really feel for you because I've been there many, many times and it is one of the hardest parts of this process.
We ask you enter a valid email to reduce spam. This email will not show. But please remember this is a public page. If you do NOT want your comment to be approved for public viewing, indicate that in the comment and the administrator will be the only one to read it.
NOTE that we just learned of a bug involving yahoo addresses. They are apparently filtered by Google forwarding usually as spam. So if you have a yahoo email and you post a comment for approval, it might take longer for me to discover it for approval. We're working on solving this issue.
Comment Etiquette: Please do not post spam. Please keep the comments on-topic. Please do not post unrelated questions. Anything mean-spirited or off topic will not be approved.
Posted February 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM by Ayana
Thanks for this reality check- this has been an agonizing time. I cry almost daily wondering what will happen when I finally take the test on March 1st (I refuse to take it early!) I have told very few people, so I mostly have to contend with my own imagination. I had many "symptoms" last week but I'm sure it was too early. I felt "pregnant" about 15 minutes after my IUI. The power of the mind is amazing!