Good morning ladies!
How are you guys doing? I'm doing okay. Still headaches that come and go and a very hard time to get up in the morning (I feel SO tired at times) but other than that everything's fine!
Angie: Thanks for sharing that info with me! It really reassures me that quite a few women here have had longer stimmings. I feel less abnormal that way! yay!
AMC: I'm sorry that you lost one.... nevertheless, seeing that little heartbeat must have been so comforting! And have an explanation for the cramping and bleeding! I'm glad that the ultrasound was reassuring for you. Congratulations! How are you feeling? Not too much ms I hope? Fatigue?
Cookholmes: thanks for the link, it is amazing! it's great to see so many stages of the fetal development and have them match personalized dates!

And ahem... the website is
Canadian!
Shantala; ew, sounds like you had a rough night... sorry about your DH's kidney stones... is he in pain, the poor thing? Oooooh... your apt is coming dearest! Only 45 minutes till you know! I'm thinking of you and I'll be waiting for news!
Hello
faithful! Welcome to this thread! I'm really glad you joined and I'm sure you'll find tons of support and useful info on this forum and website. The 2 weeks' wait is a killer, you're right, and I think that's when one's patience and nerves are tested the most. As for do's and don'ts, you might want to check the thread (sticky) in this forum (general forum... it's at the top of the list). Be careful about what you read there, though, because depending on the clinics, the doctors, and so on, advices differ greatly. I think the general rule would be, do what your body tells you to do and as far as restrictions goes, use your judgement and try to limit your stress (and stress also includes limiting yourself too much by fear of ruining your chances). Finally, as far as doing many IVFs in a row goes... not all of us have done it many times. It's my first IVF and I'm not the only one. Remember that everybody's case is different. Good luck!
beachbaby: I'm sorry that you're ill at the moment! Rest is the key! I wish you lots of spoiling!
Aunty: my dear... how did your appointment go? I'm with you in thoughts!
Emma: here's what my pharmacist told me, and it's the clearest and cleverest explanation I've heard so far. When you test for pregnancy, as you probably know, you want to detect HCG, also called the pregnancy hormone for that very reason. HCG is secreted by your uterus after implantation occurred. When you give yourself the trigger shot (usually with HCG, though certain clinics use another drug), the hormone stays for a maximum of 7 days in your system. Given that your transfer probably occurred very close to the end of that 7 days period, it's still far too soon to do a pregnancy test, even if the drugs would not be in your system anymore. Think about a natural pregnancy... you would test on your AF due date, so something like 14 days after ovulation. So in an IVF cycle, you would test 14 days after your EC. However, this might still be too soon and here's why.
HCG is released by the uterus as a byproduct (for want of a better word), in the blood stream. Your kidneys then receive that byproduct and eliminate it by passing it into your urine. When you do a HPT, you're testing with urine of course, but you're in fact trying to detect the byproduct of a byproduct of a byproduct.... (uterus/blood/urine) You can see how the traces of HCG can be very faint in a HPT at the very beginning of your pregnancy, hence why so many pregnant women test negative up to 40, 50 days in their menstrual cycle.
So the pharmacist told me that if I wanted to do an HPT the day of the appointed blood test to prepare myself mentally, the positive I could get would most probably
not be a false positive because the trigger shot drugs would be out of my system since 11 days. However, I would have very high chances to have a false negative because HCG would still not be traceable enough in my urine... but it would be traceable in my blood. That's what really made up my mind about doing a HPT. I'll not give myself an unnecessary shock before the blood test by having a false negative. I'll rely on the blood test only. But medically, if you do an HPT 14 days after EC and get a positive, then you're most probably pregnant; it's not the drugs in your system. Hope that helps!
Okay! Gotta go ladies, but I'll stick around! Big hugs to all of you! And tons of patience to those in the 2 weeks from hell!
Sophie