Want a new way to torture an infertile? Get her to take a pregnancy blood test just after her period has arrived.
You’ve just completed a long and extensive fertility treatment or cycle. You thought you had experienced at least three fake pregnancy symptoms so you were certain that you almost had a chance this month. You had hope…a mild case…but still hope. And then it happened.
Spotting. Cramping. World War three camped out in your underpants. Your period had arrived.
But your beta blood test is scheduled for Wednesday and you still have to go, just to make sure you’re really not pregnant. Your fertility doctor needs to know for sure. And then you start to question yourself. My period is a little less heavy today. Is it really my period? But I had all those cramps a few days ago? My breasts are still hurting. You are 95% sure it’s your period but you still have 5% hope. And you’ve already mourned this cycle. You’ve already sobbed on the toilet seat, cried in front of a client during a business board meeting and been hysterical after watching a car commercial about a mom taking her kids to soccer.
You curse all the way to the blood test. Sadly, watch a lab technician named Pollina poke you in the vein and send a special fertile prayer to the test tube filled with blood to give you a positive. And then you wait for the call. “Sorry, Uterusly-Challenged Sally, but your blood test came back negative,” Cheerful Fertility Nurse says. “Call us on your next day one.” Sobbing occurs again.
Word of advice. Next time you get your period before your scheduled beta blood test, tell your fertility clinic that instead of going for the test, they can just stick your stained underpants in your file instead.
omg you have ripped the thoughts from my head. so true yet so sad. on my last failed fet i told the nurses that i refused to go through the indignity of another blood test just to say i wasn’t pregnant. fortunately they agreed!
LOL @ sending the stained underpants in!!! That’s a good one!
In my case, I never bled before my beta tests. However, I also was addicted to peeing on a stick. So basically, I would have 3 tests at home giving me a negative result…but still dragged my sorry butt in to get the blood test. Of course, there still was that 5% of hope. I would always tell myself that maybe my embryo was a late implanter…and so only the blood test would pick it up….
This is absolutely the worst part. Especially when the nurse doing the draw doesn’t know so gives you a big smile and a ‘good luck’.
My clinic will not start the next cycle until you do it so I have now had 14 not pregnant and I very well know it pregnancy tests.
I never bled before my blood tests, only because of the progesterone supps. But even after 5 negative tests I dragged my @$$ to the office to take the blood test. And after the IVF, I didn’t test that same morning and I thought that just *maybe* this could be it (but I was only fooling myself). And THIS took the cake….I am off the day of my blood test. They scheduled me for 8 am. DH and I drive the 35 minutes to the smaller office that’s closest to home. The phlebotamist isn’t there…and she’s the only one who can get my tiny rolling veins! (Or I should say VEIN, because there is only ONE that works). Of course as I predicted, I get stuck 4 times, only to have to be stuck in the hand in the end. Oh, and in the middle of trying to stick me she explained to me that I wouldn’t get my results back until the afternoon!!! I am a complete mess at this point. Finally they get my blood. They say 1 pm….I tell them I just can’t handle this and she said “Do you want to call US?” and I jumped at the offer. At 1 pm, DH and I drive to a church near his grandma’s (that’s where we had gone at lunchtime) and we call. They say that they won’t have the results til 3. I said this is ridiculous! I find out that the lab worker from the main office had to leave there at 1 pm and head down to the smaller office to process everything there….and guess what? We practically PASSED the main office to get to DH’s grandma’s!!! If someone had just given me the courtesy of letting me know the exact situation BEFORE I got my friggin blood drawn, I would have headed straight for the main office that morning so I didn’t have the torture of waiting all day for a PREGNANCY TEST RESULT!!!! I said this isn’t some friggin E2 or progresterone test, this is a PREGNANCY TEST for Gods sake!!!!!
After calling multiple times between 3 and 4, I’m SUCH a HUGE mess, and finally DH gets the “it was negative, she can stop taking the Progesterone shots” — of course, with me on speakerphone.
I’m sorry that was SO long. But it fit the bill, and it felt good to get it out.
oh and of course I had to brace myself and get myself worked up every.single.time.I called….only to find out it wasn’t ready yet. Of course they ask “Well we’ll call you when its ready” and I blow up and say “NO, I specifically am calling so YOU DON’T HAVE TO CALL ME!! So that IIII am in charge of when I find out”
okay, I need to calm down….
I just did my first IVF cycle in December. I had a feeling I want pg, but I held out hope. On the 17th, I had my blood test but because I had already taken an hpt and it was BFN, I knew the result of the beta. The nurse called and yep, BFN. But! Per their protocol, I had to go back 4 days later for a second test. I had stopped my PIO injections and had been spotting.
Amazingly, the torture got worse. My second test came back positive. The nurse told me to go back on my PIO, and just ‘pretend that your pregnant.’ and ‘this probably won’t end well.’
Yeah ok. All didn’t end well. I miscarried Christmas Eve; which also happened to be the day that my sister in law decided it was a good day to call and ambling she’s pg. And she had known what we just went thru….
Oh Angela…that just sucks
What a freaking roller coaster! I m/c our first pregnancy 2 days before Christmas Eve…and still had to go and smile while there were like 5 kids under the age of a year and a half there…sucked!
Mine says to cancel the blood draw if my period starts first.
That would be me today.
Blood test at the clinic tomorrow. Took the home test this morning (I never like to be blindsided when they call me with the “official” results at work). Negative.
Four years of trying, two years of ART, two miscarriages and four rounds of IVF.
Stick a fork (needle?) in me, I’m done.
Who writes these?! They are hilarious and so true. It’s the worst part of the whole treatment cycle is knowing the result will be negative and still getting the blood draw!
ahahahahahaha….that test is the worst. I would gladly hand over my underpants instead.
Heids, my heart goes out to you. I am so sorry you have been through so much! I went through my first IVF cycle around Thanksgiving. I started bleeding a ton three days before my test (apparently it is because they beef up the uterus so much for implantation) and was so upset I almost passed out in the shower. I waited two days to call my doc, just because I was in denial. They still made me come in. Of course, it was negative. I told the nurse there was no possible way ANYTHING could be left in there for how much I had bled. She said they have seen every circumstance where people are still pregnant, and there was still a small chance. UGGGGGG! Of course it was negative!!! I could have mailed them all the HPTs that I had taken that week before AF. Wouldn’t that have been sufficient?
Just Us Two- Who writes this blog? I think it’s some girl with a strange sense of humor. Thanks for reading!
Twitter:
@InfertileNaomi
Like Cherbear, I’ve always been on progesterone after my IUI’s so I’m ready to jump every time the phone rings. From now on, I am putting a calling restriction on blood test days. Friends and family are NOT allowed to call when I am waiting to hear results…
great post! my worst was the time I had a crazy ectopic pregnancy that wouldn’t go away. And I lost the pregnancy of course, but tested positive for longer than I was actually pregnant. Who knew that could happen? And then, you’re hoping for the opposite: for the numbers to go DOWN so you can try again. It’s just wrong! all wrong!
“Spotting. Cramping. World War three camped out in your underpants. Your period had arrived.”
HAHAHA boy this made me laugh – well just the way you said it, it definitely feels like this at times! I needed this thank you. It’s just such a huge psychological roller coaster huh.
Having worked at fertility clinics for years, I can say that the worst calls a nurse has to make are the calls to fertility patients to give negative pregnancy results. Even though giving the results is so much easier than getting them, it is still hard to know that you are crushing someone’s dream of getting pregnant, at least for that month.
Ha ha, love it! Especially the undies part. Although I think I’ll save my 3 days worth of used tampons to give to them just to prove I have in fact got my period 3 days before the blood test!
ROFLMAO!!!! I just had a similar experience with my nurse, here is the short version. I went in for baseline b/w and u/s only for my nurse to tell me that I had a thick lining for cd3 asking me have you started bleeding yet? Nah I am just here for kicks! I love getting stuck with needles and getting a wand up my whoo-haa! While bleeding like a stuck pig! Lots of fun! Oh well according to your lining looks like you haven’t started bleeding yet, well according to my bed sheets the last few nights I am pretty positive I am! Well we will have to do a beta to make sure….uh seriously?? Yeah it’s protocol….Ugh! Obviously it was negative! I knew I should have brought the bed sheets into the office!
It would be so easy to submit the perfect facts referring to this good topic with assistance of article submission, but from time to time people select automatic article submission. And I do not really know what should be better.
I know this post is very old. I just wanted to thank the originator for bringing a smile to my face (a huge challenge these days). I don’t have a uternine issue, my problem is the ovaries (high FSH / low ovarian reserve) at age 31. But I am equally frustrated with the dumb protocols that seem to be the standard policies for these doctors. In my case, I’m still hoping to even get to the IVF stage… For the past 24 hours since my doctor’s appointment, I’ve been left to wonder why on earth my doctor felt the need to inform me that my body has exactly one shot to show it can/will respond to the IVF meds (I’ve never used any fertility drugs before) and if I don’t bring up enough eggs I will be kicked to the curb permanently (the doctor will determine conclusively I’m not a candidate for IVF with my own eggs)??? What possible benefit could there be in dropping this type of bomb on me before I even take the meds? Arrrgghh!!!