Beta Test
Julie S’ Surrogacy Journey Vol. 8
On the morning of 12 days post embryo transfer (or 12dpt), I was finally off to the lab to get my blood drawn. This test is the “official” pregnancy test issued by the reproductive clinic. I had been taking home pregnancy tests for a while and was pretty certain we would have a good result. This test checks my blood for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This is the hormone released after the embryo implants into the uterus! It is also the same hormone that causes a home pregnancy test to show up positive, though a home pregnancy test is considered to be unreliable because you cannot see the value of the hCG hormone.
I did not share this with my Intended Parents because they wanted to wait for the official blood test results. Because of this, I was extra excited because I knew they would receive great news in just a matter of hours!
Within an hour, my blood results were ready and already uploaded in my patient portal. This isn’t always the case, sometimes you will have to wait until the reproductive clinic calls you with the results. I had already asked my intended parents if they wanted me to tell them the results as soon as they became available and they said yes. My first hCG results were 880! We were officially “pregnant”! My IPs were so excited, and they were so grateful to have had another successful embryo transfer. (Note: if the result would have been negative, the clinic would have been the ones to give the IPs this news.)
A short 48 hours later, I was back at the lab for my second blood test. Clinics usually require 2 blood tests, taken 2 days apart. The goal here is to see the hCG value rising. HCG that is doubling every 48-72 hours is usually indicative of a healthy pregnancy. Once again, my results were done fairly quickly and I had the honor of telling my IPs that the number was 1918!
The clinic called to congratulate all of us and to go over the adjusted dose of medication I was to continue taking. So far, everything is going great! Check back next week to see how our first ultrasound went!