Home pregnancy test after ivf frozen embryo transfer

Orchid offers advanced genetic testing for couples who want their child to have the best shot of a healthy life. As part of our “Pregnancy and Fertility” series, we distill down your fertility treatment options and help you navigate the complex process.

How Do Pregnancy Tests Work?

As soon as a woman conceives, her body begins to undergo drastic changes. Although, she won’t be able to feel them happening — at least, not at first.

One of the very first signs of pregnancy is your body’s production of the pregnancy hormone human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG). The amount of hCG that your body begins producing will increase rapidly, doubling every two days as your pregnancy progresses.

If you’re doing fertility treatments like IVF, the recommendation is to do a beta hCG quantitative blood test ordered by your fertility doctor.

What about at-home urine pregnancy tests? Will it be accurate after IVF?

At-home pregnancy tests work by detecting the hCG in your urine. It involves placing the absorbent tip in the urine stream for 5-10 seconds, or depending on the test used, collecting urine into a clean, dry container and dipping the absorbent tip for 5-20 seconds. After 1-3 minutes the at-time will give you a result that’s positive or negative.

Urine pregnancy tests are not recommended for confirming pregnancy after embryo transfer since they’re not accurate in the earliest stages of pregnancy. False positive or negative results are common with urine-based tests early in pregnancy, which causes unnecessary confusion for fertility patients.

How Early Can I Take a Pregnancy Test After IVF?

If you did a fresh embryo transfer:

The beta hCG quantitative blood test is ordered 14 days after your egg retrieval. It typically takes 48-72 hours after the embryo transfer for the embryo to implant.

If you did a frozen embryo transfer:

The beta hCG quantitative blood test is ordered 9-13 days after your embryo transfer, depending on the developmental stage of the embryo when it was transferred. For blastocysts (day 5-6 embryos), it’s recommended to take the pregnancy test 9 days after embryo transfer.

After that initial pregnancy, comes a series of if/then procedures:

• If the initial pregnancy test is positive, the test is repeated two days later. 
• If the hcG levels have doubled and are rising appropriately, then then the first OB ultrasound will follow about two weeks later. This is when your doctor can confirm an intrauterine pregnancy, check the size, and confirm a fetal heartbeat. 
• If your BhCG levels are not adequately rising, your fertility doctor will continue to administer blood tests to determine whether the pregnancy is viable and rule out the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy.
• If the pregnancy test is negative, you will be directed to stop all medications, and your doctor can discuss considering a new IVF cycle to try again.

When do I “graduate” from IVF treatment and start seeing my OB/GYN?

Your fertility doctor will perform two ultrasounds: one at around 6 weeks and 3 days of pregnancy, and another at 8 weeks and 3 days.

After that second OB ultrasound, your OB/GYN will begin overseeing your continued medical care throughout your pregnancy.

What to Expect After an Embryo Transfer

During the two weeks after your embryo transfer and leading up to your scheduled test appointment, you can expect to feel similar symptoms of menstruation. Those symptoms would include heaviness or fullness in your pelvis which may be secondary to the ovaries and/or enlarging of uterus, fatigue, bloating, mood changes, appetite changes, breast tenderness, cramps, light spotting, muscle aches, and nausea.

The waiting game of not knowing if you are pregnant after the embryo transfer, is often very difficult. However, you can plan accordingly for that “two weeks wait” to be less anxiety-ridden by planning activities that you enjoy and spending time with your close loved ones. Get enough sleep and no alcohol, no smoking, no recreational drugs, limit caffeine to one cup daily, and avoid heavy lifting and strenuous exercise.

Fertility treatment and reproductive medicine have come a long way since IVF was first introduced over 40 years ago. If you are planning on starting or growing your family, check out our expert guides on all things genetics and fertility. Today, advanced genetic screening is now available to couples who want their child to have the best shot of a healthy life. Explore how Orchid helps you conceive with confidence.

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While all IVF patients understand that not every IVF cycle results in success, in their heart of hearts, every patient wants to get pregnant every cycle. After months or years of having trouble getting pregnant, the two weeks after the embryo transfer can seem like an eternity and can be very nerve-wracking.

Am I pregnant or not? Have the embryos implanted or not?

The suspense can be even worse than the pain of the IVF injections!

Most patients would love to have a test that will allow them to find out if they are pregnant immediately. But testing for pregnancy after an embryo transfer doesn't really work that way. To understand why patients (and their doctors) still have to suffer through a two-week wait to find out the outcome of an IVF cycle, let’s look at the biological basis of pregnancy tests and how they work.

What We Measure in Pregnancy Tests

A pregnancy test measures the amount of beta hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) that is in your body. hCG is a hormone, which is produced by the trophectoderm cells of the embryo. It is produced in detectable quantities only after the embryo implants. Since implantation occurs 3 - 8 days after the embryo transfer (depending upon whether you have had a Day 3 transfer or a blastocyst transfer), this means that the hCG produced by your embryo will be first detectable in your bloodstream only after this time.

As your pregnancy progresses, the amount of hCG in your system will increase. At 10 days past ovulation (DPO), for example, the average woman has an hCG measurement of around 25 mIU. This amount doubles to 50 mIU at 12 days past ovulation, and then doubles again to 100 mIU at around two weeks past ovulation. Every woman’s body is different, and there’s a lot of variation in hCG levels from woman to woman!

Home Tests vs. Blood Tests

Home pregnancy tests measure the level of hCG in urine. Different pregnancy tests have different levels of sensitivity which means if you use a home pregnancy test that is sensitive to 100 mIU, it will not tell you that you are pregnant if your level of hCG is only 75 mIU. These tests cannot measure a level lower than 25, so they do not become accurate until a few days after embryo implantation.

A negative result before then is meaningless, since there would not be a high enough level of hCG to detect even if you were pregnant. If your test is negative, you should retest after 2 days. This is why taking a pregnancy test too early can lead to inaccurate results. I know it’s hard to wait those extra days, and you may want to try much earlier. It’s fine to do this, but please don’t assume that a negative result means that you are not pregnant.

This is also why blood tests for hCG are much better than urine tests. Not only are they more reliable, accurate and sensitive; they also give the doctor a number, which he can measure and monitor.

Why Pregnancy Test Timing Matters

If blood tests are so sensitive, then why not do a blood test for hCG 1 week after the embryo transfer? Unfortunately, doing a blood test for hCG so soon does not make any sense. This is because there will still be some hCG in your body as a result of the hCG trigger shot (Pregnyl or Ovidrel) which the doctor gave you to trigger off ovulation 36 hours prior to egg collection.

If you test too early, the test will always be positive, as this hCG will show up in the test and give rise to false hopes! This is why the doctor needs to repeat the blood test for HCG after 48-72 hours. In a healthy pregnancy, the hCG levels will continue to rise. If they do not do so, this means this is not a viable pregnancy.

Finally, remember that you should do the test even if you bleed. Bleeding can sometimes occur during pregnancy as well – and just because you have had bleeding or spotting does not mean you are not pregnant!

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