To Test or Not to Test?

A common obsession among surrogates is taking home pregnancy tests within a few short days of embryo transfer. Considering it takes 3-5 days for a transferred blastocyst embryo to implant, you would think that would deter testing too early but that isn’t the case. The die hard “pee on a stick” addicts start as early as 3 days post transfer and calculate down to the hour when that would be. They also take the time of day into account when taking a home pregnancy test. There are fans of first morning urine testing, and fans of evening urine testing, and the rogue ones that test throughout the day, several times a day. Sometimes home pregnancy tests can throw a false negative if the hCG levels aren’t high enough yet or a false positive if you are experiencing a chemical pregnancy, both of which can have devastating emotional rollercoasters attached.

But there are also those that chose to wait for Beta (hCG) blood test results and not test at home at all. Some IPs request that the surrogate not take home pregnancy tests or they would rather not know the results if she does test. Some surrogates simply chose to wait for Beta so as not to obsess over false negatives and help keep anxiety levels low.

What about you? Would you rather see the first signs of the body creating hCG? Or would you rather wait for numbers and be able to see the rate of increase over the course of a few days? It all comes down to personal preference and should be discussed with between IPs and surrogate prior to transfer.