One of the most wondered points of IVF treatment is the question of when the pregnancy news will be received. After the embryo transfer to the expectant mother, an impatient process begins. I wonder if I am pregnant and when will I know the outcome? You can find the answers to your questions in our article.

How Long It Takes to Learn the Outcome of the Treatment?

IVF treatment includes a process starting with examinations, egg follow-ups, egg collection and embryo transfer. The period, including the start of treatment and the day of transfer, lasts for about 1-2 months. In some cases, the embryo can be frozen and transferred after 1-2 months if the freeze-all method is applied.

After embryo transfer, a period of 10-12 days is enough to learn the pregnancy process. With the blood b-hCG test, we can find out whether our expectant mother is pregnant or not.

What is Embryo Transfer?

Embryo transfer is the last step of IVF treatment. Embryo is obtained by fertilization of the eggs collected during assisted hatching process with sperm in the laboratory. Fertilized embryos are placed into mother’s womb with a help of catheter. This procedure is called embryo transfer.

When is Embryo Transfer Applied?

Embryo transfer is generally applied either on the 3rd or 5th day after the fertilization. Ideally, it should be done on the 5th day which we call blastocyst.

Because on this period, it is easier to choose embryo with the top quality and with the best chance of adherence to the uterus. Our aim is to have embryo transfer on the 5th day. However, depending on the women’s age, quality and quantity of the embryos, transfer can be done on the 3rd day.

When Pregnancy is Determined After Embryo Transfer?

If the embryo transfer is done on the 5th day (blastocyst) and if there are enough conditions, on the same or next day with the adherence of embryo to the uterus, pregnancy occurs. However, to be able to diagnose the patient with pregnancy, 10-12 days later hormone levels starts changing, best day for the pregnancy test is 10 – 12 days after the transfer. On this period b-hCG test is applied to determine your pregnancy.

The result of this test is not precise, few days later test should be repeated if the hormone levels are increasing comments can be made by your doctor on early stages of your pregnancy. Along with this, for IVF centres ultrasonographic examination applied on the 8th week to check pouch and heart-beat is more precise.

When Does 5th Day Embryo Adherence?

Embryo transfer applied on the early stages, brought the risk of having multiple pregnancy (twins, triplets). With the limit of the number of embryos that can be transferred, and couples with limited number of embryos, transfer procedure was applied on the 5th day (blastocyst) period. This helps choosing the top-quality embryo and also the embryo with the best adherence ability.

What are the Symptoms of Pregnancy Following Embryo Transfer?

Following embryo transfer, approximately 12 days later pregnancy test is applied. Because we are not expecting any hormone releasing before 12th day, there are no symptoms. Patients who are experiencing, nausea, vomiting, groin pain, swelling and sensitivity on breasts are caused by hormonal treatment.

Following embryo transfer, especially on the early periods, one of the most common complaints of the patients are groin and waist pain. This is very common on pregnancy. Generally, following embryo transfer if the transfer was applied on blastocyst period (5th day). Within 48 hours implantation occurs. Following implantation Beta HCG hormone starts increasing in blood and with blood test, pregnancy can be determined.

On this period, we cannot mention any specific complaints caused by pregnancy however post transfer period, if you experience brown, light coloured bleeding this can be implantation bleeding in other word it can be pregnancy bleeding. This will be proved by pregnancy test.

With very low Beta HCG values, nausea, vomiting, decrease in blood pressure are not very common. As this hormone levels increases these symptoms becomes more evident. However, on early stages they are not common. On the early stages after the embryo transfer, there are no obvious symptoms that suggests you are pregnant. Groin and waist pain can be psychological symptoms that makes you think you are pregnant should not be considered as symptoms for pregnancy. For pregnancy, generally Beta HCG tests applied on the 12th day are more accurate. When a patient has pregnancy hormones on her blood, will start having symptoms as those levels increase.