Posts from — August 2008

BFN.

Big Fat Negative.

There I finally get to use that acronym. So officially, our first IUI attempt yielded a BFN. The home pregnancy tests were proven correct, that’s the good news.

I went in at about 10:30am for the beta-hCG. After running errands, I got home at about 2:00pm with no messages yet. I knew the clinic closes at 4:00pm, so I wondered if they were going to call me today. At 3:45pm when I still did not receive a call, I initiated the call as I was still hoping…. Anyhow, BFN confirmed by beta-hCG results. Bummer…

If it is BFN, do they really tarry in calling? If it is BFP, could it be that they excitedly call early? I guess I’ll never know.

At least, I can now stop putting in those progesterone plugs. Phew!

You Give and Take Away
Last Sunday, one of the songs at church was Matt Redman’s Blessed Be the Name. I love this song and I was prepared to rock it! Of course, it was upbeat! Before the Coda though, the worship leader interjected “here’s the part of the song that is sometimes difficult to sing” - and I knew it was not just musically, but also figuratively:

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

I just had to close my eyes to sing that part. Tears were welling in my eyes. A few were unstoppable and fell down. That coda just means a lot to me.

He gives fertility or takes it away.

He gives a pregnancy or allows it to miscarry.

He gives a baby or not.

All of these things, we cannot know. Yet one thing I know, He gives me a hope and a future. And so, my heart will choose to say, indeed, blessed is Your name!

beta-hCG test is scheduled for today…

I’m not really excited to go since the home pregnancy test results in the last few days were NEGATIVE, regardless of what HPT I used - First Response Early Result, New Choice (the dollar-store kind) or the First Response Rapid Result. (It is going to be a miracle if I am part of the 7% who gets a false negative even after the 2WW.)

But I guess I have to go to get a confirmation (I will be very pleasantly surprised if I test positive!)…
…so that I can stop using the progesterone plugs
…so that I can “welcome” Miss Flo
…so that I can go back to exercising
…so that we can regroup and rethink Plan B
…so that we can move on to the next step…

I will let you know later today what the final results are…

There was a time when a woman had to wait until she misses her first period and then go to the doctor to have a pregnancy test.  That pregnancy test required killing a rabbit! But … we’ve come a long way, babe, and we can do our own test in the privacy of our own homes with the home pregnancy testers!  And sparing the rabbit, too!

However, home pregnancy testers (HPT) are NOT created equal.

Basically, some HPTs will give you results earlier (as early as 5 days) than others because they are more sensitive.  Of course, the more sensitive HPTs are typically more expensive. So eventually, it all boils down to:
- you want to know earlier if you are pregnant and pay a little bit more
- you can wait till the end of the 2 week wait and use the regular and cheaper HPTs or maybe, just have the blood test then (without using any HPTs!)

How HPTs Work
HPTs work like litmus paper in the sense that the tester needs to be wetted by the sample - in this case, the woman’s urine. It can be done by 1) urinating on the tester stick, 2) collecting urine sample and dipping the tester stick or 3) collecting urine sample and using a dropper to transfer into the tester stick.
The similarity ends there.  The HPT’s mechanism for determining pregnancy is through the detection of the pregnancy hormone, human Chorionic Gonadrotopin or hCG, in the urine.  The tester sticks are treated specially to be able to do this.

hCG is produced by the woman’s body once conception starts and its amount increases at a rapid rate - typically doubling every 2-3 days during the early pregnancy. The hCG builds up in the woman’s body that eventually, it can be passed in the urine. 

hCG levels peaks between the 8th to 11th week of the pregnancy before it slowly decreases throughout the pregnancy. Here are some guidelines from the American Pregnancy Association:

Most HPTs reportedly can detect as low as 25mIU of hCG in urine. The detection could be as early 4 days prior to or as late as 1 day after the expected period. 

One of the  HPTs that claims detection as early as 5 days prior to the expected period is the First Response Early Result (FRER) Pregnancy Test.  The mechanism it claims to use for increased sensitivity (or earlier detection) is its ability to detect another variant of the pregnancy hormone, hyperglycosylated hCG or hCG-H. hCG-H is reported to be produced even before the primary pregnancy hormone, hCG, is produced.

How Sensitive HPTs Are
Interestingly, the product packaging and inserts of the HPTs rarely claim a minimum analytical sensitivity. Nor do their own websites. There are other websites though that have listed such official sensitivity of different brands as checked versus their manufacturers.

I’m a tables-and-graphs person, so I tend to put more confidence on information that reflects thorough research.  Here’s a study done and published in 2005 showing First Response Early Result (FRER) and Clearblue Easy Earliest Results as having more accurate and higher sensitivity results.

You may say, that’s 2005 data. True.  The other manufacturers may have improved since then. As for me, I think I will stick with FRER until I can find a more recent study showing the new best thing! Moreover, my quick research on the HPT prices did not really give a significant price difference between FRER and the others.   (Except for the dollar store kind, of course!)

Really, it is your money, so you can buy whatever you want.  I was just saying!

Is the Blood Pregnancy Test Redundant?
NO. You still need to get the blood pregnancy test as it is the most sensitive pregnancy test, detecting as low as 5mIU of hCG.  So it confirms or disagrees with the HPT’s results. The blood test is still the most definitive detector of pregnancy.

Moreover, HPTs just tells you whether you are pregnant or not. Yes or No. It does not measure the amount of the hCG in your body.

So, the required beta-HCG is still necessary because that is when the quantitative level of the pregnancy hormones are baselined. Baseline beta-HCGs are later used for comparison to the next day’s beta-HCG levels to see the pregnancy hormones’ increase rate. The beta-HCG levels can give early indications on the pregnancy’s characteristics  - is it viable? potential multiple pregnancies? potential complications?

So There You Have It
If you can’t wait and are looking to get earlier results, the First Response Early Result is the best HPT.

If you are looking for the cheapest alternative, then using the dollar store kind is just as good as the expensive ones after you have missed your period.

Do you differ with my recommendations? Tell me your experience with your HPT!

Bad News…




Good News…
AF has no signs of showing up (yet!).

Meanwhile, I did some research on Home Pregnancy Testers and realized that if I was wanting early results, that the dollar-store HPT won’t cut it. So, I just asked DH to buy me some of those “fancy” ones (Read: more expensive).

I thought it would be good to share what I learned about HPTs to all of you. (Although a lot of you may be badge-bearing veterans of HPTs, I figured there are still some of us who need this info.) Check out the other post on Choosing a Home Pregnancy Test. It includes how HPTs work, why sensitivity is important and if blood tests are still needed.

Have a great week-end!