Almost all fertility clinics will offer you a pregnancy test a couple of weeks after your treatment but if you want to carry out yourself, home pregnancy test kits will also give you a pretty true reading at a couple of weeks. Many women forget that sometimes when home pregnancy tests are conducted too quickly after treatment, they can sometimes suggest a false positive result.
There are, or course, other signs of pregnancy that you will discover, for example: abrupt mood swings, sore breasts and the desire to use the toilet more frequently, nausea, missing your period, fatigue and heightened sense of smell and taste.
More often than not, the fertility clinic will stay in touch in the first few weeks when you get pregnant to go through ultrasound scans to watch the development of your baby. You may find that your clinic is one of those that do not keep on with supporting you after their part of the agreement is complete so alternative arrangements will have to be made to look after your pregnancy and birth care.
Some people take a little while to come to terms with the fact that they are having a baby after a course of fertility treatment so don’t concern yourself if, in the beginning, you are not as excited about as you thought you would be. This is perfectly normal but the important thing is to accept your emotions whatever they are, and to take into consideration that virtually all mums-to-be go through a mixture of emotions on finding out they are going to have a baby whether they have had fertility treatment or not.
It may not seem that way but normally there is little physical difference between someone who is expecting naturally to another who has accepted fertility treatment, although they may find it harder emotionally. From time to time a pregnant woman might find it a necessity to have more than the normal amount of scans owing to their special situation. This might include situations where a miscarriage has happened previously (or stillbirths), if expecting more than one baby not forgetting of course, your overall health. Your age can also be a deciding factor because the older you are the more likely your risk of complications will be.
An interesting fact is that there are over a million babies globally that have been successfully born by using fertility treatment such as In Vitro Fertilization for instance and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be healthy children. Inspite of the successes this does not mean ther will never be any problems because every medical treatment and every pregnancy can have some element of risk, even those conceived through normal means, but thankfully almost all of the problems are small. Where possible, try to enjoy being pregnant as much as possible and slow down even though that might not be easy.
The average rate of miscarriage following IVF is slightly higher than following normal conception. Ordinarily there are only a couple of situations that can cause this: the first being that almost all women that receive fertility treatment have a pregnancy test quite early in the pregnancy. Whereas a woman who has become pregnant by the normal route could believe she has experienced a late period but has in fact produced an embryo that did not implant correctly. Of course there is a higher risk of losing the baby as a woman ages and women who have fertility treatment are usually older on average than those who conceive naturally. This subject always raises many questions but they would be best resolved by your own fertility clinic consultant.