Testing

hCG levels vary greatly from woman to woman. You cannot really measure yourself against another because the hormone levels can be on opposite ends of the spectrum but you can both still end up with a take-home baby, or the woman with super high results might miscarry and the one with low results may have a healthy baby or vice versa. You can check a chart to make sure you are in the normal range but it is best if you wait until you have had two beta tests and then calculate the doubling time. Your hCG should be doubling every 48-72 hours. That is the best indicator as to if your pregnancy is heading in the right direction. Here is a chart showing the normal range for a beta test. 

The day after I took my pregnancy test I went in for the beta test (blood pregnancy test). I stopped by the clinic first thing in the morning and then sat around waiting for the entire rest of the day constantly glancing at my phone to see if the clinic was calling yet. Let me tell you it is quite nerve wracking even though I had a positive HPT the day before. I prayed and prayed that the number would be high enough. I waited and waited (seems to be quite the theme for those of us in the IVF circuit). Finally around 2pm my phone rang, it was a 626 number, the clinic was calling. I picked it up and stepped outside. I held my breath.

Did I hear that right? I asked her to repeat the number again. Nope that was what I had heard the first time. Wow! Is this really happening? The lab tech congratulated me. I was in shock. I immediately called Paul who was also waiting on pins and needles for me to call (he had already texted hours earlier asking if they had called yet). About an hour and a half later Dr. W called to personally congratulate us and noted that the number was high. He even said "what have I done to you" at one point during the call. Our number of 846 falls during the 4 weeks LMP on the chart above. We were almost double what the high end of normal is.

Our second beta was scheduled for 1 week after the first, and we knew that we needed that number no matter how high it was to be doubling every 2-3 days. So we entered the next phase of the waiting game.