How I survived the TWW three times — and what I'd do differently.

There's a moment, right after the embryo transfer, where everything is perfect.

You're lying on the table, slightly drugged, and your doctor touches your arm and says "good luck" with this earnest look on his face. The embryo is in there. It's done. You've made it through the shots, the bloating, the blood draws, the canceled cycles, the insurance fights, the whole circus — and now it's just you and this microscopic almost-human, sharing a body for the first time.

For about eleven minutes, you feel invincible.

And then — then — the two-week wait begins. And let me be real with you: nothing in the entire IVF process prepared me for this particular brand of hell. Not the Ganirelix that made me cry over a commercial for dish soap. Not the OHSS that landed me in the hospital. Not even the $30K bill. The TWW is its own beast entirely, because it is fourteen days of having absolutely no control over the thing you want most in the world — and knowing that no amount of Googling, symptom-checking, or bargaining with the universe will change the outcome.

I went through the two-week wait three times. Three transfers, three rounds of this insanity. Here's what I learned, what helped, what didn't, and what I wish someone had told me while I was lying on my couch Googling "is a tiny cramp at 4dp5dt a good sign" at 2 AM.

The first TWW: blissful ignorance

My first two-week wait was almost cute, looking back. I was so hopeful. I had my little embryo photo saved as my phone wallpaper. I journaled every night. I talked to my belly. I bought a onesie at 3dp5dt because I genuinely could not help myself — it said "worth the wait" and I cried in the checkout line at Target.

I also took approximately one million pregnancy tests.

Not gonna lie, the first TWW is when I became an actual, certifiable pregnancy test addict. I ordered a bulk pack of Easy@Home strips from Amazon — like, the 50-pack — because I'd heard that IVF patients often test early to watch the line progression. (This is either brilliant self-advocacy or full-blown masochism depending on who you ask. I maintain it's both.)

Here's the thing about testing early: it gives you data, but not peace. I started testing at 4dp5dt and got a stark white negative. Obviously. It was too early. I knew it was too early. But did that stop the spiral? Reader, it did not. I convinced myself it was over. I ate an entire sleeve of Oreos in the bathtub. I texted my mom something dramatic.

Then at 6dp5dt, I squinted so hard at a test strip that I gave myself a headache — and I maybe saw something? A shadow? An indent? A ghost line? I took the strip apart with tweezers. I inverted the photo on my phone. I posted it in a Facebook group and seventeen strangers weighed in. Half said positive. Half said evap line. One person said "I see it!" with seven exclamation points. I chose to believe that person.

Spoiler: there was nothing there. My beta came back negative. Big fat negative. BFN.

I don't want to sugarcoat that — it was devastating. All that hope, all that onesie-buying, journal-writing, belly-talking energy, and the answer was just... no. Not this time. I cried for three days. I put the onesie in a drawer. I unfollowed every pregnancy account on Instagram. And then, because what else are you going to do, I picked myself up and scheduled transfer number two.

The second TWW: survival mode

After a failed transfer, my second TWW was a completely different animal. The innocence was gone. I wasn't journaling or buying onesies. I was just... enduring.

I had a harder transfer that time — the Valium didn't kick in, the doctor struggled to get the catheter placed, and by the time it was over I was crying and my mom was holding my hand and I felt like I'd been through a war. Not exactly the "calm, peaceful energy" they tell you to cultivate for implantation.

What I learned from TWW #2 is that distraction is not optional — it's medicine. You cannot white-knuckle your way through fourteen days of existential uncertainty without something absorbing your brain. Here's what actually helped me:

A weighted blanket. I know this sounds ridiculous. But hear me out — during the TWW your nervous system is shot. You're on progesterone, your hormones are everywhere, you can't tell if what you're feeling is a pregnancy symptom or a side effect of the meds, and your body is in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight. Climbing under a weighted blanket at night genuinely brought my heart rate down. I slept better. I panicked slightly less. It's not magic. But it's the closest thing to being held when you're alone at midnight and spiraling. I used a 15-lb one and honestly, it became my emotional support object for the entire IVF process.

A journal that wasn't precious. I tried the pretty, guided fertility journal — the one with the prompts and the inspirational quotes and the designated space for your "daily affirmation." I hated it. It felt performative, like I was journaling for an audience. What actually worked was a cheap spiral notebook where I wrote stream-of-consciousness garbage at 11 PM. Stuff like: I think I felt a twinge. Is that implantation? It's probably gas. I hate this. I want a burrito. The point wasn't to create something beautiful. The point was to get the noise OUT of my head and onto paper so I could sleep.

Binge-watching something completely unrelated to babies. I'm not going to tell you what I watched because it's embarrassing, but the key criteria is: no pregnancies, no babies, no hospitals, no emotional storylines about motherhood. Pure escapism. Reality TV works. Cooking competitions work. Anything where the stakes are "will this soufflé rise" and not "will this embryo implant."

Not testing early. I know. I KNOW. This contradicts what I did the first time. But honestly? After the trauma of squinting at ghost lines and getting a BFN — I couldn't do it again. Not the same way. For TWW #2, I tried to hold out longer. I really did.

But then — 5dp5dt — I caved. Because I am human and I am weak and there was a pregnancy test in the drawer. I peed on it at 5 AM like a gremlin. And this time? This time there was a line. Faint. Barely there. But there.

My first beta came back at 1.78.

One. Point. Seven. Eight.

If you're not in the fertility world, let me contextualize that number for you: most clinics want to see a beta above 50 at first draw. A 1.78 is so low it basically whispers. It's a "maybe." It's a "we'll see." It's the most noncommittal number a lab has ever produced.

But it was positive. Technically. And I clung to it with everything I had.

The levels rose slowly — about a 40-hour doubling time, which is on the outer edge of what they want to see. By 13 days post transfer I'd reached 125. I was pregnant. Officially, medically, actually pregnant.

For about two weeks, I let myself believe it was going to work.

It didn't. That pregnancy ended in a chemical at 6 weeks. Loss. That one hurts more than most — because it's grief for someone you never got to meet, compounded by the specific cruelty of having hope handed to you and then snatched back.

The third TWW: the one that worked

By my third transfer, I was a veteran of the two-week wait — but not in that wise, zen, "I've made peace with the process" kind of way. More like the way a soldier is a veteran. Tired. Hyper-vigilant. Going through the motions because what else are you going to do? Give up? No. You don't give up. You just go again.

This time was different on the medical side too. Because of my autoimmune issues — I'd been diagnosed with Antiphospholipid Syndrome on top of everything else, a blood clotting disorder that makes miscarriage and stillbirth more likely — my team went aggressive. Intralipid infusions. Prednisone. Benadryl. Blood thinners. The whole arsenal. I remember sitting in the infusion chair thinking I am more scared than excited. And that felt like its own kind of loss — the loss of the innocence I'd had during that first transfer, when I still believed wanting it badly enough might be enough.

My third TWW was actually the calmest, and I think it's because I'd finally stopped trying to control the outcome with my behavior. For the first two rounds, I was obsessive about doing everything "right" — eating pineapple core, keeping my feet warm, staying horizontal, avoiding stress (LOL). By round three, I ate what I wanted, went about my life, and accepted that this embryo was either going to stick or it wasn't, and no amount of pineapple was going to change that.

The one thing I did differently was tell fewer people about the transfer date. During my first TWW, everyone knew. Which meant everyone was checking in. "Any symptoms??" "How are you FEELING??" "When do you test??" — all with the best intentions, all absolutely excruciating. By round three, only my mom, my aunt, and my closest friend knew. The rest of the world found out when I was ready to tell them. That boundary made an enormous difference.

And then — because I will apparently never learn — I tested early again. 5dp5dt. Same drill. Peed on it at 5 AM. Set a timer. Paced.

Two lines.

Two lines.

I stared at it for so long that I actually started second-guessing my ability to count. Is that two? That's two. Right? One. Two. That's two lines. My hands were shaking. I took another test. Two lines. I took a third test, a different brand, because clearly I could not be trusted. Two lines.

I woke up my mom. "Look at this." She looked at it, looked at me, and burst into tears.

That beta — my first for my Sadie — started higher this time. And it doubled. And it kept doubling. By 16 days post transfer, my HCG hit 6,512. The rest — the heartbeat at 9 weeks, the kicks at 21 weeks, the water breaking while my mom said "it's probably nothing," the four pushes, the baby on my chest — the rest is the most beautiful story I've ever lived.

What I'd tell you right now if you're in the TWW

If you're reading this from the trenches — 3dp5dt, 7dpiui, any of the acronym-soup days that define this waiting game — here's what I want you to hear:

You are not crazy. The symptom-spotting, the Googling, the testing, the crying, the hoping, the bargaining — it's all normal. It's all part of this. You are not dramatic. You are not "too much." You are a human being in an impossible situation, wanting something so badly it physically hurts. That's not crazy. That's love.

The internet will not give you the answer. I know this because I have personally read every forum post ever written about twinges at 4dp5dt. Spoiler: some of those people were pregnant. Some weren't. Your body is not their body. Close the tab. (After you finish this article, obviously.)

Let yourself feel however you feel. You don't have to be positive. You don't have to be grateful. You don't have to "trust the process." You just have to get through today. That's it. If today requires a weighted blanket and a spiral notebook and crying in the bathtub — that is a valid TWW survival strategy, and I endorse it fully.

And if this round doesn't work — and I say this as someone for whom it didn't work twice — it is not your fault. Not the burrito you ate, not the time you forgot to keep your feet warm, not the stress you couldn't avoid. It is not your fault. Please hear me.

But right now? Right now, your little embryo or your little follicle or your little inseminated egg is doing its thing. And you are doing yours — which is surviving the wait.

You've got this. I promise. Now close this tab, put your phone down, and go watch something stupid on TV.

I'm rooting for you.

What got me through (my actual recs):

A few of these are affiliate links — they help support Babiedust at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I actually used and loved.

Pregnancy test strips — I used Easy@Home in bulk (the 50-pack). They're cheap, they're accurate, and when you inevitably become a POAS addict, you'll be glad you didn't spend $18 per test. I also kept a few First Response on hand for the "official" early test, since they detect lower HCG levels.

A weighted blanket — Mine was 15 lbs and it became my non-negotiable nightly ritual during every TWW. Game changer for the anxiety-insomnia combo.

A no-frills journal — Skip the pretty guided ones. Grab a cheap spiral notebook and let it be ugly. The goal is brain-dumping, not scrapbooking.

"It Starts with the Egg" by Rebecca Fett — I read this before my first cycle and it genuinely helped me feel more informed and in control during a process where control is an illusion. Highly recommend for anyone in the early stages of IVF.

CoQ10 supplements — My RE recommended these 3 months before my retrieval cycle for egg quality. I took 400mg daily of ubiquinol. Not a TWW-specific rec, but part of my overall protocol that I wish I'd started sooner.

A good streaming subscription — Truly. Budget it in. It's a medical expense as far as I'm concerned.