What Do All the Getting Pregnant Acronyms Mean?
If you just dipped your toe into the world of online forums for women who are trying to get pregnant, you might be totally overwhelmed by all the acronyms. It’s okay—you’ll grow to love them, really. When you’re 7DPO and have to flush your FMU so your don’t POAS and see the dreaded BFN, it’s really fun to talk in a secret language to other women who understand what you’re going through.
So don’t fret: here’s your handy guide to the most common acronyms. You’ll know them all by heart in no time.
2WW: Two week wait (before testing, not always 2 weeks)
AF: Aunt Flo, menstruation
BC/BCP: Birth Control Pill
BD: Baby dance. This means having sex for conceptive purposes, or any other form of insemination such as IUI or IVF. (The Ava community invented their own term for this. See entry for “GSD” below.)
BFN: Big Fat Negative (pregnancy test)
BFP: Big Fat Positive (pregnancy test)
CD: Cycle day
CM: Cervical mucus.
CP: Chemical pregnancy (a very early miscarriage)
DPO: Days past ovulation
EWCM: Egg white cervical mucus, the most fertile kind.
FSH: Follicle Stimulating Hormone
FMU: First Morning Urine
FP: Follicular Phase
FRER: First response early result pregnancy test
GSD: Get Shit Done, or do what you need to do to make a baby (sex, IUI, IVF…)
HPT: Home pregnancy test. Measures levels of the hormone hcG.
HSG: hysterosalpingogram, a test that looks inside the uterus and fallopian tubes.
HcG: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Hormone detected by pregnancy tests.
IUI: Intra-uterine insemination
IVF: In-vitro fertilization
LH: Luteinizing Hormone
LMP: Last menstrual period. The first day of your last period.
LP: Luteal Phase
LPD: Luteal Phase Defect
MC: Miscarriage
MFI: Male Factor Infertility
NTNP: Not Trying, Not Preventing
O: Ovulation
OPK: Ovulation Prediction Kit. OPKs measure luteinizing hormone, which surges about one day before ovulation.
PCOS: Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
POAS: Pee on a stick
RE: Reproductive Endocrinologist
SA: Semen analysis
SMEP: Sperm Meets Egg Plan
TCOYF: “Taking Charge of Your Fertility,” a book by Toni Weschler about how to monitor your body’s natural fertility signs.
TTC: Trying to Conceive
TWW: Two Week Wait, the roughly two week period between when you ovulate and when you’re supposed to get your period (and when you can take a pregnancy test)
