The Two Week Wait

Hello Lovelies,

In this long game of trying to conceive there was something I knew would really suck, knew it right off the bat. I was NOT surprised by how all consuming it was, or by how obsessed I became. Of course I am talking about “the two week wait”. The time between ovulation and when you expect to get your next period, essentially the gateway to hell. Even that very first dreamy month off of birth control I struggled with this time. I tortured myself endlessly: Wondering if I was pregnant, symptom spotting, dreaming up possible baby names and zodiac signs … you know, the usual. I thought I would talk a little about my experiences in the two week wait each month, as I am sure a lot of you can relate. Here goes:

Wondering if you are pregnant:

At first I was going to lump this in with symptom spotting, but there are small nuances that apply to one and not the other, so I have decided to leave them separate. Ok, Day one past ovulation… if you are trying (and I assume you are, since you KNOW that you ovulated). This means a day or two after the ovulation predictor kit went “two dark lines” or that your basal body temperature shot up today. I can’t speak to the ovulation strips, as I haven’t had the pleasure yet. So, if you’re like me, then this is what happens.

Your thermometer beeps… you whip it out of your lady bits, and bring it back above the covers. You study that thing like a high-school student trying to get into Harvard! The temperature is high! You jump out of bed and break into a vague semblance of a touch down dance. Immediately, you thoughts fly back to all the sex you and your man have been having. YES!! Awesome timing this month!

*Pause, hand goes to abdomen*

“Holy shit… what if I am already pregnant?!!”

Ok, ok, even the first month of trying I knew that nothing would have implanted that fast. But if there is a fertilized egg floating its way along your fallopian tube then you may already be, to use the technical term, “fo shiz, up the spout!” (if you don’t get this cultural reference go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuN0Z65sp5c to educate yourself, it’s 16 seconds in. Also, in general, you should probably watch this movie… so long as pregnant teenagers aren’t a trigger for you this month).

Basically this thought, I may now be pregnant, will be constantly parroted in your subconscious until your period arrives. There are lots of things that this leads to. From wanting to stop drinking entirely. To wanting to drink all the booze, literally, all.the.booze. before you have to pee on a stick. From drinking no caffeine. To wanting to mainline that shit into your veins before you have to pee on a stick. From stopping the use of cocaine. To wanting to use all of the…wait… what?! I may be getting carried away here! To speak in generalities, it means that every decision you make from the moment of ovulation onward will be characterized by a weighing of the odds. What could this decision do to your unborn, and probably not even implanted yet, baby. And this leads me to the next point…

Symptom spotting:

Oh god, the symptom spotting. This is one of the traits that infertile ladies have that make us want to check into a mental hospital. It is one of those traits that makes your husbands or partners fantasize violence against you and causes your friends to ignore you on Facebook. Probably because everyone, and especially you, are sick of wondering if having an itchy asshole is a symptom of early pregnancy (not something I have personally Googled).

It’s like a tick, you are almost powerless to refuse the impulse to whip out your phone and look up every nuance of what it might feel like to be pregnant and then decide if you are feeling these symptoms. Because aside from wondering if you are pregnant you will also be willing it to be so. And any shred of evidence that this is your month is clung to with hysterical strength. So Googling symptoms as diverse as “overheating easily” or “lightning bolt pains in my vagina” will seem perfectly acceptable (those ones I have, in fact, Googled personally).

After symptom spotting for a bunch of days, 12 days is such a long amount of time in these cases, you start to plan out your life. And so, leads into…

Fantasizing about your newly conceived baby:

Once you have yourself fully convinced that you are knocked up. Because I mean, really, are there ANY other good reasons for you to suddenly love pickles?! It is inevitable that you start to imagine this tiny being:

– What will they look like? (Obviously the little angel will look like the best looking relative you have… in my case, the babe will have to look like my sister.)

– How will they act? (Um, like fucking angels… of course!)

-Will it be a boy or a girl? (I won’t divulge my preference because we shouldn’t care after two years of trying blah blah… Right! Pssh! GIRL)

-What will their birth month and sign be? (Changes month to month, but it better be compatible with Sagittarius!)

– and on and on, you get the point.

This is dangerous territory. It can be very hard to rein this kind of behavior in because it is addicting and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. And after months or maybe years of trying to conceive you really WANT to feel warm and fuzzy. But, it is also dangerous, because you set yourself up to hurt big time if you have not actually been carrying around a little miracle seed these past two weeks! If you get your period it goes from, the soul crushing knowledge that you could have had a baby, to a DEFCON 5, spirit obliterating, meltdown about the EXACT baby you have lost.

While I talk a big game here I will have you know that I have both genders of names picked out in case of futuristic offspring and have had to block all the astrological sites on my computer to keep it together during these times.

Hopefully, you are pregnant this time. I am keeping everything crossed for us. To the point where I have started getting weird looks when I walk my dog. Seriously, it’s very awkward to walk with everything crossed.

Good Luck,
Unpregnant Chicken