Coping with Preconception Worries

Strategies for Coping Until You Test

By Kelly Burgess

"Agonizing" is the term Susan Leonard, licensed professional counselor and marriage and family therapist, most often hears when her patients talk about the two-week wait, also referred to frequently in online forums and blogs as the "2WW." For those unfamiliar with the term, the two-week wait is the time between ovulation and the beginning of a woman's next period. For women who are not trying to get pregnant, the two-week wait is as little noted as any other time of the month. For women who are trying to conceive, especially those who have been on the fertility journey for a while, the two-week wait can seem like forever.

Leonard, who works exstensively with infertile couples, runs workshops based upon Dr. Alice Domar's mind/body techniques. A client once told her, "When you're thinking and obsessing and hoping during that two-week wait, what you're hoping is that you'll soon join a different population, the population of the pregnant, while worrying that you just might not."

Roseline Shako of Koeln, Germany, says the first week of the two-week wait isn't so bad for her, but the second week is "a nightmare." "I always think I'm pregnant and look for all the little signs," she says. "Each month I think it's a different sign that will pop in."

In cruising those aforementioned forums, a common thread is women asking other women what this twinge or that bloat or this headache means. Even physical signs that seem like they couldn't possibly be related to pregnancy are often discussed in great depth. This is typical, Leonard says, noting that during the wait women do tend to obsess over every twinge, ache and cramp. She says some of this is a natural outgrowth of the strong, instinctive desire for motherhood, but for women undergoing fertility treatment, it's also a time when the distractions and actions of trying to conceive come to a full stop.

"In IVF, for the first two weeks there is something going on virtually every day leading up to the big moment of the transfer," Leonard says. "As part of that activity, most women see a doctor or nurse every day. Then everything stops. They go from all of that activity to just waiting and there's nothing concrete they can do to guarantee success. It's not unusual for patients to describe a sense of powerlessness."

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