If you’ve been trying to conceive for awhile, you know the anxiety of the two-week wait (known in online forums and message boards as the acronym TWW). It’s that period of time between ovulation and your expected period, when you’re waiting to see if your efforts to conceive worked or whether you’re going to have to try again next month.
This is a torturous time period for any woman wanting to get pregnant, and that stress is magnified when you’re undergoing fertility treatments. In those instances, there are often family members and friends who are keeping up with your efforts, and they’re waiting and hoping to hear about a successful pregnancy right along with you. Also there’s money on the line, not to mention the physical, mental and emotional effort you’ve put into treatment process and all the procedures that come with it.
Whether or not you’re undergoing fertility treatments, here are a few tips to help you handle the two-week wait.
- Stop obsessing about symptoms. The more you Google “pregnancy symptoms” the more you stress about not having any. Every woman’s body experiences pregnancy differently, and just because your breasts aren’t tender or you’re not nauseated in the morning doesn’t mean you’re not pregnant. You don’t have to “feel” pregnant to be pregnant, so don’t be consumed by phantom symptoms that don’t necessarily mean anything.
- Ease up on the pregnancy tests. All those pregnancy tests that claim to be able to detect a pregnancy earlier and earlier do little more than disappoint and waste your money. It’s called a two-week wait for a reason, and every single line on a failed pregnancy test will do nothing more than shake your confidence.
- Tune in to TWW stress triggers — and then tune them out. If you get depressed and stressed every time you log onto your “trying to conceive” message board and read about another woman’s good news, maybe it’s time to take a little break from that outlet. If a friend who knows you’re undergoing the process asks every morning at the office if you “feel any different” and it makes your worry even more, tell her to stop asking, and that she’ll be among the first to hear the good news when it happens
We know it seems like a lifetime, but trust us: The clock does not slow down. Those 14 days will go by quickly in the grand scheme of things, and hopefully you’ll have good news waiting on the other side of the wait.
A Mother’s Plan to Freeze Eggs for Her Daughter
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011For mother Penny Jarvis-Stephens of South Yorkshire, England, the decision to freeze some of her own eggs for her daughter’s future use was an easy one. Penny’s daughter, Mackenzie, is only two years old, but was born with Turner Syndrome which is known to cause infertility. While Mackenzie would obviously not use the eggs for a long time, Penny wants to plan ahead for her daughter’s future. She wants Mackenzie to have the option to experience the joys of motherhood as she, a mother of five, has. The chances are extremely high, though, given Mackenzie’s condition with Turner Syndrome, that one of her only chances for having a child would be through IVF. Thus, Penny is looking into the process of freezing donor eggs now while she is still within child-bearing age. “I’m looking at it as donating an organ,” Penny explains.
Some might think of this as a thoughtful gesture on the part of this mother. Such is not the case for everyone, however. Penny has received a number of negative comments, some even abusive, on an internet forum where she had posted her plans. This controversy begs the question as to whether people are opposed to IVF egg donors being family members or just between the case of mother and daughter? Or is the controversy simply brought up because the eggs are intended for a child who is not even close to being of an age of considering using those eggs? Whatever anyone’s opinion may be, we hope that Penny receives the best counsel on how to accomplish the plan that she has chosen.
Have you ever considered using a donor egg? Or perhaps donating your own eggs? We are more than happy to provide more information or answer any questions you may have about either process!
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Tags: Controversy, Donating Eggs, Donor Egg, Donor Eggs, Egg Donors, Family Members, Infertility, Internet Forum, IVF, Jarvis, Joys Of Motherhood, Long Time, Mackenzie, Mother And Daughter, Negative Comments, One Penny, South England, South Yorkshire England, Thoughtful Gesture, Turner Syndrome, Yorkshire
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