The Infertility Doula wrote a post about how she handles the Two Week Wait, and asked the question - How do you cope with the 2WW? It's an excellent question, and is the experience that binds so many of us together no matter what path we take to reach that point. So here's how I cope (or not, as it often goes).
I've actually just started my 2WW and if it goes the way of the others, I will be cautiously optimistic for the first week and then get progressively more scatter-brained through the second.
My PMS symptoms are identical to pregnancy symptoms (sore boobs and nausea) with one exception... we'll call it intestinal regularity. My one pregnant 2WW I was unbearably constipated, whereas usually I go to the other extreme about 5 days before my period. TMI - I know, but that's the symptom I watch for, and that's the thing that sends hope spiraling every month. I also get what I call hamster-brain, where I can't stop my thoughts racing and spinning.
So yeah, about 5 days out, I lose hope and sink into a mental hole at which point I am certain that I am irreparably broken and this will never work. This makes the Professor so mad - to hear me talk about myself this way. He gets very stern with me and then very sweet and reminds me that it's US that matters. Two days out, I cave and use an HPT, which inevitably comes up negative. We have a phrase in our house, "Stick says NO".
Sometimes I get so far down, that when my period does turn up, I can't even face going to work. I lose all ability to focus, and spend way too much time staring into space. Brooding. I feel defeated, but determined, so I head back to the clinic. Then Hope, that bloody little beast, shakes itself off and hops back up on the twig.
Oh, it sounds all too familiar, except for the "intestinal regularity." ;) It's good to let Hope back in, b/c after all you just can't get through life w/o it. Otherwise, we should all just give up.
ReplyDelete"Stick says NO" made me laugh. Is it like your eight ball?
I don't let the stick talk to me anymore. I prefer a chorus of Yeasayers. And I know what you mean about the *one* symptom that you bank on. For me, it's hunger. Which is great when I trick myself into eating a refrigerator's worth of psychosomatic symptoms during the 2ww. But I share your intestinal PMS distress and I was shocked when I had it in my BFP cycle. So, you never know.
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