How do you cope with the two week wait?

Any day can be tough when you’re struggling with IF. But I think it’s a well-attested fact that the so-called “two week wait” (2WW) can be particularly hard: that time of the month when you could be pregnant, you might be carrying in your womb an eternal human being fresh from the hand of God…or it could just be you still, barren still. Another cycle, no baby. I’m not sure what God had in mind with this design, but the fact that there’s about fourteen days from the fertile window of my cycle until when I could reasonably know whether the answer is “yes” or “no” to my question Am I pregnant??...that’s a bit tough! Not knocking your divine creativity or anything, God…!

So how do you cope? I was thinking about what helps me, which might be totally different than what helps someone else.

For me, this is how I try to handle the 2WW gracefully and sanely:

1.       Find my happy place. Meaning, project forward something fun/interesting/joyful that’s coming down the road, ideally sometime around when AF is due to arrive. For example, during this 2WW, whenever I catch myself feeling down, I think about our goddaughter’s baptism coming up later in the month. I visualize being there, feeling the love and joy of the moment. Or I think about my birthday, also later this month, and visualize the special surprise Mr. M is preparing and how I’ll feel loved. If there’s no event coming up that I can think about, I try to focus on the good things around me: thank you God for my husband, thank you for the beautiful fall colors, thank you for my general overall health. It’s not a magic charm, but I do find it helpful especially to think about good things coming up, people I’m going to see, as a reminder that my world will still have something good in it even if AF comes.

2.       Distractions! Related to number 1, it can help me to just keep busy. Work is good for this! When big projects are approaching, I simply don’t have the time to wonder “Am I? Am I not?” Taking up hobbies has really helped too – I like reading, playing piano, and sewing. If I can get “lost” in one of those hobbies, the time passes pleasantly and with as little anxiety as possible. Plus it helps me feel like I’m not just twiddling my thumbs waiting for baby, but am becoming a more interesting, well-developed human being.

3.       Take it to Jesus in prayer. I guess I should have listed this as number 1 =) IF has really forced me to cry out to Jesus in a more “real” way than I had before. I like to picture myself resting my head on His Sacred Heart like the beloved disciple St. John. When pangs of longing, anxiety, uncertainty etc. threaten to overwhelm me during the 2WW, I try to turn to Jesus: “Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, help me.” I speak with Him honestly: “This is so, so hard. Please take this cross away. Please send us a baby” and don’t worry too much about not sounding devout enough…He knows my heart, after all. No fooling Him with pretending to be more holy than I am! =) But of course I ask for the graces to accept this cross, to desire God more than a baby, to not turn babies into idols, and so on. I’ve found the 2WW in general to be very profound spiritually. It’s like my heart is more vulnerable or something.

There’s probably more to say, but those are my top 3. Thoughts?