Fertility

Surviving the two-week wait

4 min read · MyBloomingBelly editorial

Between ovulation and the day you can test lies the two-week wait — fourteen days that couples trying to conceive know as the slowest stretch of any month. If you find yourself analysing every twinge, you are not obsessive; you are normal.

Here is the liberating, slightly cruel biology: symptom-spotting cannot work. After ovulation, progesterone rises whether or not you conceived — and progesterone causes tender breasts, bloating, fatigue and food aversions. The “symptoms” of early pregnancy and of an ordinary pre-period week are the same symptoms. Your body genuinely cannot leak the answer early, which means every twinge you analyse is a coin being read as a fortune.