Two Week Wait Technique for IVF Success

How is it that those few special days can leave you feeling excited, exhausted, hopeful and hopeless (and that’s just Day 1)….and there’s more to come.

What’s your go to strategy to stay sane? Bury your head in work projects and pretend it’s no big deal…while watching the calendar and wishing the next few days away. Maybe you’re on permanent knicker watch and checking your breasts (wait…was that a tingle?). You might find yourself googling ‘rare signs of early pregnancy’ – cos well…you never know if that craving for Mexican food last night was in fact a sign your body needs more carbs because YES you are pregnant.  Been there and have several of those t-shirts. 

If you’ve been TTCing for a while you already know how much of a head wrecker these 2 weeks are and it’s likely that you have your own coping strategies but some coping strategies can add to your stress levels and that of course is NOT your intention. Everyone has their own way of getting through the 2WW but let’s look at what research suggests so you can add another tool in your 2WW toolkit.

Allow me to introduce you to The Two Week Wonder. By changing how you experience the 2WW you might increase your chances of becoming pregnant. And there’s science to back it up - if this is your first visit to my blog you’ll see I take a science based approach to fertility challenges.

 Mentally Reframing the Two Week Wait

One approach by researchers has been growing in popularity – known as PRCI.  The aim of the study was to see if a simple, short coping intervention - positive reappraisal coping intervention (PRCI) would be helpful for women waiting to test after an IVF.  Women were randomly assigned on the day of their embryo transfer to read inspiring statements about the 2WW or simply positive affirmations.    Women rated the PRCI cards as more helpful and felt more positive about how they were coping. 

A follow-on study showed that woman using the PRCI alone had significantly lower anxiety levels at Day 10 of the waiting period and 6 weeks after the start of the waiting period but also a significantly higher clinical pregnancy rate compared with the other three groups.  What’s not to like about that!

If you’re feeling up to it let’s try an experiment of our own.

I’d like to invite you to reframe the 2 week wait to the 2 week wonder.  I’m not suggesting you get all Pollyanna on me, smiling manically and skipping around for those weeks. The ‘think positive’ brigade does enough of that and it can be harmful - not helpful. Burying emotions rather than letting them pass isn’t the healthiest option for your mental and physical health.

 Instead I’d like to invite you to get curious – it’s a big part of mindfulness for good reason.  We’re not pushing away thoughts and feelings of optimism OR pessimism – instead we’re putting out the welcome mat for everything you feel without trying to control any of it.  Polllyanna thinking is like seeing your gas tank gauge at empty and instead of filling  up – you put a happy face sticker on it and keep driving.  I call it ‘intelligent optimism’.

Your brain is receiving signals of safety or stress every moment of every day.  Those signals come from inside your body and outside.  For the most part we can only influence how our brain perceives these inner signals.  When it’s a feeling of safety we don’t need to do anything but bask in those feelings and milk them as long as we can -  that is your natural state. Your mindfulness practice will also help you short circuit the effect of any negative external circumstances so you can return to that state of feeling good more quickly.

 Curiosity and wonder is a very different strategy – it lets you become an observer to your thoughts without getting caught up in them and getting dragged down a rabbit hole of negativity.  That’s what happens when you let your mind have free reign.

 Step 1 - Notice

We begin by noticing those thoughts and emotions  - they play out in your body every day but as so many women live from the neck up you might not have paid much attention to what’s happening in your body.

Start by noticing where you experience that feeling of pessimism the strongest in your body.

Say something like “hmmmm it’s interesting to notice how my stomach gets into knots when I believe everything I think” or “I’m noticing how my body feels when I get caught up doing something I really enjoy”.

 Two Week Wait Meditation

The 2 week wait meditation in the FertileMind app is one women rave about.  It’s one of our most used tools in our fertility toolkit and will help you feel more grounded and on an even keel emotionally too.  It’s short enough that you can do it at least once daily (some women use it first thing in the morning and in bed at night time) to regulate their mood. Our fertility affirmations can also help boost your mood.

See how many times you can catch yourself racing down that rabbit hole today – whether you’re in the 2WW or not (it’ll be good practice for when you are).  When you do notice that you’ve bought into the drama of a thought or even a memory you’ve just practiced mindfulness.  Noticing is step one…and just by interrupting that thought pattern you’ve also interrupted the release of those toxic stress hormones that are harming your body and mind.  The key is to be gentle with yourself – I’ll talk more about the benefits of self-compassion practices in a later blog and how they can also alter the chemistry of your body and stacking the odds in your favor of getting pregnant faster AND sustaining a healthier pregnancy.

I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Tracy