The Infertility Stress Series Ep 3: How we self-sabotage our mental health while TTC

It's day five of the two-week wait. You feel a twinge.

It could be nothing. It could be something. You don't know, and not knowing is unbearable. So you pick up your phone and type the symptom into Google.

Forty minutes later, you're six forums deep. You're reading about someone's cycle from 2019. You're cross-referencing her symptoms against yours, trying to find the one thread that tells you how this ends.

And you don't feel any better. You feel worse.

If that's you, keep reading. Because Googling symptoms after embryo transfer is one of the sneakiest ways we sabotage our mental health during IVF. It feels like research. It feels like doing something useful with all that anxious energy. Which is exactly why it's so hard to catch yourself doing it.

Let me be clear before we go any further. Being informed is a good thing. What I want you to look at is how you're searching, and what you're hoping to find when you do.

What the Two Week Wait Google Spiral Actually Looks Like

You went in with one question. Is this twinge a good sign?

You came out with three new ones.

Sally's boobs were sore by day four. Yours feel completely normal. So now you're in the bathroom squeezing them to check, because apparently sore boobs means it's working.

Eileen drank beet juice every day before her fifth transfer and swears that's what finally did it. You didn't. Cue the kicking yourself.

Maxine switched to vaginal progesterone, and now you're wondering if you should message your clinic about your oral one.

None of those worries existed an hour ago. Now they do. You've got 12 new things to worry about, including symptoms you don't even have that other women did.

You know it isn't helping. But you keep going, because stopping feels like giving up. Like you're not trying hard enough.

There's nothing wrong with you. I promise. You're not being obsessive or dramatic, and this has nothing to do with willpower.

Why You Can't Stop Googling: Meet the Doer

When your body can't tolerate uncertainty, it looks for something to do.

I call this pattern the doer, and I know it very well. It's one of a few different ways I see our nervous system trying to cope under the pressure of IVF and infertility.

Researching feels like doing. It feels like control. Like movement. Like you're not just sitting there helpless while your body does whatever it's going to do.

And for a few minutes, it works. You get a little hit of "Okay, I'm on top of this. I've got this under control."

Then the anxiety creeps back in. And you're searching again.

That's your nervous system trying to solve an unsolvable problem the only way it knows how, through action. The two-week wait is pure uncertainty, so of course your body is reaching for anything that feels like control.

Every Search Opens Another Tab in Your Brain

Here's what's actually happening during those 40 minutes.

Think of it like your brain opening tabs. Every new question is another tab left open, running in the background, taking up space. The progesterone tab. The beet juice tab. The boob tab.

You didn't close anything by Googling. You just opened more.

So now you're anxious, and you're carrying the mental load of all those open tabs. Plus the self-punishment underneath.

Why didn't I think of the beet juice sooner? Why aren't my boobs sore? What's wrong with me that I'm not doing this right?

That's the trap. You went looking for a little bit of calm. But your brain doesn't experience "I found some information" as closure. It treats every unanswered question as something to keep tracking. Something to stay on alert for.

The Comparison Trap: Worried and Behind

Some of those tabs aren't questions. They're comparisons.

Once you're six forums deep, you're measuring her follicle count against yours. Her protocol against yours. Her symptoms, her timeline, her outcome against yours.

Here's what nobody says out loud in those threads. Her cycle was never going to predict yours. Different protocol. Different body. Different everything.

Your nervous system doesn't know that, though. It just sees the gap. It sees where you don't match up and files it away as one more thing to worry about.

So now you're worried and behind. Worried and doing it wrong. Worried and somehow failing at a process you have almost no control over in the first place.

Why Your Brain Holds On: The Zeigarnik Effect

There's a reason your brain does this, and it's got a name. The Zeigarnik effect.

It's named after a psychologist who noticed something back in the 1920s. Waiters could remember a customer's entire order in perfect detail while the bill was still open and unpaid. The second it was settled, they'd forget it almost instantly.

Our brains hold onto unfinished things. Closed things we let go of. Open things we keep replaying.

You already know this feeling outside of IVF, too.

One of my clients spent a weekend listening to her sister-in-law complain about breastfeeding logistics. My client had experienced three pregnancy losses and was preparing for her next transfer. She smiled, she nodded, and she tried to let it go.

Except she didn't. She came to our call still turning it over, writing the response in her head she wished she'd said. That conversation was long finished, but it was wide open in her mind.

So I gave her a way to close it. I sent her my episode on how friends and family can support you through IVF, including what to say and what not to say, and told her to send it to her sister-in-law. In a nice way, of course. She couldn't redo the conversation, but she could reset the boundary now and finally shut that loop.

Googling works on exactly the same mechanism. Every question that doesn't come back with a real, settled answer stays open. Your brain keeps circling back to check on it.

You've handed your brain dozens of open loops in one scrolling session, and it's doing exactly what it's built to do with them. Holding on.

When a Forum Comment Costs You Two Days

I saw this play out with another client this week.

She's prepping for her transfer, and her immunologist told her she'll likely be on Lovenox for her entire pregnancy. That panicked her a little. So she did what we all tend to do. She Googled it.

She landed on a forum where a stranger claimed the medication was linked to a serious condition in babies. No evidence. No source. Just a comment.

It sent her into a full spiral.

She went back to her immunologist, who confirmed clearly that there's zero link. None. The whole spiral was built on nothing. But by the time she got that answer, she'd already spent two days living inside that fear.

That's the whole problem in one story. All Googling did was hand her a brand new open loop that never needed to exist.

How to Stop Googling Symptoms and Protect Your Mental Health During IVF

So what do you do instead?

The fix is to stop seeking answers in the wrong place.

Before you open that search bar, message the person who can actually close the loop. Your doctor. Your clinic nurse. Your coach.

A forum full of strangers can't close your loop. It's just going to open ten more.

You don't need more information. You need the right information, from the right person, at the right time.

Next time the urge hits during your two-week wait, notice it. That's the doer in you looking for control. Then redirect that energy to someone who can give you a real, settled answer instead of 12 new things to worry about.

You're Not Doing This Wrong

You're trying to find control in a situation that feels completely out of your hands. That makes total sense.

Real control doesn't come from more searching. It comes from knowing who to go to when you need an answer.

If you want help recognising when you're in that doer spiral, and somewhere real to redirect that energy, this is exactly the work I do with my 1:1 clients.

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to Episode 16 of Ready. Set. IVF.

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