If only I'd had TikTok when attempting to get pregnant

Trying to conceive (TTC) videos are a growing trend online, with pregnancy tests unfolding in real time. It’s exactly what some women need to not feel alone

- Charlotte Cripps

I always locked myself in the bathroom to take pregnancy tests. It felt like a solitary act. My hands would tremble as I held that portentous piece of plastic in my hand, waiting for the result.

First, there’s the adrenalin rush – could I really be pregnant this time? I obsessed for days by symptom-checking on Google. Is that slight feeling of nausea a good sign? Does the cramp in my left side signal that the embryo has been implanted? Are my instincts right – after a two-week wait and two years of trying via IVF, am I about to find out that I’m pregnant? Or will I collapse on the floor once again in a miserable heap?

I was always desperately invested in having a baby. Even when my partner tragically took his own life midway through our IVF journey, I carried on without him. Nothing, it turned out, could drown out that overwhelming maternal call.

I’d already bored my family and friends to death with every minute detail of my epic fertility journey and had since progressed to talking to anybody who would listen, including total strangers. This was in 2014, when all I had was the internet, a meditation app, and a best friend going through the same thing. I’d look in the mirror with a tear-stained face wondering if it would ever happen; I looked frazzled with stress. But nobody else could see me.

Now, it’s all changed. Trying to conceive (TTC) videos are a fastgrowing trend: women are recording and sharing the most intimate and raw moments of their fertility journeys on TikTok, and attracting a huge following in the process.

Nothing is taboo in TikTok’s TTC videos; women are baring their souls as they try to cope with this emotional and physical rollercoaster. Along with discussing chemical pregnancies, miscarriages, and irregular cycles, women reveal their tips for achieving successful pregnancies.