I’m sure a lot of you have heard of the phrase “ovulation anxiety.” In the words of my old friend the neuroscientist and writer, Dr. John Scaer, it’s “the inability to conceive.” The feeling of not being able to get pregnant with your partner’s sperm or a partner’s eggs, which you’ve seen as a pretty common theme in the media and in the scientific community.
A common reason for infertility is the “overage” of your monthly cycle. Most people experience this problem when they become pregnant with a partner or a child that is very, very close to becoming your own.
Anxiety is the feeling we get of our own bodies when we’re unable to conceive. Its a very personal thing and can often go hand in hand with depression. The thing to recognize is that anxiety, in most cases, is a normal reaction to something that is actually quite normal. I’m not saying that you should never be anxious or depressed, but when you’re anxious your body and brain have a hard time making sense of the world around you.
When I was a kid we were all terrified of being anxious. We were afraid that our first tooth would fall out, that we would get sick, etc. This is why you hear so much about the “fight or flight” response. Basically it’s a natural physiological response to feeling threatened. When a person is anxious they tend to feel a lot more anxious and this is an instinctual response.
There is also another type of anxiety or fear. This is called ovulation anxiety. This is not a fear of pregnancy, but of the possibility of becoming pregnant. One of the most common causes of ovulation anxiety is being pressured to have a baby. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as being encouraged by a doctor, or from partners who think they are having a baby.
Ovulation anxiety is not the same as infertility anxiety. These are two separate, but related, categories. OVRI is the fear of becoming pregnant, and AFI is the fear of becoming infertile. I’m not going to go into detail about this here, because I think it would be a great resource.
In our case, we were very fortunate. We found out that the doctor that told us about our problem had misdiagnosed our problem and thought we were having a problem with our fallopian tubes, which are the tubes that go from the ovaries to the uterus.
So we figured that this meant we were ovulating, and had to go to the doctor the next day to get confirmed. However, we were so happy that we found out that our fallopian tubes were fine and that there was nothing wrong with our ovaries. We didn’t panic or get depressed. We just waited for the day to pass and then went to the doctor the next day.
Like having an actual uterus and ovaries, ovulation is actually two separate things. Ovulation is when you find out you’re pregnant. It’s also when you find out you’re ovulating, which is when you begin to ovulate. Ovulation is not the same as pregnancy, though pregnancy is when you find out you’re pregnant, but when you actually ovulate you are actually pregnant. During ovulation you’re at high risk for becoming pregnant.
Ovulation occurs when the body is ready to make more eggs and a man will typically start showing this by around age 35-40, but it does depend on the woman. For instance, for some women, ovulation occurs only a few times a year or two. For others, it can occur in the middle of the night, or every time you pass a bar.
