The Risk and Opportunity of Online Fertility Groups
When I was first trying to get pregnant, I stumbled upon all kinds of online forums full of people in the interminable two-week waiting period—the time between the day you try to conceive and the day you should take a pregnancy test (according to some guidelines). Here, on the internet, were millions of others wondering the same things I was, attempting to identify any signs they could be pregnant before looking for those two little lines on a plastic stick. Does my nausea mean I’m pregnant? Or just anxious? How about my sudden aversion to my morning coffee?I was turned off by much of the forums’ vocabulary; everything had its own acronym—TTC (trying to conceive), LO (little one), AF (Aunt Flo, that is, menstruation), BFP (big fat positive), to name a few. But I couldn’t help but spend hours scrolling through the posts anyway, getting the information I was desperate for.
