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 fast-growing 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.
It’s not as strange as it might sound. Having millions of people to share the two-week wait with – and to witness the highs and lows of your journey, including pregnancy test results unfolding in real-time – is just the healing balm that many women struggling with infertility need. For some, these videos could be difficult – for example, following along on someone’s fertility journey and seeing them succeed when you haven’t, or convincing yourself that they must have the “magic” fertility secret because they finally got pregnant.
It generally provides some comfort, however, whatever stage you’re at, because TTC videos are proof that you’re not the only one wrestling with endless disappointment and heartache.
You never have to feel alone again, with messages from people 24/7 offering condolences and supportive words. It also helps others who are on their own fertility journey to see similar stories, to feel part of a community – even if they don’t share content themselves.
Katie McCreesh, a 26-year-old gym owner from south Wales, found comfort in other people’s TikTok videos when she suffered a miscarriage in July 2024, just after she got married. She now shares her TTC journey post-miscarriage, using the handle @katiemccreesh.
“A big part of when I had my miscarriage was looking for other people’s personal stories. I wanted to see real people getting through it – not just the statistics,” she says.
She got a lot of support on TikTok during the first few weeks after the miscarriage – she’d learnt at her 12-week scan that the baby had stopped growing at 10 weeks and five days. “With TikTok, I felt like I wasn’t suffering on my own,” she explains.
McCreesh had always documented her own health and fitness journey on TikTok, so it was a natural progression for her to branch into sharing TTC videos.
“I wanted to show those struggling with infertility that it happens to people who are young and healthy – I felt so isolated. I had no support from doctors – they only test you [for fertility issues] after the third miscarriage. I had to figure it out for myself.” TikTok was the perfect place to do it.
In her videos, she reveals that the reality of miscarriage, shares her fertility window is “coming up in a couple of days”, shows herself taking numerous negative pregnancy tests in her bathroom, and discusses how she has to deal with insensitive people who tell her not to “overdo it” next time – as if she were to blame for the miscarriage.
“The hardest thing for me is that I’ve got a business and I haven’t been able to take time off and grieve for my baby loss. Two days after the miscarriage, I was back at work because I didn’t have a choice,” she tells me. TikTok is a helpful way for her to process it all.
“It’s not the norm on social media to be so vulnerable – but my aim is to normalise uncomfortable conversations about fertility so that others see that life isn’t always as perfect as it seems on social media.”
Leanne Seed, an HR coordinator from Durham, is currently posting TTC videos about stuff that happened five months ago, releasing material in regular instalments on her TikTok account, @hamilylife.
“I’m posting up to six videos a day,” the 34-year-old tells me. “I think it’s what people like as they have instant gratification. They get the next video pretty quickly and are not left wondering what happens.”
But in reality, she’s already 19 weeks pregnant – she just hasn’t released that part yet.
“It’s no secret that I’m pregnant,” she says. “It’s on my Instagram and if people message me on TikTok privately, I‘ll be honest about where I’m at. But in TikTok life, I’m technically trying to conceive. Once all the recordings are out, I’ll announce I’m pregnant.”
The point of her videos, she tells me, is to share what has worked for her and resulted in a successful pregnancy.
Seed lost her first baby at 16 weeks. She had already been recording her pregnancy journey, planning to post it on social media after the 12-week scan. “But by then we already knew there was something wrong with the pregnancy,” she tells me.
When she was in a better frame of mind, she released her “pregnancy journey” and her “loss journey” – and she is soon to transition from TTC to her “pregnancy after loss” journey.
The five-month delay in posting gives her some emotional distance. “If I ever get negative comments, I don’t react like I might have done at the time,” she says. “People will give unsolicited advice and, if it was real time, I can imagine it would have made me angry, or even upset. Some people are quite mean.” But 99 per cent of the time, the support is positive.
Her TTC videos include one in which she’s sitting at her kitchen table, listing all the things she’s doing to get pregnant. “Seed cycle, pomegranate juice, beetroot juice, fluffy socks, no baths, expensive vitamins, CoQ10, no alcohol for months … ovulation sticks, a fertility monitor, sm EP [sperm meets egg plan] method … what more could I do,” she asks in the post.
In others, she’s lying on her bed, sharing her irritation at people asking her, “Have you just tried doing nothing?”.
In her videos, Seed reveals her manifestation cards and a good-luck wishing jar with four cloves in it. Before she got pregnant, she had even bought her possible future baby a fleece-lined babygro; she holds it up to the camera in another clip shared online. “I don’t know if this makes me feel better and hopeful or depressed,” she sighs at her kitchen table.
Seed originally turned to TTC videos for help and tips after her loss. But she admits it’s “very addictive, like using forums like Mumsnet or Reddit”.
“It’s partly because women are desperate to learn about how somebody else successfully conceived – what’s helped them – and you hang on to see the minute they succeed.”
All her videos go “hand in hand”, and people can skip backwards and forwards through them depending on where they are at with their own journey. She’s currently stockpiling videos of her symptoms, and the results of screening and blood tests she’s getting done now that she’s pregnant.
It’s easy for some to accuse these women of attention seeking – even play-acting like they’re in a Bridget Jones movie in their quest to be mothers. But the truth is, a problem shared is a problem halved. I wish I’d had TikTok rather than driving my friends mad.
