Am I pregnant?
A glimpse into my unhinged brain and a bit of a rant about being a woman of childbearing age
by Liz Ryan
I am thrilled to share this essay, “Am I pregnant?” written by my dear friend, Liz Ryan, alongside maternity photos I took of her and her family.
Liz is not only a beautiful human and friend, but also a fantastic writer. She has a way of capturing reality - especially in motherhood - with depth and humor. In a world becoming more and more un-real, this what I want to latch on to. What makes me feel less alone, more human.
I was also featured in Liz’s series: Manage the Mornings - where I talk about making dinner at 6am and the unpredictability of mornings with tiny children.
I chose this essay in particular to share because it speaks so tenderly to that specific season of waiting, wanting, questioning, wondering while trying to conceive. And I thought you might like it, too :)
Liz is also a consultant, yoga instructor, and “professional hype woman” - providing 1:1 coaching rooted in priorities + values.
If this all sounds up your alley, I highly recommend subscribing to her Substack and checking out her offerings here.
For at least the last year, I’ve been trying to get into cottage cheese. It seems like the hip, new food, right? But I do not understand it – I can’t figure out how to eat it or if I like it. Is it trying to be yogurt? Or cream cheese? – and I’m not sure why I keep trying to force it, but here we are.
Last winter, I discovered that I could spread cottage cheese on toast, drizzle it with olive oil, add a sprinkle of everything but the bagel seasoning, and top with microgreens for a rather delicious snack. On the second day, I added a fried egg.
In 2022, when I was pregnant with my daughter, my 2nd trimester hyperfixation snack was a bagel with cream cheese, fried egg, and everything but the bagel seasoning. I ate this daily for….. a very long time.
So when I started craving a similar snack, obviously, I assumed that meant I was pregnant.
I don’t know if it’s the abstinence-only, fear-based sex education I received as an adolescent or the lack of any supplemental information from another trusted adult or the frequency of “we used a condom but oops got pregnant anyway” scenes in 2000s sitcoms, but since graduating into adulthood, I have been pretty much constantly convinced I’m pregnant, regardless of any protection I’ve taken against it.
For a long time, this was terrifying. I didn’t want to be pregnant!
I distinctly remember a few months after I got married, I had some unexpected but mild cramping at work one day. I googled some things (rookie mistake), bought a pregnancy test, and panic-texted some friends.
Turns out, I was about to start my period.
And then, as time passed, all the overthinking turned from fear to anxiety-laced hope. Once pregnancy and parenthood became something I wanted – or could even simply see in my future – my brain began fixating on the threads of reality that showed how hard it was to actually get pregnant. I went from being convinced I was accidentally pregnant, despite doing all I could to avoid it, to being certain I’d never be able to get pregnant, regardless of how strategic my efforts were and how badly I wanted to be.
The storyline of Ross and Rachel getting pregnant with condom was forgotten and front of mind now was how perfectly timed the whole system had to be. There are so many pieces that have to work properly and in-sync for an egg to actually fertilize and then your body has to keep it safe and healthy for that egg to eventually become a full-term baby. And yes, there are some things you can and cannot do to support this but you also cannot control much!
The rate of miscarriage is alarmingly high, so even if you time everything correctly to get pregnant, you might not stay pregnant. And then you’d have to do it all over again while also grieving the loss of something you wanted and recovering physically.
And all of these details just live in your brain, clouding the rest of your life.
I once saw a video that showed life with depression – a woman was going about her daily life, but a cloud of pouring rain was following her. The rain soaked her during a bus commute, settled over her desk while she was working, and filled her fancy plate during a nice dinner out. No one else could see the rain that she was battling.
I don’t know what it’s like to live with depression, but I do know what it’s like to live a regular life while carrying something around that others don’t know about. It’s distracting! It makes it hard to focus on…. most everything else!
Trying to conceive is a tricky both/and season. In all seasons, I often want to share everything that’s happening inside my body and brain. I’m an extroverted processor and so often burst forth without much forethought. And then later, I sometimes regret not keeping special things to myself for a little while. There’s an element of wanting to cherish being on the cusp of something monumental, or at least only sharing it with your partner so you can be excited and hopeful together.
And yet, that means the world does not know the mental and physical load you are carrying around as a woman of childbearing age. It’s true that we don’t really ever know the details of everything that other people are navigating internally. Still, because conception and pregnancy have changed very little since, oh, the dawn of time, I’m honestly shocked there’s not a more socially-sanctioned way to discuss the vulnerability around these specific seasons of life.
It’s so taboo to ask someone personal questions and it can be deemed oversharing if you volunteer details to an unwilling recipient. But if women were encouraged to share the details of how they were navigating these seasons of life, we’d be able to help each other carry the load.
For a week in April of this year, my Google searches were off the rails (again, rookie mistake – what was I doing?!?). Am I pregnant? I’d ask myself, no less than 10 times a day. I was in the “two-week wait” – the period of time after ovulation, but before a pregnancy test will be accurate. It’s an excruciating time.
During all variety of moments, my brain cycled through a series of questions:
Am I pregnant?
What day is it?
When did my last period start?
When can I take a pregnancy test and get an accurate result?
What if I’m pregnant right now?
Should I take a test just to check?
One afternoon, as I filled up my water bottle and returned to my desk, I felt some mild cramping. I worked out this morning, but maybe I just didn’t stretch well enough and this is a muscle cramp? And I was also reminded of the similar scene 10 years ago, when I was newly married and panicking, only to start my period.
But what if I’m pregnant?
The next day, before I fully woke up, “I have a headache – am I dehydrated? Is it because I’m pregnant?
The headache lingered all day, and as I drove to pick school pick-up at 4p, I wondered mindlessly, Maybe I’m pregnant?
The next night, as I went to bed at 10p, I was putting lotion on my hands and my nails were so long that I got a big clump of lotion under my fingernail (one of my least favorite sensations, EW). And I thought, My nails seem to have grown quickly the last few days….is it because I’m pregnant?!
The next day, I ended my workday, kind of sweaty and smelling ripe. I’m almost positive I put deodorant on today. Are my hormones going crazy because I’m pregnant? And later that night, washing my face before bed, Ugh I’m breaking out. Did I have acne the last time I got pregnant?
The next morning was Friday, the day I told myself I could finally take a pregnancy test. I peed in the cup, dipped the stick in, and set it out of my view to wait. I brushed my teeth and set a five-minute timer, speculating at what the result will be. Five minutes have never felt so long.
If it’s negative, I will be so sad.
And if it’s positive, holy crap.
I wasn’t pregnant last winter when hyperfixating on my cottage cheese snack. But that Friday when I finally allowed myself to pee on a stick, I got the second pink line indicating, “you are likely to be pregnant,” sending me into the next phase of unstoppable brain spirals (more on that some other time, perhaps).
And now, it’s January 2026. I’m happy to report that the mental load of pregnancy has not completely broken me; I have (mostly) survived pregnancy while parenting a toddler – though there have been plenty of extreme and uncertain moments – and here we sit, four days past my due date, (im)patiently waiting for Baby Brother to make his debut!
It’s been a wild time in my brain and for our family, and I also know that there is so much more to come.
To all the women wanting and trying to conceive, wherever you fall on the spectrum, I’m rooting for you. To get pregnant, yes, but also to maintain your sanity. The road is long (and continues to wind after a positive pregnancy test!) and everyone encounters different obstacles; may yours be navigable and may you also have the courage to share with the people closest to you. Good friends are really great at helping us carry hard and heavy things.
Thank you, Liz, for generously sharing your experience with us!!
Here are a few other essays by Liz that you should check out!! (And again, subscribe to her Substack for all the goods!)
Make the main thing the main thing
Focus on what actually matters