TTC After Loss

No real news today on the TTC front (except temps are a little better, woohoo), so I thought I’d post something about TTC education.

I don’t know about you, but my sex ed classes in school were a joke. In seventh grade the teacher talked about celibacy (Lutheran school) and told the class she was a virgin. That teaching method didn’t really work out for her. In high school, they had the softball coach teaching health class. He had us watch videos of women giving birth for a few weeks and left the room for each one. The videos were from the 1970’s, so they were a bit outdated. (One woman was publicly shamed at a weigh-in for gaining 30 pounds. They said she should only gain 15–20 total!)

So of course I was pretty undereducated by the system. Enterprising young lass that I was, I did my own research. At least I figured out birth control and how to protect myself from STDs, but there was little else available to me then. (I’m 24 now, so this was right before the internet became a popular pastime/information source, at least for high schoolers.) I was actually the most educated of my friends, and the only one who used condoms religiously. I even got into arguments with them when they refused to use protection. Obviously I chose the shining stars of the school to hang out with. :)

I always believed ye olde 28-day cycle myth, with ovulation on day 14. My cycle happened to level out at 28 days when I neared the end of puberty, so it made sense to me. Thank God I never tried the rhythm method! I even got my BFP by calculating days with this method, although I believe now that was lucky chance. (It also took 6 months, so there you go.)

After having a miscarriage and learning more than I ever wanted to know about my lady parts, I am shocked and amazed at how much information is withheld from us. There is clearly a huge failure with our educational system when no one bothers to tell women what the stuff coming out of our hoohahs is! I always thought I wasn’t showering enough at that time of the month. Eek. I don’t know if this stuff is purposely kept from us (thanks to the “joy” that is abstinence education) or if no one thinks it’s worth discussing. Both options seem bad to me.

So anyway, it is now my personal life mission to spread this information. No longer do women need to believe that there is something wrong with them when their period is always “late,” when they have discharge in the middle of their cycle, or when they can’t get pregnant having sex on CD14. I’m starting to believe that men let us have the Pill so that we wouldn’t notice the poor state of reproductive education!

To start with, your cycle is not necessarily 28 days long. In fact, it is a coincidence if it is. The “average” cycle is between 21 and 35 days long. Your cycle can also vary each month depending on health issues, stress, and other factors. For example, my cycle had been like clockwork for a few years before the last two years of college. I was so consistently stressed during those years that my period became unpredictable. I even took a pregnancy test once because I was a few days late, but due to not knowing when AF came, I thought it was a week late. My cycles were back to normal about a month after graduating.

Also, you don’t ovulate on CD14. You can, but it’s definitely not the rule. The reason that your period can come late is that the time between AF and O varies (due to the factors listed above). We will get to predicting O in a moment, but it’s important to remember that counting days will not guarantee pregnancy success!

The time between O and the next AF usually does not vary, however. This time is called the luteal phase. Your LP is very consistent because it is not affected by outside forces. It can vary by a day sometimes, but it’s pretty reliable. A “normal” LP is between 11 and 17 days long, although opinions on the lower end differ. An LP shorter than 10 days (some say 12) can cause infertility because the egg does not have enough time to implant well. This is usually a simple problem to fix, at least compared to many other causes of infertility. Taking a B6 supplement can lengthen the LP, for example. (Of course you should talk to a doctor before trying any treatments!)

So, now you know a little more about the length of your cycle and when you will ovulate. But how do you figure out when to BD? Ahhh, the difficult question. :)

First of all, you may have been misled to believe at some point that sperm can live for a week in your uterus. I think this is to discourage teens from having unprotected sex. (Wouldn’t some pictures of STDs work?) If only sperm were so hardy! The lifespan of a sperm cell in the vagina/uterus relies to a great degree on the type of cervical mucus you are producing. (CM? We’re getting there.) Sperm actually live for as little as (on average) 2–3 days in less fertile or non-fertile CM. They can live for up to 5 days in fertile CM. Of course all sperm are different, but for the average male and female, these are the numbers we can work with.

So we have our sperm lifespan. Now what about fertility timing for women? Here’s where it gets tricky. There are definitely signs of fertility, but they can be difficult to detect and interpret. We’ll start with CM. CM feeds sperm and helps them move and stay alive in the cervix/uterus/ladyparts. But, only fertile CM does this. Non-fertile CM can actually inhibit sperm. So how can you tell the difference? Fertile CM is referred to as “egg white cervical mucus.” It literally looks like egg whites for most women. If you ever thought that you were dirty or had an infection when you saw this stuff, well, now you know it was totally normal! EWCM appears when you are most fertile, right before and usually during ovulation. CM goes through phases leading up to this time. Generally, CM will be dry (or none), then sticky, then creamy, then watery, then EWCM, then dry again. These phases look different and come at different times for all women, but that’s the general idea. Check here (scroll down a little) for some general descriptions of the phases.

If you have fertile CM (EWCM is best, but creamy or watery are good too), it’s time to get your groove on! What if you don’t though, or you are having a hard time detecting it? Well, in my humble opinion, it’s best to have sex as often as possible. Judging by our numbers above, you could have sex every other day throughout your cycle (excluding AF if you like) and have an excellent chance at getting pregnant. Don’t quote me on this, but I had a book called “Getting Pregnant” by Anne Charlish with a great study listed. It said something along the lines of couples having sex at least 15 times a month getting pregnant on average within three months, with the number of months going up drastically as the sex went down. (I don’t remember exactly and have since given away the book, but you can find it on Amazon if you like.)

(Let me dispel another myth here: Having sex on the day of ovulation is NOT how you get pregnant. In general, it is already too late by then. You must have sperm already in place and ready to fertilize, since it takes so long for them to get up there. A National Geographic documentary I have says sperm getting to the right place is comparable to a human walking to the moon. I’m skeptical, but there you go. The egg can live for 12–24 hours, but that information is really not necessary if you are depositing enough sperm before ovulation.)

This brings us to the reason I’m writing this in the first place. I didn’t know much before my BFP, but I knew that you generally had to have a lot of sex to get pregnant (quickly, anyway). Lately I have been noticing a lot of women trying desperately to get pregnant, but only having sex once or twice. That could work, but it’s far less likely than if they did it more frequently! Also, they run the risk (and I have seen them do it) of completely missing the fertile window with those one or two goes. I know that sex is exhausting or not fun for a lot of women out there (it’s sometimes not a cakewalk for me), but I know that these women, like me, would do anything for a baby. I feel like many if not all of them are just not aware of how much increasing frequency of sex would increase their chances.

But, you may be saying, don’t you need to save up sperm? I was told this too many times to count before my struggle with TTC. This is NOT TRUE if your man has an average sperm count! I cannot stress this enough. Men with sperm count issues should consult a doctor for advice, but men with normal sperm counts can hop in the sack as often as they please! Yes, having sex more often can decrease the number of sperm ejaculated each time. But, overall, you will have more fresh sperm available to your egg if you BD more often! Even once per day can increase your chances dramatically, and more than that is like magic. (I got my BFP the first month we tried BDing every day, then twice a day for a week when I was fertile. So I know that’s not too much BDing!) If you are still worried though, or you just can’t bring yourself to have sex that often, once every two days will suffice. You do NOT need to save up sperm. In fact, supposedly men can have a lower sperm count if they don’t ejaculate at least once a week.

That’s all you need to know if you want to go the simple route. If you are having problems or if you just want to be complicated (like me), you can also chart your cervical position. Your cervical position is an optional accessory to charting CM. CP is not as reliable and is difficult to interpret properly (at least for the first couple of cycles), but it might help you. Your CP ranges from low, closed, and firm (infertile) to high, soft, and open (fertile) each cycle. It’s difficult to judge CP since you need to feel each phase to compare them. TCOYF is sooooo helpful in explaining this! The most helpful part for me was the author’s comparison of “firm” to feeling like the tip of your nose, and “soft” to feeling like your lips. (There is a middle phase as well, which is kind of self-explanatory.) The opening is something you have to get used to. I couldn’t tell if mine was open until I felt it become closed afterward. And height is also so relative that you will need some time for that. (I’m still not sure if mine is low or medium!)

You might be asking yourself how the heck you check your cervix. I never even knew that you could feel it. The best method I have found is to do this in the shower. It certainly takes away the gross factor. Make sure that the stream of water is pointing away from you, since you don’t want to get the CM wet. Try to dry your hands a bit as well. Then, crouching down, use the middle finger of your dominant hand and reach it up there as far as you can. It takes some wiggling, but you will eventually feel a bump. (Coincidentally, mine feels about like the tip of my nose!) There will be a dent or hole in the end of it, which is the opening. It may be crooked, which I guess is normal. (I was a little weirded out by that at first.) Try not to bang it up too much, but you can push and poke a bit to judge the firmness. TCOYF also says that you can use your pointer and middle fingers to squeeze the cervix gently and get some CM to check. I know that sounds SO GROSS and it is, but you get used to it. :)

The very, very, very important things to remember are to CUT YOUR NAILS and WASH YOUR HANDS before doing this!!! You don’t want to scratch yourself in there or give yourself an infection! That’s why I like to do it in the shower, after washing, so I know everything is nice and clean. That being said, don’t worry if you have a little bit of spotting later. Any kind of prodding of the cervix can cause that, just like sex or an exam. Also, you can do this on your period, but it’s not necessary. You can wait to check until after AF is gone.

Wow, this is a huge entry. I’ll skip temping for now, since it doesn’t help you with detecting ovulation, just with predicting AF and other things. Isn’t getting pregnant a lot more complicated than just “relaxing” and “letting it happen”? I have no idea how teenagers do it. They must be incredibly fertile. Hopefully though this will help you get pregnant faster, or at least be more aware of your body (and empowered by the knowledge!). Now don’t you feel like you missed a heck of a lot in sex ed class?

Sources: Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler (best book ever!!!); FF Faqs; Babyhopes.com TTC Articles
Note that I have read these facts in reliable sources, but the web sites are available to all and they confirmed said facts.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS