A few different things have happened in our rainbow baby quest. First, AF this cycle was very short for me (4 days when it's usually a minimum of 7). A few days after this cycle started I was praying before bed. I started a new part time job as a nanny/housekeeper and am really enjoying it, and I was thanking God for my job. I began to say, "I'm really happy with it," but what came out was "I'm pregnant." Now I wasn't thinking along those lines at all and though it's something I do pray about it wasn't on my mind that night because I was beyond tired. So, I thought maybe God is telling me that it'll happen this cycle because I was a few days in.
My mom bought a new blood pressure cuff 4 days ago that also reads the pulse and she kept bugging me to check mine because hers was reading high and my BP usually stays around 114/76. I began to notice that every time my pulse was higher than is usual for me. My pulse is usually about 68 and every time I take my resting BP with her cuff (and when I've measured it on my own) it's between 78 and 89. None of the times I took it was I doing anything to make my pulse accelerate, so it made me start wondering if something was up. I did a little research because this combined with the other things I mentioned made me wonder if maybe my increased pulse could mean I'm preggo. I know pregnant women have a higher pulse rate than they would normally because they are pumping extra blood throughout the body and it makes the heart work harder.
So, last night I took a test because I really began thinking that if I was pregnant then it couldn't be from this cycle and maybe the AF I had wasn't really an AF but ovulation bleeding. We'd BD'd 3 days before AF started so it was totally possible. As soon as I did the test I could see a faint line appear but I couldn't tell if it was a true BFP or an evap line. My hubby saw it too, and we decided we'd do one this morning with FMU. So, I took the one this morning with FMU and didn't see anything, and neither did my hubby but when I got home tonight I saw a very faint line on it that almost looked like a shadow.
I know you aren't supposed to read tests that are hours old but I did anyways just to see and compare it to the previous test. I think the line might have been there before because the test strip was still wet when we read it (we used $ store cheapies) and the wetness could have been hiding the line. So, if it is a BFP, then I must not have conceived when I first thought because the line would have been much darker. With my previous 2 pregnancies I never got a BFP before CD35, and this is only CD28. I really don't want to wait another week to take another test, so Mike and I agreed I'd take another test on Friday but I'm going to buy a 2 pack so that if it comes up questionable, I'll have one to take on CD35.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Interesting Info on Cervical Mucus
I don't remember where I was reading this, I think it was on a blog called Naturally Knocked Up, but I found some very interesting information about cervical mucus (CM).
What's really sad is that it's more common sense than anything else, but hindsight is 20/20. The article basically says that women who are trying to conceive with regular cycles should look for two days in a row with egg-white-CM (EWCM) instead of monitoring BBT, cervical position, and cervical mucus for the majority (if not the whole) of their cycle. If EWCM is noted 2 days in a row the likelihood of conception at that point is greater.
So, I do find this interesting and while reading it was asking myself why I didn't just do that instead of checking all of those things each day. Then, I realized the reason I track my BBT, CP, and CM is because it makes me feel like I'm in control of this one thing that I want more than anything. Just that routine makes me feel like I have an edge over just having sex every other day and hoping that we'll catch that egg.
Just writing this post makes me realize just how stressful all of those measurements can make TTC. I never considered those things stressful, but all of the sudden I realize that they are. Making sure I take my temp as soon as I wake up, and not after an hour of tossing and turning hoping I'll go back to sleep, is stressful and annoying. In fact, I find temping to be the bane of my existence because I always want to argue with my charts especially when I think they should detect ovulation on a certain day or if my temp is unusually high one day.
If I followed this method, I wouldn't have to constantly be searching for my cervix hoping that it might be at just the right stage. I wouldn't have to be checking CM when there's not a chance I'm fertile. I wouldn't have to immediately search out my thermometer, that seems to always be moving, and temping for just long enough to wake me up. If I followed this method, I wouldn't be as anxious about each cycle.
The more I think about this method, the more I realize when we conceived our daughter, this was actually the method we used. I would just monitor my CM and we would have sex accordingly. It wasn't stressful because there weren't so many things for me to scrutinize and stress over.
I guess what I learned most from this article is that educating yourself about these methods can cause more issues than resolving them. I didn't even know about BBT and such until after we'd lost our daughter and had started trying again. When I started having all of the cycle issues was when I started looking to educate myself on TTC methods. I did conceive the first cycle we tried again, and with temping, but we lost that one also.
This cycle is already well under way, but my next cycle I am definitely going to try to revert to this method. It's much simpler and less stressful. And let's face it, we all need less stress.
What's really sad is that it's more common sense than anything else, but hindsight is 20/20. The article basically says that women who are trying to conceive with regular cycles should look for two days in a row with egg-white-CM (EWCM) instead of monitoring BBT, cervical position, and cervical mucus for the majority (if not the whole) of their cycle. If EWCM is noted 2 days in a row the likelihood of conception at that point is greater.
So, I do find this interesting and while reading it was asking myself why I didn't just do that instead of checking all of those things each day. Then, I realized the reason I track my BBT, CP, and CM is because it makes me feel like I'm in control of this one thing that I want more than anything. Just that routine makes me feel like I have an edge over just having sex every other day and hoping that we'll catch that egg.
Just writing this post makes me realize just how stressful all of those measurements can make TTC. I never considered those things stressful, but all of the sudden I realize that they are. Making sure I take my temp as soon as I wake up, and not after an hour of tossing and turning hoping I'll go back to sleep, is stressful and annoying. In fact, I find temping to be the bane of my existence because I always want to argue with my charts especially when I think they should detect ovulation on a certain day or if my temp is unusually high one day.
If I followed this method, I wouldn't have to constantly be searching for my cervix hoping that it might be at just the right stage. I wouldn't have to be checking CM when there's not a chance I'm fertile. I wouldn't have to immediately search out my thermometer, that seems to always be moving, and temping for just long enough to wake me up. If I followed this method, I wouldn't be as anxious about each cycle.
The more I think about this method, the more I realize when we conceived our daughter, this was actually the method we used. I would just monitor my CM and we would have sex accordingly. It wasn't stressful because there weren't so many things for me to scrutinize and stress over.
I guess what I learned most from this article is that educating yourself about these methods can cause more issues than resolving them. I didn't even know about BBT and such until after we'd lost our daughter and had started trying again. When I started having all of the cycle issues was when I started looking to educate myself on TTC methods. I did conceive the first cycle we tried again, and with temping, but we lost that one also.
This cycle is already well under way, but my next cycle I am definitely going to try to revert to this method. It's much simpler and less stressful. And let's face it, we all need less stress.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)