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.