Pregnancy: How I Got There, Part 2

'Temping' Your Way To Conception

BBT...BBT...BBT...I keep seeing these 3 letters everywhere I read an article or blog on pregnancy! BBT? .....Babies Be Teething...?  

Baby Boom Theory....? 

Basic Baby Techniques....??



Bouncing Baby Test....???



Can someone PLEASE tell me what that is...????

O...

Please don't tell me you have to...you know...stick it up there...?

Actually you can if you want to. Really. But if you do...you have to stick to that method every month!

SO, this is a Basal Body Thermometer, used for taking your Basal Body Temperature. Basal body temperature is the temperature of your body upon waking. Essentially it is your lowest temperature for that day, attained while your body is at rest. 

Why is this temperature so important?

Well, if you want to fall pregnant, then pin-pointing when you ovulate is the key to achieving pregnancy and your BBT will help you to determine that.

 

During ovulation, a woman's body temperature tends to rise up by roughly 1° Fahrenheit / ½° Celsius. Therefore, by 'temping' every morning and recording this temperature, you will become accustomed to the pattern of your own body temperature and will able to map out when you will be ovulating. The more familiar you become with your own body temperature, the better your chances of conceiving. Intercourse timing is important! (I found out much to my dismay...but making these planned intercourse sessions fun is fun in itself!!) 

You can purchase a BBT kit at any pharmacy. They usually come with a booklet in which you can record your temperature. There are also really great fertility sites that have a BBT chart integrated, so you can easily punch in your temperature on these sites and your chart will be drawn out for you with information about it. I was on 2 sites AND recording in my booklet. Sounds like I went over-board but I enjoyed all of it! So try out fertilityfriend.com and/or countdowntopregnancy.com. I found them the most helpful and filled with info.

How does 'temping' work exactly?

So there are a few rules you need to follow in order to be as accurate as possible. Accuracy is really important.

1.) Begin your 'temping' the first morning of your period. If your period arrived during the day, then start the next morning.

2.) Take your temperature EVERY MORNING at the SAME time.

3.) Take your temperature using the SAME method everyday. 

   --under your armpit -- under your tongue -- in your vagina --->whichever you fancy :)

4.) Take your temperature BEFORE getting out of bed. BEFORE moving. NO hugging the sexy man next to you. No talking to him either. NO cuddling. Don't even think about peeing just yet unless you have taken your temperature first! All these things affect your temperature as they can raise it to an inaccurate degree.

5.) Record it or write it down to record later.

Now...you may carry on with your day :)

Charting...

Everyday you chart your bbt, you will notice that your temperature stays at around the same level. Keeping in mind that every women is different and actually, your temperatures may be all over the shore. That is completely fine, you will still be able to determine your pattern.

Before you ovulate, your body creates a high level of estrogen. This hormone is what keeps your body temperature at a low. Once you ovulate, your body now increases its dose of progesterone and it is this hormone that increases your body temperature.

What you will notice on your chart is a slight dip in temperature followed by a big rise. 

See example in chart below:

This is my personal chart. As you can see after the slight dip, I am one of the women who actually had a slow rise in temperature. Most other women have a significant and obvious rise. 

That slight dip, before the rise, is the day you ovulate!! D-DAY!

If you are also tracking your cervical mucus and/or your cervical position as I had explained in my previous post, then you will see that it all corresponds accordingly and you will have egg-white mucus and a high, squishy soft cervix the day your temperature dips. 

Alarm bells should be ringing right about now to locate your man! Go! Go! Go!

The best time to conceive (according to various sources) is 3 days before ovulation and the day of, just to make sure :) 

Assuming you got your conception time right, your folic acid and iron levels are up to date, that you are loyally ovulating and your partner's 'sperm in shining armor' has won your perfect, glowing egg, then your temperature should stay in the high ranges from here on. Congratulations!!!! 

 

If you are not pregnant, after about 14 days, expect your temperature to drop significantly and your period to arrive the next day. It is recommended to chart your temperature for about 3 months before seeing an obvious pattern. I was just lucky enough to have done it on my first charting attempt. 

I had found it really helpful to scroll through various pregnancy charts on Fertility Friend. I familiarized myself with the different ways womens' temperatures fluctuated and strayed away from the 'classic' charting signs and STILL got pregnant. If it doesn't work for you the first time, don't be disheartened. There is a time and place for EVERYTHING. Even making something as precious as a baby. Your body will be ready when it is ready. It is just up to you to help prime yourself for pregnancy and your hormones will conspire :)

Have fun!!!! :) Lots of it!! It's an exciting time!

Pregnancy: Getting There!

Primal Decision

Since beginning my love story with my soul mate, Shahn, I had one day experienced one of the greatest realizations/feelings/inner experiences that had just exploded inside of me from out of nowhere! It's like a nuclear bomb sitting inside you just waiting for the right trigger to set it off. 

Yes, I am talking about that intense feeling you get that drives a woman to have a baby! It is such a primal feeling. But it hit! Hard. And so the conversations were sparked, the idea was given time to set in, and a year after marriage we were both ready!!

It was only after embarking on this journey that research revealed to me that there was so much I had not known about making a baby! All my life I thought it was just:

1+1= baby

No way! It's turned out more like this:

4 Months Before Conception

For the first 2 months after making the decision to discard all intercourse protection (yay!), we were just on a high checking and double checking for the very FIRST symptoms and signs that my darling husband's sperm won the race so we can celebrate and say "O my, what competitive athletes you have!" :) Oh but of course, the lining of my womb faithfully shed as it always did...and then the day came when we were booked into have a full body check at a wonderful wellness center. Oh my goodness, I can not stress enough how important it is to have this check done, especially if you are trying to conceive!! 

What we discovered:

My iron levels were lower than low! This meant that I was getting through each day on adrenaline instead of energy and that in turn made my thyroid glands work 100 times harder than it actually should and so it was not in optimum health at all. And what ALL this means was that it was causing me to not ovulate(produce eggs) every month! So obviously the sperm race was in vain because they were racing towards a non-existent egg!

My folic acid levels were low - extremely important for pregnancy.

My instructions were to not make a baby until these levels were up first. It would be impossible anyway, because my body was not primed for pregnancy just yet. 

And so began my next journey into making my womb an inviting and safe place for future baby. 

I had also begun research into ovulation and that opened up so many doors of knowledge that I found absolutely crucial to know. It is something definitely worth sharing, so here we go:

Two very important things happen simultaneously when you ovulate and you need to become familiar with it...

1.) Cervical mucus. You need to recognize the different types of your mucus throughout your menstrual cycle to get a clear idea of when you ovulate. That means, feeling it, looking at it, smearing it between your fingers! YES! It does sound gross, but it's a part of your body and you get to know this different part of yourself that you never did! How awesome is that! I enjoyed it - I actually felt proud of my body after monitoring it every week and saw the developments and improvements :) (Well done body!!)

2.) Cervix positioning. Your cervix changes position 3 times throughout your menstrual cycle. You need to understand when and why those positions occur which confirm ovulation on another level. It means sticking your finger up there and feeling around to confirm which stage you're at.

Sounds fun doesn't it! ;)

Cervical Mucus: The Details

These are the stages of cervical mucus after your period ends:

dry, flaky or no mucus --> moist, watery, creamy --> thick, sticky, egg-white, stretchy

Checking your cervical mucus every few days to see which phase it is in will give you a pretty good indicator of where you are in your cycle and how close you are to ovulation. The key here is to catch the egg-white mucus in time so you can do the magical deed to conceive. The egg white, stretchy mucus creates a wonderful environment for sperm to survive, thrive and move through obstacles quick enough to reach your ovaries. 

When you see this, drop what you're doing and drag your baby-making companion into the bedroom (or the closest convenient spot) ;)

Cervix: Where are you???

After your period ends, upon investigating, you should find that your cervix is positioned low and feels quite hard. Alot of people refer to it as the tip of a nose. So when you do decide to look for it, feel around for a hard nose :/ 

There is also an opening in your cervix that you may be able to feel. It's closed when the cervix is hard but as it softens, the opening becomes wider, more inviting so to speak.

As you proceed through your cycle, your cervix will begin to move a higher up and feel a little softer than it was before and nearing the end of your cycle, when you are producing egg white mucus (the most fertile), your cervix will be way up there and squishy soft. This allows it to open up and make it easier for sperm to travel into. It's like a light at the beginning of a tunnel for sperm. 

low cervix, hard --> med cervix, med soft--> high cervix, squishy soft

If you are really interested in seeing these phases in full colour, I suggest you visit this link:

Beautiful Cervix Project. This woman photographed the inside of her vagina everyday of her 33 day cycle and commented on what you see in terms of cervical mucus, cervix positioning and body symptoms. It's worth a look!

Final overview:

 dry, flaky or no mucus --> moist, watery, creamy --> thick, sticky, egg-white, stretchy -->

   --low cervix, hard--       --med cervix, med soft--        --high cervix, squishy soft--

          ~infertile~                    ~slightly fertile~                         ~very fertile~

Woohoo! In my next blog, I will be touching on the instrument that got me waking up at 7am everyday. It's quite fun to use, a BBT thermometer! :) Measuring your Basal Body Temperature every morning and making sure if it corresponds to your mucus and cervix is so reassuring that you are on the correct track and that your body is playing ball!

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it! :) 

Lots of Love,

Dhiya & Shahn