am i being realistic?

[kimkim]

Hi, I've been lurking the past few months on and off.
I am 9 months pp and no sign of AF.  CM has been mostly in the sticky range.  Once around 3 mo pp I had one day of EWCM and freaked out but then nothing.  Last week I had a day of EWCM and freaked out again, as I was okay about temping but haven't for the past month (i was really sick and sleep was more important than waking at the same time every day)  Anyhoo, my cm has been going back and forth between sticky/wet not stretch to a few days of slightly stretchy (less than an inch) sort of yellowish.  What does this mean?  I know I haven't been strict about NFP but want to give it a go but am new and still learning.  My chart is on FF but it's a mess b/c of different wake up times.

Pre-baby I had a pretty solid 30 day cycle and got pregnant 15 days after my period.  

Post-baby I have no idea where I;m at. If I am even ovulating or what my body is doing, if this CM means anything, please let me know.  I was mostly CTW but had a panic that my DD is too young and I'm not ready to share her or rush her to not be the baby anymore that I'd like at least 9-12 more months before TTC.  I considered an IUD but it seems pricey and silly for such a short time. I really wanted to make the charting work.  We're still ecologically bf'ing and she''s nursing a LOT at night lately (new tooth, almost walking).  I just am overwhelmed and feel like there are too many factors involved for me to be on top of...plus from what I read in TCoYF (if i remember right) was that I couldn't trust charting until af comes...right?

I'd love to hear opinions/experiences about other pp before af.

I just don't want to freak out.  We dtd so rarely lately that I don't want to do it even less...but honestly last time I was so scared that I would get pg....we're just doing w/d for now...

You mamas seem so knowledgeable I appreciate any input you have!

Thanks

[JMJ]

9 months is the beginning of the curve when ecological breastfeeding starts to become less effective (You are more likely to get your period back).  Statistically, you have about a 6% chance of ending up pregnant before your first postpartum bleed if you have regular intercourse and do nothing to prevent pregnancy.  This takes into account the probability that the woman would not have a non-ovulatory postpartum bleed before ovulating, the couple would DTD on the right day, would fertilize the egg, and the woman's luteal phase would be long enough.  There is a 94% chance that not all of those would happen.  You can increase this probability more through fertility awareness.

Your body only ovulates once before your first PPAF.  You can have a bleed that is not a true period without ovulating, but you cannot ovulate without it being followed by AF (unless you're pregnant, of course).  It sounds like your body is trying to get itself back into gear.  It builds up to ovulate (EWCM), and then you don't, and it dries up.

You can CTA in a number of ways before your first PPAF:

-Charting CM (Learn more through Creighton, Billings, CCL, or NFPI): If you have sticky CM every day for 2 weeks, you can call it your Basic Infertile Pattern (BIP).  You can consider yourself to be infertile on days that you have your BIP.  If you have any CM other than your BIP, you consider yourself to be fertile on those days and to the 4th day after Peak day (your last day of fertile CM).

-Using a ClearBlue Fertility Monitor (Marquette Method): Start the monitor on CD5.  After 20 days (CD25), reset to CD5.  Test every other day if "low."  Test every day if "high" or "peak."  Abstain if you get a high or peak reading.

-Using a Calendar: Somebody worked out the statistics and figured that you would get about 99% effectiveness if you never went less than 10 days between DTD before your first PPAF.

Edited by JMJ - 6/18/11 at 1:47pm

[kimkim]

thx for the info jmj.

i meant to put this in tta june but i'm glad you found it. is there a way to move it there?

you know your stuff!

that dtd every 10 days is interesting. i've never heard that. 

our wake times are all over the board lately so temping hasn't been happening. i can't bring myself ti use an alarm when i'm nursing all night long.  so for now i'll work on cm. anyone recmmend any resources that detail cm differences? i don't think i've ever had lotiony cm but can tell the diff between sticky and ewcm. lately it's been a lot of yellow tinged wet? stretchy but not very much so. what does the yellow versus white vs clear tell you?

[JMJ]

I don't think you can merge this thread into an already existing one, but please do come join us in the CTA thread.

Postpartum, about 1/3 of women will not ovulate before their first PP"AF", and another third will not have an adequate luteal phase.  That leaves only 1/3 of women who would even be able to get pregnant.

Here's the write-up of the study on the 10 days between DTD idea (PDF download).  If you look on page 17, you'll see that the theoretical probability of pregnancy if you DTD exactly every 10 days is 3%, but in actuality, couples tend to go over that sometimes, increasing the effectiveness.  Out of 110 woman-years (they included calender-method guidelines for subsequent cycles as well that had similar theoretical effectiveness), they had 19 user failures and only 3 method failures.  More research needs to be done, but that's nothing to scoff at even if future studies are not quite as promising.

I used to remember this when I was hoping that I'd have CM to warn me before ovulation (this was a difficulty for me before getting pregnant, and I used temp-only rules most of the time), but as a postpartum mama, we would go way more than 10 days, so it was comforting for me to remember that even if I had trouble with CM.  As it turns out, I got enough space with breastfeeding alone, ended up not TTA before my first PPAF, and landed in the "ovulated but short luteal phase" category.

I would get your hands on one of the NFP/FAM manuals listed in the resources section at the top of the CTA thread for more information on CM.  The Billings Method and the Creighton Method are CM-only methods, so they would have the most information on types of CM.

Yellow is a less-fertile type mucus.  That actually sounds very similar to my postpartum BIP.  If you have the same amount, color, texture, etc for 2 weeks, you mark that as infertile and treat it as you would a "dry" day.

Hope that helps.  Come join the CTA forum to get more support.  We've got a couple CM-only users there who could give you some great information.

[Jaimee]

JMJ I learn something new from you almost every time I read your posts!  LOL!   That DTD every 10 days study is super interesting.  Though, in my case, we DTD once in oh, about 30 days, and got pregnant.  Sigh...

[JMJ]

Sorry, Jaimee.  That is only for before your first PPAF.  I edited my above post to be more clear.  If I recall correctly, you had already had your first PPAF with your babies, right?  You're still a statistical anomaly, though.  I think your miracle babies were just meant to be.

[Jaimee]

Yes, that is true.. I had one ppAF, so I would have had to follow the days 1-10 rule, which we obviously did not...  LOL!