Charting to Avoid/Fertiltiy Awareness December - Page 2

[Devaya]

buterflymomma, I also get confused with the CM - not sure if I'm correctly identifying what's fertile and what's not, it's like, it's kinda hard to know without comparing it to a real life other person's, which is just not going to happen ;)

Update: after 4 days of spotting I'm pretty sure my period began for real yesterday - it became a proper flow and all fresh blood. So, what I'm wondering is, if I can count myself as not being fertile for 5 days from yesterday, as per TCOYF rules - or count it from the first day of spotting... seeing my boyfriend Fri for the weekend so need to figure it out ;) JMJ, you said in a PP that there could be three possible reasons for the spotting, so I'm still not sure what's going on....I had what felt like ovulation pain very clearly on the 2nd or 3rd day of spotting, then yesterday menstrual cramps began, though I'd had those too on the first day of spotting (though milder). Hhmm, all very mystifying. 

[dreamingtree]

Well...the past 2 days I've had really sore nipples and pain when little boy nurses.  I thought maybe it was thrush/yeast so started with the nystatin cream (I've had yeast on my nipples before) and also rinsing with white vinegar for relief.  It doesn't seem to be helping a whole lot like it usually does but maybe it will take a few days.  I got 2 positive OPK's today.  So maybe my body is making another attempt.  For those of you who get nipple soreness around time of O.... do your nipples get more pink at all/irritated?  I suppose if you're not breastfeeding it might be different.  I'm just trying to figure out if this is yeast or hormone related.

[JMJ]

Butterflymomma, I don't know all what is normal after a miscarriage, but spotting with EWCM can be associated with getting ready to ovulate.  I wish I had more answers for you.

Devaya, I still don't see clear signs of ovulation in your chart, and without knowing for sure that you ovulated and are experiencing a true period, I can't be sure that this is the start of a new true cycle (in which case you could be more sure that you would be infertile for the first few days).

Infojunkie, I had insanely sore nipples the few days before I ovulated for the first time postpartum.  I don't remember if they were pink.

Sorry, I'm not great on answers today.

On CM, it is difficult to really "get" CM when the experience of our own CM is not really something that we can fully share.  I can totally relate since I spent 6 years of my life trying to make sense of mine... OK, OK, I wasn't working that hard at trying to understand it most of that time, and I did come a lot closer to understanding it in the few months before I got married, something about the need to be ready to actually use it helped the process along, it was a long time after that before I really got to the point that I felt like I ot it.  I have looked at the same thing and described it as "creamy," "watery," "nothing," or "mushy."  Really, "nothing" and "watery" are the opposite ends of the spectrum, so that makes it really darn confusing!

Answer: I had a really bad chronic yeast infection that obscured my fertility signs for years.  A couple rounds of monostat later, I saw fertile CM for the first time ever (about 7 months into my marriage of CTA with temp only... oh boy, was that fun...), and a few months of an anti-yeast diet later, I was able to get enough fertile CM to actually plan a pregnancy, and since my pregnancy, my CM has been a lot easier to understand.  Figuring out the return to fertility while breastfeeding was a cinch after all I'd gone through before.  Trust me when I say that I understand how insanely difficult it can be to "get" CM.

Some rules of thumb:

-Watch for the change.  If you have a BIP, watch for something to change to let you know that you are about to ovulate.  In trying to find Peak day, look for a sudden and drastic change.

-Looking for your own qualitative changes in your own CM patterns is much more important than fitting it into somebody else's categories.  The goal is to understand what your body does when it's not yet fertile, what your body does as it's approaching ovulation, what your body does at ovulation, and how to tell when your body has ovulated.

-More CM is more fertile than less CM.

-Sensations at the vulva are very, very important.  More-fertile type CM is almost always slippery/lubricative at the vulva.

-Clear is more fertile than cloudy, is more fertile than yellow or opaque.  Clear is distinctly "more fertile."  Yellow and opaque are distinctly "less-fertile."

-"a little bit of stick to the TP" is less fertile than "creamy" is less fertile than "tacky" is less fertile than "stretchy" or "EWCM" is less fertile than an even longer stretch is less fertile than "watery."

-"Creamy" and "tacky" are somewhat analogous terms in how they are used in different charting systems, though "tacky" implies that there may be a very small amount of stretch before it breaks apart and does not hold together well.  "Creamy" seems to me like it would imply being opaque, which would be a sign of being "less-fertile" while "tacky" can be any color (though often cloudy).  Both are used to denote a type of CM that may be more or less fertile.

-"Stretchy" can seem to be dependent on amount sometimes.  You can wipe a little bit off and get it to stretch an inch before it breaks because there's not enough to get it to stretch more then wipe to try to get more and get it to stretch several inches.  Your goal is to get a sense of how much and how stretchy.  It may be helpful to kegel to see if you can get a little bit more out, observe it after a bowel movement (but before it all drips into the toilet!) or to judge it partly based on how many times you observe it during the day.  To some extent, one kind of "stretchy" vs another doesn't matter that much.  It's all more-fertile type mucus, but it does help to see qualitatively.

-"Watery" is pretty much always clear (though in and is a type of CM that has so much lubrication that you may not even be able to pick it up and stretch it.  You would certainly expect to feel a slippery, watery feeling at the vulva.

[LionessMom]

Originally Posted by JMJ 

-Looking for your own qualitative changes in your own CM patterns is much more important than fitting it into somebody else's categories.  The goal is to understand what your body does when it's not yet fertile, what your body does as it's approaching ovulation, what your body does at ovulation, and how to tell when your body has ovulated.

this is a big one. i kept trying to fit it into the pics i saw in books and online. it was one book in particular that made it click for me and i cant remember the name of it. but it said all these things you listed. the big thing is to keep detailed records so you can recognize your own pattern. bc not everyone fits into the same mold. yk? i kept looking for big stretchy fresh cracked out of the egg whites. and i dont get that. i get something slightly different. it is close but i kept trying to fit it into that picture perfect ideal i saw in a book. doesnt happen like that.

[dreamingtree]

Well..... maybe I'm getting an ovulation surprise?  Two positive OPK's.... two days above the coverline.... temp going up.  Of course it could slam back down tomorrow.  Hoping those two pullout days 2 and 3 days prior were executed successfully by DH, haha.  Didn't really have any remarkable CM differences in the past two days and definitely no lubricative properties or stretch. Just smooth.   But I have heard of HBC temporarily damaging cervical crypts (and Mirena of course delivered hormones locally to that very area for a year), so maybe my CM will take a while to gear up.  I checked with the Pope Paul VI institute and they said the only procedure that seems to significantly affect ability to produce CM is a cone biopsy, a leep just removes abnormal cells. 

This could just be another false start but stuff is definitely happening. 

JMJ, I really like your advice above about really looking for qualitative changes and what is normal for your body, instead of comparing to the "ideal" or "usual" pattern of fertility signs.

[mt_gooseberry]

Originally Posted by JMJ 

Answer: I had a really bad chronic yeast infection that obscured my fertility signs for years.  A couple rounds of monostat later, I saw fertile CM for the first time ever (about 7 months into my marriage of CTA with temp only... oh boy, was that fun...), and a few months of an anti-yeast diet later, I was able to get enough fertile CM to actually plan a pregnancy, and since my pregnancy, my CM has been a lot easier to understand.  Figuring out the return to fertility while breastfeeding was a cinch after all I'd gone through before.  Trust me when I say that I understand how insanely difficult it can be to "get" CM.
 

I'm going on two years now with a chronic systemic yeast infection.  It started out as thrush w/DD, and really flared up again when I started nursing DS.  I'm using Creighton and it is really hard.  I know from experience that temping doesn't work with night nursing for me, and I can't afford Marquette.  I'm trying to make sense of my mucus, but I'm really relying on breastfeeding infertility to get me through.  I just hope it's enough between the two methods!  Once yeast gets into your whole system, it is sooo hard to get rid of!  I am REALLY suffering right now....

[dreamingtree]

Originally Posted by mt_gooseberry 

I'm going on two years now with a chronic systemic yeast infection.  It started out as thrush w/DD, and really flared up again when I started nursing DS.  I'm using Creighton and it is really hard.  I know from experience that temping doesn't work with night nursing for me, and I can't afford Marquette.  I'm trying to make sense of my mucus, but I'm really relying on breastfeeding infertility to get me through.  I just hope it's enough between the two methods!  Once yeast gets into your whole system, it is sooo hard to get rid of!  I am REALLY suffering right now....

I've been looking on http://www.theyeastdiet.com/yeast-free-diet.html, thinking maybe I should try it, but all the foods on the "do not eat' list are basically EVERYTHING I eat...

[mt_gooseberry]

Originally Posted by infojunkie 

I've been looking on http://www.theyeastdiet.com/yeast-free-diet.html, thinking maybe I should try it, but all the foods on the "do not eat' list are basically EVERYTHING I eat...

Yeah, that's why I haven't had much luck with yeast diets! 
 

[mt_gooseberry]

Originally Posted by infojunkie 

I've been looking on http://www.theyeastdiet.com/yeast-free-diet.html, thinking maybe I should try it, but all the foods on the "do not eat' list are basically EVERYTHING I eat...

Yeah, I haven't been able to give up my beer, cheese, chocolate, honey, or potatoes, although I do OK with the rest of it. 

[JMJ]

Infojunkie, I'm curious to see what happens with your chart.

I realized what was going on with my yeast pretty much exactly at the beginning of Lent, a 40(ish) day of fasting in my Church before Easter, so I made that my Lenten fast that year.  Boy, was that hard, but it was really good timing.  I added back fruit and a little bit of raw honey at Easter.  It was really nice for me to have that religious motivation to get me over the sugar-craving hump.  I'd also like to note that there are different perspectives when it comes to naturally fermented foods.  Everyone agrees that you should avoid things with acetic acid (white vinegar) in them, but different people encourage avoiding or aiming to eat naturally fermented foods (which contain different kinds of yeast and bacteria) such as sauerkraut and kefir.  I initially did Dr. Crooke's anti-yeast diet, which forbids fermented foods of any kind, but I've found lately that fermented foods have been really helpful.  You can wipe out the yeast, but it will continue to be more of a fight if you work to replace it with the cultures that are helpful to your body.  It's much easier for me to think in terms of what to eat rather than what not to eat.  It also helps to make sure that I'm getting enough calories in good foods, so that I'm not tempted to snack on carby foods, by adding healthy fats such as coconut oil (which is also an antifungal), ghee, and olive oil to what I'm eating.

[HouseofPeace]

Originally Posted by buterflymomma 

I have been having a lot of trouble differentiating my CM. The other day I believe it was eggwhite as it stretched a good 1-2 inches, it also felt slippery. Yesterday it seemed kinda, slippery, but didn't stretch as much. To me it seems that all my CM is of fertile quality lately, but no O so far.  I have been using my TCOYF book, but am still having some issues. I wondering if somebody can explain a bit better to me?

I am still waiting to O, but have had some blood streaked CM and some pain/cramping. I am wondering if I should call my OB or if this a normal thing to happen after a miscarriage? I have also been feeling very rundown lately. I really just want things to get back to normal. I am on CD34 with no signs of O.

i'm in the same boat on dates (day 33), mucus(gone watery/slippery/stretchy today), blood-streaks and everything else.  But am on my second cycle since birth.  wonder if hormones are just off.  hang in there and praying you start to feel better soon!

[jodi5]

I've had a strange cycle.  I know I had less sleep at times than I should be really not great reasons for my huge drop and then slow rise temp.  The temp I missed just after the really high one was when I went to a course out of town and couldn't get back that night so didn't have my LC with me to temp.  I think the added stress of that trip not planned delayed my ovulation as I had the latest peak on the monitor that I have ever had.  I did peak the day after the opk gave me a positive reading and had my typical ovulation pain so I think I likely did ovulate then but I felt quite unsure for a while there.   It did not delay AF arriving though so I may have had a shorter LP as I started spotting tonight so I expect AF will arrive in force tomorrow.  One weird thing is that until last cycle I have never spotted in my life and both last cycle and this one I think I have just as AF is arriving.  I'll have to think about that. 

ETA:  It seems there have been quite a few strange cycles this month around here.  Interesting.

[dreamingtree]

For those of you charting temps..... do you adjust your temperatures if you take them earlier or later than your "regular" time?  For example, TCOYF will offer to adjust your temperatures .1 degree up or down per 30  minutes (but only up to 90 minutes before or after your normal wakeup time, otherwise it's considered disturbed).  That is based on the assumption that the temps will rise roughly .2 degrees per hour.    For my TCOYF charts, I do this. So for example, today at 6:15am my temp was 97.3.  But TCOYF adjusted it to 97.6 for what it might have been at my normal wakeup time of 7:30am. 

That being said, I also use Fertility Friend, but I use that to record my ACTUAL temp at exactly when I took it, no matter when.  So I'll be interested to see what each program comes up with for O dates (if I ovulated).

Does anyone else adjust temps or do you just take them for what they are?   I could set an alarm, but the little boy has been waking me up so much in the night that I don't want to risk waking him up early when I want to stay in bed longer! :)

[JenRN]

I adjust my temps to a certain point, mostly the 90 minute window TCOYF allows (sometimes 2 hours). If I wake up close to 8am, my "normal" time, I adjust it. However, I work night shift once or twice a week, not getting to sleep until 6:30am and waking somewhere between noon and 2pm. These days, if I even remember to temp, I just disturb it. I have noticed that sometimes my temp will line up properly with the rest of my chart even at 2pm, but not always, so I don't feel like I can use it every time.

My chart  has lined up properly so far (this is only the start of my 4th cycle charting).

[JMJ]

I've found that the .2 F/hour rule works pretty well for one or two temperatures that are off if you are actually usually waking up at your usual wake-up time.  It doesn't work as well for migrating wake-up times, though, since your body will begin to adjust.  Different women's bodies will respond differently, but I had great success while breastfeeding and cosleeping with not setting an alarm, keeping a pretty consistent bedtime, and letting my wake-up time drift some.  I generally woke up between 6:45 and 8 with an average wake-up time that I listed at 7 or 7:30 depending on the cycle, and I was generally able to sleep until my internal clock told me that I'd gotten enough sleep, so I believe I was catching my temp about the time my body thought I should wake up.  Most of the time, my schedule shifted slowly, so I'd wake up between 6:45 and 7 for a couple weeks, and then between 7 and 7:20 for a couple weeks, etc.  I got great results but marked a lot of temps as potentially disturbed.  It was strange because there would be times that I would wake up between 6:45 and 7 for a while, and the DD would go through a rough patch so we weren't sleeping as well, and we would suddenly change to wake up closer to 7:45 for a week or 2, and I didn't notice a significant change in my temps based on this change.  It was as if my body temp didn't start rising as early if it knew I needed to sleep later.

When you get used to charting, I think experimentation is great to figure out how to make it easier and to find something that you can live with over time.  However, I don't recommend this for beginners.  Not every woman's body will still give her good information if she is changing her wake-up time, and not every woman's body will respond the same to changes in wake-up times, and it's much easier to get good results if you're consistent with wake-up times until you know what is normal for you.  Once you can be confident about your normal pattern, it is much easier to confidently experiment later.

[kat216]

Add me to the list of people having strange cycles this month! I've had running days of mixed creamy/egg white cf, but no O yet. Last month I had the worst cramps/sore breasts right before O, but I don't know if that will be my "norm" or if that was my body adjusting post-bc. 

Other than that, so far I love charting! 

[buterflymomma]

Ok so the discharge was not my normal stuff, but was actually a prelude to the worst (TMI) yeast infection I have had in my life. I had my second round of diflucan yesterday and still no relief. Needless to say, I can't track my CM, but have still been temping. My temps have pretty much been consistent the past few days. So consistent, that I actually questioned if my thermometer was working properly. Hoping this thing clears up soon.

[dreamingtree]

I haven't had AF in over 2 years, way before my "fertility awareness" days.  I check  my cervix daily, but I realized I have no idea what it's supposed to do right before AF. Does it stay low, firm, closed? Or something else?  What does an early pregnancy cervix feel like?

I'm 8-9 DPO today.... cervix went from LFC almost every day since O to medium/soft, medium, partially open (as far as I can tell). 

[dreamingtree]

buterflymomma..... ohh that hurts! sorry you are dealing with that.  I've had horrendous yeast infections before and it is miserable :(  My midwife suggested vinegar douches but you want to check with your provider first as I'm sure that would hurt pretty bad with such a severe infection.  Also I've heard that some yeast is starting to get resistant to diflucan. I don't have a source for that though. But I think they used to give just 1 dose of diflucan routinely but now they give 2....

Originally Posted by buterflymomma 

Ok so the discharge was not my normal stuff, but was actually a prelude to the worst (TMI) yeast infection I have had in my life. I had my second round of diflucan yesterday and still no relief. Needless to say, I can't track my CM, but have still been temping. My temps have pretty much been consistent the past few days. So consistent, that I actually questioned if my thermometer was working properly. Hoping this thing clears up soon.

[JMJ]

Butterflymomma, it looks like you probably ovulated Monday or Tuesday-ish.  If you have undisturbed temperatures today and tomorrow at or above 97.7, I'd say you're certainly infertile until your next period.  The late temp on Thursday is the only reason you can't count yourself infertile yesterday.

Infojunkie, congratulations on charting your first PP ovulation!  That's quite an accomplishment, especially since you're just learning to chart!  An 8-9 day LP isn't bad for a first ovulation.  Things might be kinda confusing from here, but you might even get a chance to start using this charting soon.