So ever since I had sex education class in fourth grade, it's been pounded into my head about how not to get pregnant. Don't have sex until you're ready. Birth control and condoms have a 99.9% "guarantee" but abstinence is the only way to 100% prevent pregnancy. Now that I'm older, married, and starting to think about having a family, it has come to my attention that I don't really know how to get pregnant.
Don't get me wrong, I had the birds and the bees talk (in Garfield's in front of a cute waiter might I add, but that's another story,) so I know how babies are made. However, I'm not sure how to increase our chances of producing a baby. With all of the problems that have been thrown our way regarding my reproductive parts, when we actually start trying to conceive, I want to give ourselves the best chance possible to conceive naturally. My hopes are that we won't have to use medications or go all the way to IUI or IVF.
Ever since I was young, I was always scared that you could get pregnant at any time during the month. No one told me so, but no one explained differently so I guess I just assumed (and you know what assuming does....) Anyways, research has shown me that there is only a 6 day window in which a woman can potentially get pregnant (that number comes from the lifespan of an egg and sperm.) Of those six days, three of them hold the best possibility to conceive. Three days a month. 36 days a year. If you think about it, that's not many chances. With such a small window of time, and with so many women having complications of some sort that hinder conceiving, it really amazes me that our population is growing at such a steady rate!
So, to try and increase our chances, I have done a few things. As I've explained before, I'm on numerous medications to try and lessen the effect that my PCOS has had on my body. I'm also on a special diet, similar to a diabetics diet, to lose some of the excess weight that my PCOS has caused. Yesterday, I also started charting my cycles. I signed up for Fertility Friend and learned how charting my cycles can show me when I'm ovulating, thus showing us when those vital 3-6 fertile days are. I know that with being on birth control, my cycle is regulated, but I'm using this time before my next doctors appointment to get into the swing of things. It takes a little bit of concentration to wake up and automatically shove a thermometer in your mouth and writing down your temperature before doing anything else. During my next appointment (at the end of November,) I'm going to talk to my doctor about going off the birth control and seeing how my body cycles naturally. I'd like to have a few months of charting my natural cycle under my belt before we actually start trying so that I can predict when those magical 6 days are. (I also want to get off my birth control because it's caused me to bleed for six weeks straight, but that's a different story.)
Even though I'll probably sound stupid, once we decide to start trying, I'm going to flat out ask my doctor how to get pregnant. Obviously I know what it takes, but I want to see if he has any other tips or tricks to increase our chances of conceiving naturally. I'm a person that would rather rely on my own body's signals and natural remedies than to rely on medications, so anything that keeps me off of medications or IVF is worth trying in my book.
It'll be an interesting experience, but one that will be totally worth it.
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