Getting Pregnant Naturally_ Healthy Choi - Winifred Conkling [4]
Please note that you may not be able to use the cervical mucus test if you are taking birth control pills (or for at least two months after you stop taking them). Also be aware that bathing, showering, swimming, and unprotected intercourse can temporarily alter your mucus, so check your mucus before these activities or several hours after you’re finished.
As a woman ages, she produces less fertile mucus. Twenty-something women often have two to four days of fertile mucus, while thirty-something women may have one day or less. The older you get, the more important it is for you to learn to recognize your fertile days so that you can take maximum advantage of them.
MEET YOUR MUCUS
Early in your cycle: Your vagina will be dry with little or no cervical mucus.
As ovulation approaches: A few days before ovulation your mucus flow will increase and become creamy, white, and wet. Begin having intercourse every forty-eight hours during this phase.
Fertile mucus at ovulation: Your mucus will become thin, slippery, stretchy, and clear; it will resemble the appearance and consistency of egg white. You want to strive to have intercourse during the time you have fertile mucus.
After ovulation: Immediately following ovulation your mucus will turn sticky, much like the consistency of rubber cement. After two or three days, it will become dry, until the cycle starts again.
Take Your Temperature
You can learn a lot about your body by using a thermometer. By keeping track of your basal body temperature—your temperature in the morning before you get out of bed—you can learn to approximate the time of ovulation and when in your cycle you will be most fertile. (Unfortunately, when monitoring the ever-changing cycle of fertility, we deal with approximations, not predictions.)
First, get a thermometer, a piece of paper, and a pen or pencil to record your temperature; keep these items by the side of the bed. To get an accurate reading, you’re going to need to take your temperature first thing in the morning—meaning before you sit up in bed, before you go to the bathroom, before you say good morning to your spouse, before you talk to anyone on the phone.
Some women take their temperature rectally for a more accurate reading, but an oral thermometer should be sufficient in most cases. You may want to buy a basal body temperature thermometer, designed to make it easier to read the temperature to the tenth of a degree. These thermometers usually come with a preprinted chart and directions for monitoring your temperature. They are available in most drugstores and usually cost less than $10.
Try to take your temperature after at least three hours of consecutive sleep and at the same time each day, plus or minus an hour or so. Keep in mind that every extra half-hour you snooze your body temperature will rise by about one-tenth of a degree.
Most women report a slight drop in their temperature just before ovulation (when the levels of estrogen increase to release the egg during the next few days). A day or two later, they note a sharp rise of 0.5 to 1 point when the egg is released (when the levels of heat-producing progesterone increase). By the time the temperature spikes—usually to over 98 degrees, though it may go to 99 degrees or higher in some women—ovulation has already occurred.
This temperature shift—and ovulation—usually occur at fourteen days into your menstrual cycle, or about day fourteen of a twenty-eight-day cycle. The morning temperature then should remain elevated for the second half of the menstrual cycle (the luteal phase), dropping slightly just before menstruation when the cycle starts over again.
To maximize your chances of conception, have intercourse every other day for two to four days before you anticipate