It's been 12 months since the DH (dear husband) and I got married. It has also been 12 months since we first started trying for our little bundle of joy.
In that period of time, we have consulted with two OB's.
We didn't feel comfortable with the first one so we set out to look for a second one after two visits.
Due to the numerous positive feedbacks I've seen in
Girltalk, we chose to go to Dra. Go-Julio in Retiro. Month after month, we got frustrated when AF (aunt flow / period) comes. We even tried undergoing IUI (intra-uterine insemination) but it failed. We didn't have the heart (and courage) to go thru with a second one so we stopped going to the OB and decided to just try naturally. This is also due to our loss of confidence in our OB. Let's just talk about that some other time.
After the failed IUI, we decided to have HSG (hysterosalpingogram) done on me so that we'll know once and for all if my tubes are blocked. This scared the hell out of me, what if I'm the one with the problem? But, no time like the present.
Thankfully, the result came back with me having both tubes patent. Whew!
This April is the third month of naturally trying to conceive after a series of cycles under medications and supervision.
However, this is the first time we did something entirely different from what we have been doing before.
Before, we would wait until a day before ovulation before BD'ing (baby dancing / doing the deed), then every other day after that. To our knowledge, this is the best time to do so.
After months of reading up in the Internet, I found a significant number of misinfomation. While this only added to my affirmation that leaving our OB was the right decision, I figured there was nothing to lose if we keep an open mind and digest the new information we acquired. Let's talk about one.
What we knew before:
The best day to get pregnant is the day that a woman ovulates.
What we found out:
During each menstrual cycle, women have about 6 days in which they can get pregnant. This is known as the fertile window. A woman’s fertile window includes the five days before ovulation and the day of ovulation. These six days are the only days in a woman’s cycle when she can conceivably get pregnant.
The fertile window explained:
A man's sperm can live up to 5 days inside a woman’s reproductive tract. A woman’s egg only lives for about 12 hours after it is released. This means that a woman’s egg needs to be fertilized within this 12-hour time frame. Furthermore, freshly ejaculated sperm are not able to fertilize a woman’s egg. It takes time for a process known as capacitation to occur.
Capacitation is series of changes that sperm go through once they are inside a woman’s reproductive tract that make sperm more mobile and allow them to penetrate the egg. It can take up to 10 hours for a man’s sperm to complete the capacitation process and be able to fertilize a woman’s egg. This is why the five days before ovulation are so important. Once ovulation takes place, sperm have a very brief window of time to fertilize the egg. Having mature sperm (sperm that have gone through the capacitation process already) ready for the waiting egg is the key to successful conception.
The day of ovulation: You might have heard or might believe that the best day to get pregnant is the day that a woman ovulates. It is important to know when you ovulate and to try to time intercourse close to ovulation but the day of ovulation is not the best day to get pregnant. Researchers have studied the timing of sexual intercourse in relationship to ovulation in order to determine which days are the most likely to result in pregnancy. Surprisingly, according to research published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, what they found was that the day of ovulation was not the best day of a woman’s cycle to conceive.
The day before ovulation: Interestingly, the day before ovulation is actually a better day to conceive on than the day of. This may be because sperm that are ejaculated the day before ovulation have had time to mature and reach the egg.
Two days before ovulation: Even more interesting, researchers have found that a woman’s chance of conceiving two days before ovulation is just as likely, if not more likely, as the day before ovulation. What this means for couples trying to conceive is that timing intercourse to occur a couple days before ovulation and the day before ovulation will give them the greatest chance of conceiving.
Three to four days before ovulation: You may have thought that timing intercourse 3 to 4 days before ovulation would cut your chances of getting pregnant, but actually having sex on either of these two days will give you a better chance of conceiving than having intercourse on the day of ovulation.
Five days before ovulation: The first day of a woman’s fertile window may also result in conception but realistically the chances of conception are best starting at 4 days before ovulation through the day just before ovulation.
So we tried BD'ing from CD10 on since I usually ovulate on the 14th or 15th day.
I'm officially on the two-week-wait, which is TORTURE for me.
In the meantime, I will just keep myself busy and try not to think / overthink about what the result will be after two weeks.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed though. Hopefully, we'll have our little angel before the year is out.
