A Strategy is Born

I think I'm becoming a post-aholic. This is number 3 for today. Oh well, I enjoy reading my friends, so I'm assuming my readers prefer more updates to less.

AF has still not arrived, but I have been having minor cramps. Nothing worthy of any ibuprofin or other pain relief, but still enough to make me believe that there was a reason my temps dropped. Now if AF doesn't arrive over night or immediately upon awakening, I think I will use up one of my tests, just to erase the last shred of hope for this month.

Now, about my title. I've decided how to approach next month. Several people have mentioned to me that they think all of my charting, etc. has caused me stress, and maybe I should just "relax." My husband included. Personally, I still don't agree that I'm more stressed. I will say I'm more aware and educated about my body. Also, from everything I've read, the only role stress plays on your cycle is possibly delaying ovulation and by my charts I'm obviously ovulating, so I don't think not "relaxing" is the issue here. However, we weren't charting last time we got pregnant, and somehow hit the window. I'm going to take this month off from the obsessive need to monitor every signal and just see what happens. Of course, if this is the month that works, everyone will probably say "I told you so!" I guess I'll just have to remember that if there is a 20-25% chance of conceiving in any one cycle (assuming no fertility problems), we've got a decent shot at getting it done in 5 months, regardless of my charting or not. And if we get pregnant, we met the goal right? (At least the first part, the final goal is actually giving birth to a healthy baby). Who really cares what method got us there.

I was going to keep charting until I see my OB/GYN for my annual exam at the end of April, but figure, I've got 4 complete months already, if #5 doesn't work, I'll at least know how long the cycle was, and can start charting #6 before my appointment. 4 1/2 charts should be enough for her to work with or at least say, "Yep, your doing it right. Keep trying."

Here's the actual strategy. I will on my calendar, keep track of my LMP date (obviously if successful, the doc will want to know this). I will also keep track of the days we BD. If we have to help determine conception to get the date right, it'd be nice to know possibilities. I'm going to let Eric take the lead on the trying. We'll BD when he wants and I won't get crazy about hitting any possible windows, etc. Enough babies are made accidently, that with our "normal" activity, I'd think we've got a pretty good shot (although, it seems like we've had good timing the last 4 months too). Since I've had 3 cycles of 31 days (including the one after my D&C that we didn't try), 1 of 28 days, and 1 of 37?, I'll allow myself to start testing at 32 days. I won't really know if I'm late, but it seems reasonable.

It'll be interesting to see if this strategy has a shot. We've already tried the every other day thing, the every day thing, the 15 times in one month thing, why not just try the old fashioned, we'll see what happens approach. The key will be to see if I can actually remain stress free, when I don't have a clue what my body is doing. I'll just have to remember, it didn't exactly work when I did know what it was doing.

Here's to cycle #5! I'm ready whenever you are.