It’s supposed to be completely natural. It’s supposed to just…happen. At least, that’s what you might have always thought. But for many of us, getting pregnant is anything but easy. And it’s anything but stress free.
Trying to conceive can be an incredibly anxiety-provoking time for many couples. And it’s a vicious cycle, because stress itself may be a hindrance to achieving that sought-after pregnancy.
I’ve written about stress many times in the past (its effects on pregnancy, its effects on your body in general...) and this is yet another sphere of life in which stress is not your friend. The scientific connection between stress and difficulty conceiving or infertility has not been fully established yet—it’s an emerging area of research. It's well recognized that the consequences of stress can include irregular menstrual cycles and skipped periods.
There are many sources of overwhelm and apprehension when you’re trying to conceive: What’s going to happen to my career? Do we need a bigger house? Do we have enough money? Not to mention…are we even going to be able to conceive at all?
Well, I can’t help you with the house or the finances, but I can help clear up some of the myths and misinformation about fertility and conception, and hopefully help increase your chances.
First, some facts about cycles and ovulation. It’s important to understand that conception is most likely to happen when intercourse is timed to the day before ovulation and the day of ovulation. And when couples intentionally time intercourse this way, their success rates after three months, six months, and twelve months of “trying” are likely much higher than couples who are just having sex any old time.
So, it sounds simple: if you want to have a baby, you need to get busy just before you ovulate.
Except…how do you know if you’re ovulating? And furthermore, how do you predict the day before you ovulate?
Well, it’s not easy. Primarily because our bodies ovulate in stealth mode. Some women experience brief pelvic cramping at the time of ovulation (which already misses a peak fertile day) but most of us don’t get any obvious signs whatsoever. Not sure whose evolutionary idea this was, but there it is.
As a result, we have to get kind of sneaky if we want to detect that ovulation. But I will get to that in a bit. First, I want to clear up some myths about fertility.
This may be true when it comes to some things (I hope, anyway)….but sadly, not when it comes to making babies. A woman’s fertility starts a gradual decline as early as 28. And, FYI, it’s not just a woman’s age that matters—Paul McCartney and Clint Eastwood notwithstanding—a man’s age can also play a role.
Nope. We call it secondary infertility, and it’s a source of great frustration and bewilderment for many couples.
Well, this is only true if you have nice, regular, textbook menstrual cycles—which many of us don’t have. A textbook cycle is 28 days long, in which case ovulation occurs at day 14. But throw in a little cycle variability and you could be ovulating all over the map. The time from ovulation to first day of your period is pretty predictable—most women will have a period about two weeks after ovulation. But you don’t need to know when you’re going to have a period. You need to know when you’re going to ovulate. And it’s that first phase of your cycle—the time before ovulation—that can be hugely variable.
In fact, this is not a terribly accurate method. The temperature rise associated with ovulation occurs too late to be truly useful. More accurate is monitoring for cervical mucus changes (during ovulation the cervical mucus becomes increased in volume and slippery/stretchy). But, frankly, I’ve not met too many women interested in checking their cervical mucus on a regular basis. Funny, that.
So, how can you accurately detect your best days to conceive?
Well, there is another physiologic sign, and it’s the surge of Luteinizing Hormone (LH). The rise in LH in the bloodstream occurs about 36 hours before ovulation, and it continues to appear in the urine about 12 hours after that—so it can accurately predict your two most fertile days. A kit to detect the rise in LH in the urine—like the Clearblue Digital Ovulation Test—is thus an easy and accurate method of knowing your two best days to try and conceive.
Knowing for certain when you’re fertile can go a long way to relieving all that pent up stress surrounding conception.
And if you can relieve some of that stress...well, heck, you just might have a little fun trying to make that baby.
This is proudly sponsored by our friends at Clearblue.
www.clearblue.com/ca
A small cloth covered my eyes and I felt myself gliding backwards into the large metal cylinder. I heard a soft hum and then rhythmic clicking. I focused on the sound of my own breathing.
I was having a CT scan of my head. This was two weeks ago.
At the time, the thought circulating through my head—yes, the one that was being radiologically sliced and imaged and analyzed—was this: being a patient really kinda sucks.
See, I’m comfortable with my usual role in the doctor-patient equation. Of course I recognize the value in occasionally experiencing the other side, from a professional point of view. Personally, though, I could do without it, thank you very much.
I was having a CT because I’d experienced a week of excruciating headaches that weren’t responding to anything that usually works for me. And I was at the point where I wanted to cut my own head off to make the pain stop. So when I went to see my doctor and she got that look on her face, it was not a happy moment. Maybe the trouble was I knew exactly what she was thinking. Anyway, she sent me to emerg, right then and there, and before long I was lying down on that cold, gliding platform of the CT scanner.
I knew they wanted to rule out some truly terrifying items, like aneurysms and brain tumours. And they did, thank God. But for a little while I had to wait and wonder if, once the radiologist had finished looking at the films, everything would change for me. And that’s a scary place to be.
With much stronger medication than I possessed in my cupboard at home, the headaches eventually subsided. But maybe just as important as that: I took a few days off work, I slept a lot, I did a little yoga every day, I ate better, and I dealt with some of the stress that had been creeping up.
But enough about me.
If you suffer headaches (and you’d rather not end up in the ER because you haven’t dealt with them), what can you do?
Here are some of the best natural headache remedies and preventive measures. No prescription needed.
Insufficient fluid intake is an extremely common cause for headaches and fatigue. How much to drink? Read this.
Regular massage therapy helps with muscle tension, with stress...and so much more (here’s why the spa is good for you).
Keep track of everything you eat for potential food triggers. A detailed journal is the only way to sort out your own individual factors, but classic migraine triggers include red wine, chocolate, and cheese (All the good stuff, I know. I’m sorry.)
This can be both a plus and a minus. Caffeine does, indeed, treat headaches (it's an ingredient in many headache pain relievers, like Excedrin), but caffeine withdrawal will also give you a headache. My advice: keep your intake moderate, and try not to vary the amount of coffee you drink, day to day.
An excellent stress reliever, meditation has also been shown to reduce pain, among a multitude of other benefits. If you’re interested in exploring meditation, your first step is to head over to Annabel’s blog.
Sleep deprivation is another classic, but under-recognized, cause for headaches. Make sure you're getting the amount your system needs (typically, for most adults, 7-8 hours). Trouble sleeping? Read this.
A few small studies have shown that frequent headache sufferers are more likely to be magnesium deficient, and that magnesium can help treat that pain. I've written about magnesium before, primarily as it relates to sleep and stress, but it's worth considering for headache prevention.
Speaking of stress, this is a biggie when it comes to headache factors. I personally think it's the biggest cause. But, though identifying stress is easy, dealing with it? Not so much. Start here.
This makes intuitive sense to me, as omega-3 is an anti-inflammatory. More than intuition, though, some early studies have demonstrated benefit for headache sufferers, in terms of prevention.
So how about you? What are your go-to headache remedies?
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