Learning your body
Learning your body – How is a baby made?
So I find myself constantly thinking back to when I was in school learning about where babies come from. I remember my teacher warning us that it only took ONE time of having sex to get pregnant, and that sometimes you can even get pregnant without having sex if you aren’t careful (don’t ask, lol). At the time that thought scared me so bad I never wanted to have sex until I was married because I didn’t want to get pregnant. Maybe that’s why they said that, to scare us into not doing anything.
While sometimes this is true, many women can just have sex and BOOM they’re pregnant, but for the majority of women they need to have at least a little planning. For many of you reading this, you already know how to tell when you are fertile and when you are not. But for those of you that don’t quite understand what is going on with your body, this blog is for you.
So we’ll start with the basics. When you’re having issues getting pregnant, the first thing you need to do is learn about your body. The average person will have a 28 day cycle, from the start of your period until the next start of your period. By tracking this, it will give you an idea of what’s going on. Most women will ovulate an egg 14 days before your period. The days between when you ovulate and when your period starts is your Luteal Phase (LP). Having a short LP can cause complications (see below in the hormone section).
So if you have a 28 day cycle, you will most likely ovulate on cycle day (CD) 14. So let’s say your cycle is 34 days long. Subtract 14 days and that means that you ovulated about CD 20. Some women are like clockwork and work the same EVERY month, but for most of us, that’s not the case. This just gives you an idea.
The sperm can live in the body up to 7 days, but most will die in the first 2-3 days. The egg on the other hand, will only live about 12-24 hours. This means to conceive, the sperm needs to be there waiting for the egg when it is released, so your most fertile days are before you ovulate. This is why tracking your fertile signs is so important, so you know before you ovulate and not after.
Your body is controlled by hormones, each causing a different reaction but all working together. Some women, like myself, have issues with their hormones, and this causes their infertility. If the hormones are out of whack, it can delay or even prevent ovulation. Getting these hormones in line is the first step because if you don’t ovulate, you can’t get pregnant.
The main hormones that you need to focus on are estrogen, luteinizing hormone (LH), and progesterone. The estrogen is key before you ovulate, it is what creates follicles on your ovaries. Follicles are what actually release the egg, so it’s important that they grow in the early start of your cycle. Before ovulation you will have a surge in your LH hormone (as well as another hormone, FSH). This is what triggers ovulation and the egg is released. The progesterone is what comes after you ovulate. Low progesterone can keep an egg from sticking and can result in you not getting pregnant, even though the egg fertilized.
Here’s a graph showing how this all works in your cycle (courtesy of Wikipedia.com) The blue line is your estrogen hormone, the green line is your LH, the red is your FSH, and the black is your progesterone.
If you are not ovulating, there may be an issue with not producing enough estrogen. If your LP is short, you may have low progesterone, which can keep you from getting pregnant. Both can be fixed with medicines prescribed by your doctor. If you notice that your cycles are not regular, speak to your doctor about getting your hormone levels checked.
So this is how it all works. A little more confusing than what the teachers taught, but I know personally if my teachers had tried to teach all this I would have gotten lost and stopped listening. To learn more about reading your fertile signs to know when ovulation is taking place, check back for the future blog “Learning your fertile signs”
Please note, I am not a doctor, and all this information I believe to be correct. If you see something incorrect in this blog PLEASE don’t hesitate to correct me.
