Are you Tuning into Ovulation? It’s so much more than temperature, mucous and pee sticks.
Today I’m ovulating! I tell you how I know, what the signs are and how I know that, right here in this moment. It doesn’t involve charting my temperature and I haven’t inspected my cervical mucous.
Do you know when you are ovulating? Are you relying on physical indicators such as cervical mucous or temperature? or perhaps you are peeing on a test stick?
Do you know how you felt when you were ovulating before you started trying for a baby?
I explore what the body is doing emotionally, what intrinsic design features are there to make you want to reproduce and how we can lose sight of these when trying to conceive, because it can become less natural and less lead by desire. How ovulation can be a time of anxiety, a time of stress and how this confuses the body in to thinking ovulation isn’t actually safe.
Cervical Mucous
There are a number of signs that I let me know when I’m ovulating. Im not inspecting my cervical mucus. Im aware of it, it’s here. ,Its been developing and changing, and it gets to a certain consistency on the day of ovulation.
It’s what we look for, if we’re trying to conceive isn’t it? We might not have noticed it before, we might not really have ever noticed it. And you might not be able to notice it now.
It might just go down the toilet, or you might wipe it away or it might not be there in significant quantities. And that in itself could be an indication for what’s going on with you.
Frisky Dreams
Now, I have a twinkle in my eye around the time of ovulation. I have a spring in my step I feel more playful. Something that happens to me in the couple of days leading up to population is I have quite frisky dreams!
I don’t generally dream often to be honest. But, this is atime when I noticed I do have quite Frisky ones, and I smile now as I recall it.
Spots
I get a spot on my chin and I get the spot at the same same of my face as Im ovulating, always have. It doesn’t alternate each month, its does alterate but not in a pattern I’m aware of.
Emotionally
I feel really positive. I feel like I can do anything. This is the time in my cycle when I agree to stuff. I agree to a lot more than I can possibly fit in.
What signs do you get? Are you looking, searching, wondering? It might be that you’re temperature charting. And it might be that you’re looking at the charts and you’re trying to interpret them, this may in fact be causing you more stress. Unless you are trained in their interpretation it can be tricky
And as we have discussed before this stress in itself can be affecting your ovulation
Are you peeing on sticks? Are you waiting for a smiley face? Are you monitoring your cervical mucus?
This in itself can lead to less of the openness and playful, flirty spirit, that intrinsically accompanies ovulations. Perhaps there is more of a sense of urgency of hope and despair.
When is it going to come?
Is it going to work this month?
Everybody who listens to this podcast is at a different stage in their fertility journey. Some of you may have very similar timescales. But we have the same reproductive system. We have the same mechanisms in place.
Lets look at this fertility machine, the different fuels used, things may be affected structurally, your emotions affect the mind and body connection, as I talked about many times can have a massive change on what’s going on
The myth of getting pregnant easily
I know I’ve said before that when I started my periods, all I really knew was that this meant I could get pregnant. And for a long time I made sure I didn’t. I thought it was the easiest thing to do. So, when we flick the switch from really not wanting to get pregnant, to being afraid of it, to wanting to get pregnant. Why isn’t it as easy as we were lead to believe?
The seasons of your cycle
Our cycle is divded into 4 phases. This time in my cycle is considered summer. This is a time to be creative. And one of the things that I try to encourage with the people that I work with is, around this time to do creative things you perhaps used to do.
Is there something you did before? Did you draw? Did you bake? Make stuff? or just have an incredible imagination. where you’re playful?
Perhaps try to get some of that creativity back. Because this is what’s happening within our bodies potentially, what we’re getting ready for is to create and we ourselves become creative.
The 7 day period before you bleed is called Autumn. This is the phase where some women get premenstrual symptoms.
This is actually a transition. It’s about getting things in place. The uterus is doing just that. The progesterone hopefully is in sufficient quantity. It’s strengthening that lining that’s been laid down by the estrogen in your body. So it’s strengthening that lining, and it’s getting a nest ready.
You might find that you become quite self critical, you might be criticalof others,
you might have a lot of self doubt. So I said how you may agress to lots of things in your summer phase? When we get into Autumn you may find that you aren’t so confident. You think that you can’t possibly do that. What was I thinking?
I work my work routines around this change in phases. So I do creative things in the first couple of weeks cycle. And once I get into autumn, then that’s the time when I’m really good at crossing the T’s and dotting the i’s because I can find mistakes and I can get things in line. So really, really powerful.
Your bleed is winter and this is a time it’s a time for self
Nurturing. It’s the time to really, really look after yourself.
And it’s really, really important to do that. You know, the tampon I and sanitary towel adverts over time have told us that when we have our period, it doesn’t have to stop here, you can do anything?
Actually, what your body craves. And what its time for is just slowing down. It’s that time of connection with yourself and actually, with others, if that’s what feels right for you.
Spring is the time between bleed and ovulation, a time for new things, positivity and creativity. the old has been shed and a new is being laid down. Seeds are getting ready, a glorious time.
Getting to know your seasons
One of the things that I encourage my clients to do is three months preconception preparation, planning both the mind and body, what’s really important is to take trying to conceive out of the equation, and journal every day. And there’s lots of different things I asked people to journal about.
One is how do you feel physically on this day? How do you feel emotionally as well? I encourage them to really trying to tap into their feelings. And this when we look back from you really start to show you this map of your menstrual cycle,
It gives me lots of information about physical issues. And it also shows you how your emotions are changing.
Some people work with me at this pre conception stage and others have been trying to get pregnant for a while. If this is the case I suggest that they stop trying to conceive for 3 month, to put it on hold. It can be hard for some to do that and then we explore that in more detail.
So its time to tune into how you are feeling, what is going on physically and emotionally.
If you are temperature charting, please don’t be stressed, don’t try to analyse it yourself, it’s useful to work through this with a professional. I advise my clients that they are gathering this for me. There are some really useful information within the chart. Much more than ovulation, the approach, a slow rise, a sharp rise, what happens to the temperature after ovulation?
And when we look at cervical mucous. It may be that there isn’t a lot and we can look at ways to increase this.
Timing of sex is important, and waiting for the day of ovulation, for peak fertility is not ideal. The egg only lives for 24 hours and the sperm have to travel to it and meet it at the start of the fallopian tube, near the ovary. They can be too late.
So what I would suggest is that you journal, you notice what you are feeling physically and emotionally and at the end of podcast episode 6, I share with you a useful exercise to identify any thoughts/feelings.