View Single Post
Old 01-23-2009, 11:33 AM   #79 (permalink)
minim
Upright
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by twistedmosaic View Post
threadjack:

Are you factoring the time sperm can survive into your calculations, in addition to the more general buffer zone?

From Mayo Clinic:

"The life span of sperm after they're ejaculated depends on the environmental conditions. Sperm ejaculated into a woman's vagina remain alive in the mucus of the cervix and are able to fertilize an egg for three to five days"

. . . /threadjack
A good question. I was factoring that in as "three days" before ovulation, but the source you cite says 3-5; I'll have to take a look at that.

I thought the cervical mucus thing might be TMI , but since you bring it up -- basically the rule is, as soon as "fertile" cervical mucus shows up, you have to consider yourself fertile because the sperm can survive in it (as you say) for a number of days, meaning you can get pregnant if you have sex a couple days before ovulating and fertile CM is present.

Different women have different standards on what constitutes fertile cervical mucus, based on what they observe over time in their cycles -- CM can have various consistencies. Typically, at the beginning of the cycle no CM is present, and then you get a type of CM that is not hospitable to sperm. Next you typically get what they call "eggwhite" -- which is VERY hospitable to sperm in its pH and consistency, and easy to distinguish from the other kind. I usually get eggwhite about 4 days before my temperatures confirm that I've ovulated. So I don't have unprotected sex when that stuff is present, and in fact, to be on the safe side I abstain when I detect any CM at all (before ovulation). With my short cycle, this pretty much means the pre-ovulatory infertile period is brief or non-existent... but better safe than sorry.

Apologies if this is TMI for anyone. If anyone's contemplating trying this method, read "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" -- there is more to learn than the broad outline I've sketched out. Bottom line is, this method takes careful attention, but if you want to avoid hormonal BC and hate condoms, it may be worth looking into.
minim is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360