“What is wrong with me?” This is a
question that I forlornly asked myself over and over again during the
30 months that I tried to conceive my son. It is a common lament for
anyone who finds him or herself in this frustrating position in their
life. When dealing with infertility for any span of time, you begin
to feel a total loss of control over your own body and your own life.
You feel like there are no answers to be had. That is, until the
day comes when you gleefully learn that there is, in fact something
wrong with you!!!! This sounds like it should be bad news and in any
other situation it would be. But not after having unexplained
infertility. I was thrilled to discover a real problem because with
problems come solutions and I love a puzzle.
I will begin this post by stating the
obvious. I am not a doctor or a specialist in fertility in any way,
shape or form. I am not an expert in this field by any measure. So
please do not take my words or recommendations ahead of those
provided to you by your health care provider. I am merely sharing my
experience, in hopes that it can possibly point someone out there
with similar symptoms in a direction that may provide them with some
answers too. This is simply what helped me.
Anytime anyone asks me what finally
worked for Jim and I, I always give the same answer. “Charting.”
I completely attribute my eventual success at achieving and
maintaining pregnancy to charting. It made all of the difference.
Often, people are expecting to hear something different. They want
to hear about a pill or cream or supplement that was the magic key
for us and the truth is, while I did end up coming across a miracle
cure for myself, it not only wouldn't work for everyone but it could
also have the exact opposite effect if you are suffering from a
different issue than I do. That is why charting is always my
suggestion. While charting won't necessarily get you pregnant, it
can give you an excellent picture of what is going on inside of your
body and allow you to identify your own personal obstacles to getting
there.
A word of warning... I'm about to get
into some big girl topics, so dad, this may be a post to skip...
In early spring after two full years of
trying to conceive, I started to recognize a worrisome pattern
standing out in my chart. My periods, that had never been even a day
late and were usually a few days early started to signal a huge
problem. I had always assumed that as soon as I saw any blood, that
would indicate my period starting. However, this is not the case.
When charting you learn that in fact, your period starts and your new
cycle begins only after a temperature drop. It doesn't matter how
much blood you are seeing, if your temperature remains high, then
that blood is not a period. It is called spotting and it is a big
problem. Here comes a little biology lesson...
After ovulation, your temperature will
spike and remain elevated throughout your Luteal phase. The Luteal
phase is that tricky time between ovulation and the start of your
next period. Those are the two or so weeks that just pass silently
by under the radar of daily life for most women, but become a
battleground for those of us trying to conceive. Most women think of
their cycle as a whole. A unit of time between periods. But it
actually is not. It's actually two distinct phases of one larger
unit, and both have very different jobs.
The first half of your cycle is known
as the Follicular phase, which is when your body prepares to release
an egg. Your hormones are all working toward that end. Everything
is gearing up for the really big O and the only O that actually
matters two years into trying to get pregnant... ovulation. This
phase varies even in an individual woman and is the reason that your
cycle is rarely exactly the same number of days long each month. A
lot of different life factors can throw this phase off by a day or
even a number of days. These include stress, travel, diet, exercise,
illness and about a million other things. You can even have false
hormone spikes where your body attempts but fails to release an egg
for one reason or another and your hormones will again drop back to
your baseline only for them to make another attempt a few days later.
It is often a largely unpredictable phase.
Once an egg is released, you have
graduated to the second phase, the Luteal phase which is pretty much
a set amount of time for each individual woman every month and
usually ranges from 13 to 15 days for most healthy women. For the
most part, this phase stays the same length from month to month. You
may lose or gain a day over time, but for the most part you can
predict the length of this phase. It doesn't usually change. During
this phase, the egg has that set number of days to become fertilized,
make the long journey to the endometrium and implant there. At that
point... Ta Da!!!! A pregnancy. If the egg is not fertilized or is
fertilized but fails to implant, then a hormone change occurs
signaling for a normal period to begin and you end up with yet
another big fat negative on your home pregnancy test.
A problem develops however, if that
Luteal phase is too short. You're pretty much okay with 12 or more
days and it isn't unheard of get pregnant with as short as a 10 day
Luteal phase (although it is far from ideal.) But less than that and
you have a timing issue in your uterus because it takes on average at
least 10 to 12 days for the egg to even arrive at an appropriate
landing site to implant. They are small and move slowly with a lot
of ground to cover to get where they need to be. If you begin to
lose blood before that, then the egg doesn't have an adequate surface
on which to implant and will be lost during menstruation.
I
studied my chart closely and realized with horror that I was
consistently looking at an eight to nine day Luteal phase depending
on the month. These ovaries, that had done so well in college and
life in general, were now too impatient to give me an extra damn day
or two?! I am late for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! How could I
consistently be early for this???! But, at least I finally had a
possible answer to the question that I had been asking for so long.
What is going wrong?
Luteal
Phase disorders are usually related to progesterone. Estrogen rules
the beginning, Follicular phase of your cycle, but progesterone calls
the shots in the Luteal Phase. Generally, your progesterone levels
start to drop as your body signals that fertilization has not
occurred. As it drops, it lets your period know that it is okay to
start flowing. There is no egg to nurture. Your work here is done,
thanks for the help, you can go. Issues arise if this signal happens
too early, before an egg even has a chance to become fertilized and
implant. Low progesterone levels are a primary cause for the
spotting that I was seeing month after month.
This
hormone deficiency can cause a number of issues including recurrent
early miscarriage, endometriosis, obesity, depression, low thyroid,
PCOS, irregular or consistently low basal body temperature and
fibrocystic breasts among many other things.
You
may be wondering if a doctor can test you for low progesterone to
avoid having to chart. The answer to that is yes they can, but their
testing is remarkably inaccurate. This is because the majority of
doctors use a basic equation to determine at what point you are in
your cycle. This formula utilizes a four week month, and a twenty
eight day cycle, with ovulation occurring on the fifteenth day.
Progesterone levels peak around the seventh day after ovulation. So
this is the ideal day to test ones progesterone levels. The problem
is that most women are not typical and do not have a standard twenty
eight day cycle. Even those who do may not ovulate on the fifteenth
day and thus, will not be ready for progesterone testing seven days
later. Unless you chart, you will not know when the optimum time is
for you to be tested. I noticed that even if you do chart, doctors
cannot always accommodate scheduling you on that exact day and you
will again be forced to sacrifice the accuracy of your test results.
I
was able to determine from my chart however, that progesterone was at
least a part of my issue and as month after month passed by with the
same concerning pattern I was fairly certain that this was a huge
problem and a major piece to my infertility puzzle.
Armed
with that information, I began to research my options for solving
this problem. To my delight, there was a relatively quick, easy and
inexpensive fix that I could do within the privacy of my own home
that could get my Luteal phase back on track. Finally, I felt like I
had a real plan but I was going to need my chart now more than
ever...
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