One Week In

Aaannnnddd another 2 months have passed...

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A couple posts back I wrote about my friend telling me about the "soft cup" method. She also introduced me to the SMEP (Sperm Meets Egg Plan) method. Soft cup uses a menstrual cup to keep the sperm near the cervix and SMEP calls for daily ovulation tests and every other day sex and lots of tracking. As you can see, my friend is really into methods. 

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This past cycle, we tried them both. First of all, that is a lot of work, lol, and with Lamar getting home late and tired (thank you volleyball) it was an especially draining lot of work. We joked a lot about the "utility sex" and just joking like that made it feel less stressful.

The daily testing for SMEP was interesting. I stopped doing ovulation tests a while ago because even when we would try when they came up positive, we still weren't successful. It got to be really discouraging.  This time, I used a kit from amazon that had an accompanying app (Premom).  The app would automatically judge and chart the ovulation test results so I could see the daily changes in my hormone levels. That was fascinating for me. I had a few realizations over the span of this past cycle. The most poignant being, I have so many expectations about how my body SHOULD work and what it SHOULD BE doing at a particular time in my cycle. The tracking apps and their predictions just worked to highlight those expectations, and when my body doesn't move in the way the apps predict it should, I get upset or sad or discouraged.  The Premom app highlighted 3 days as the predicted LH peak which is basically the harbinger of ovulation. BUT my hormone levels were decidedly not going up with any amount of quickness. After the predicted peak days passed with barely any elevation in my levels to speak of, I started feeling that familiar discouragement, but I decided to keep testing until my period came. Definitely out of curiosity. Not hope. I wanted to see what WAS happening and I wanted to track it.  Plus, I had just started with a new PCP, had my thyroid levels checked after going off my medication for almost a year (they weren't too bad yay), and restarted the meds. So in my mind, my hormones were probably out of whack.  I'm so glad that I kept testing because my LH levels peaked a week after the apps predicted.  Why? I have no idea at all. It felt sooooo good to know that my body was creating the hormones I needed and I was actually ovulating. That was one less thing to quietly freak out about. Anyway, we kept with the SMEP/Soft Cup method through ovulation day and now we wait.

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We are currently one week in on the two week wait.  I am cautiously hopeful because my last period showed up 10 days late. So, if I'm honest, there are still 3 more days where it can show up and ruin the party.  But we won't think about that. So yeah. Here we are... fingers and toes crossed.

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