You’d think that since I already have one child I would be wiser than to Google “how to get pregnant fast?” in the middle of the night… But nope! That’s me, again.
It’s no secret I’ve been hoping for another baby ever since our wedding last summer but I was also one of those women for whom breastfeeding was a very efficient natural contraception (lactational amenorrhea). Even one brief nursing session per day was enough to keep my period away. In fact, we haven’t used any birth control since October 2016, and as a result we have our daughter Maia, now almost 1.5-years old. I’ve always wanted if not a large family then at least two kids, preferably quite close in age. Both my husband and I are from families of three children and so we grew up with siblings. We would like to give Maia what we had.
As much as I wanted to get pregnant again I didn’t want that to be the reason to stop breastfeeding prematurely. For the time being, Maia is my only child and she deserves to be the priority. I wanted to wait until she (and I) was ready. Long story short, I gradually reduced nursing and stopped when Maia turned 14-months in the beginning of February. Three weeks later I got my first period in two years – yay! That’s also when I really started hoping for a “little number two”.
Google didn’t tell me anything new (surprise, surprise). As I already knew, we have the best chances to get pregnant by having unprotected sex during the fertile window i.e. on the couple of days before ovulation and on the main day. So timing is key (assuming no fertility issues). And even if you do everything “right”, chances to conceive just about 20-25% chance per month. This came to me as a shock considering I’d spent 15 years of worrying about a accidentally falling pregnant… Oh the irony!
Life can get in the way (of sex) even if you aren’t parents of a toddler and both working full time (and travelling for work), and so trying to pinpoint the fertile window is quite relevant. I admit I have never really had a clue of what’s going on in my body – I never did any temping or ovulation tests. In hindsight it feels like a miracle we even got pregnant last time! It did take 5-6 months though.
This time I decided not to leave it to chance because I had hoped for a small age gap between Maia and baby sister/brother and I’m also not getting any younger (I’ll be 34 this summer and I’m still dreaming about a big family). So as a Christmas present to myself, I bought the Ava bracelet which is a fertility tracker. I wear it every night and it tracks different parameters such as resting heart rate, basal body temperature, breathing rate etc which are linked to women’s menstrual cycle. After tracking for a few months the Ava should be able to predict the fertile window (up to 5 days). You can also log many different symptoms into the app which help to identify your body’s patterns (cervical mucus for example). There’s a lot more information about the science behind Ava online, so I’ll skip repeating it here and will focus on my experience so far.
Will the Ava bracelet get you pregnant?
No, you still need to have sex with your partner (lol). But it has taught me a lot about my cycle – which by the way is still very random post partum – and is helping me to find out if and when I’ve ovulated and to hopefully predict the window in the future. And it’s doing this in a very easy way! I wear the lightweight and comfortable bracelet at night and sync it with my smartphone app in the morning. That’s it. No stress or hassle and no peeing on sticks.
You can get 20£ discount from your Ava buy using this link to buy it:
https://avawomen.ref-r.com/c/i/12607/32295269
I’ve included screenshots from my Ava from the last 3 months to give you an idea of how it works. I’ve circled in red the temperature spikes which usually occur right after ovulation. It’s pretty clear that a more regular cycle and some historical data is needed to get the predictions right but for me the accuracy is improving. Which is great because needless to say, after three months of disappointments I’m starting to get a bit impatient!
I started using the tracker in January before having my cycle back so I had no parameters to insert into the app (cycle length etc). But I can clearly see the biphasic pattern. From Google: “Biphasic Temperature Pattern: A temperature pattern with two ranges of temperature: a lower, pre-ovulatory range that lasts until ovulation and a higher, post-ovulatory range that lasts until the next cycle begins”.
After my first period I added the dates into the app and a cycle length of 28-days, which was just a guess, and based on that Ava gave me the first predictive fertile window. I started using Clearblue ovulation tests to see if it would match Ava’s. I did get a flashing smiley during the fertile window predicted by Ava, but after seven consecutive flashing days, I ran out of tests without ever confirming the ovulation day. And later I would find out why…
Below you can see what went wrong. Instead of 28-day cycle which I had inserted into the app, my cycle was actually 35-days long. Although the bracelet correctly recognised a pattern of an increased resting pulse, temperature and breathing rate around mid cycle (or what it thought was mid cycle), you can see from the graph below that a much more pronounced spike was to come a week later. Unfortunately that’s when my husband was on a week-long ski holiday…
Month 2: The Ava adjusted my cycle length to 35 days and gave me a new estimate for the ovulation day. This time, my body surprised us and I ovulated somewhere around day 12-14. I did not use ovulation tests so I don’t know for sure. As you can see below, Ava detected this after a few days and adjusted the estimated ovulation day, but I think it was a few days late. By chance, we’d done the “baby dance” (BD) but we were not lucky this month either. My cycle however, had shortened to 29-days from the first 35-days which is much closer to my normal (pre-baby) cycle length.
This month: Ava is predicting 31-days as a length of the cycle (average of the last two) and it had predicted ovulation for cycle day (CD) 19. You can see form below graphs that my heart rate has been climbing ever since the beginning of this cycle but temperature and breathing rate only for the last few days. This morning I got a notification from Ava saying that my parameters are not conclusive yet and the estimated ovulation day moved to today. It said “If you are trying to conceive, you could try again today”.
I only used the ovulation tests during the first month. Although I know they’d be the most accurate in detecting the main day, I find peeing on sticks just stressful – it’s like taking a pregnancy test every day and risk feeling disappointed and frustrated. Not the way I want to start my day. Maybe I’ll get them again next month if we don’t get lucky now. I will go on a 2-day business trip on Tuesday so I’m hoping that won’t ruin our chances this month.
My verdict of the Ava bracelet so far? I like it. I know it won’t get me pregnant but it’s pure science that learning to predict ovulation and timing sex right will increase the chances of conceiving. What’s more, it makes the process less stressful for me. I feel like I’m a bit more aware of what’s going on, even though I can’t control it and this makes the emotional rollercoaster easier to cope with. If only it made the two-week wait (TWW) easier too!!
My plan is to:
- laugh and enjoy the time with my husband and not to let things get too serious
- stay positive and calm
- try to rest when possible and not to stress too much
- take my pre-conception vitamins (incl. folic acid)
- limit high intensity exercise and do more yoga
- drink max two cups of coffee per day
- and most importantly, give my little girl as many kisses and cuddles and tickles as possible because she deserves the moon for having made my life so full of love!
Anyone else using the Ava bracelet? Or any genius coping mechanisms for the tedious TWW??
Lots of love on this Mother’s Day (in my country Finland and many others, not UK though) to all mums and wanna-be mums!
xoxoxo,
Sini