My Baby's First Microscope

Despite Fertility Friend's insistence to the contrary, my husband and I are rather sure that I did not ovulate at all this cycle. My temps are strange and I've experienced precisely none of my usual pre- or post-ovulatory symptoms. As frustrating and disappointing as it is, the occasional anovulatory cycle is not considered a big deal in the world of young mommy hopefuls. It happens to every normal woman at some point, and can be a result of a range of things, from stress to diet to medication.

In order to clear up some of the confusion I've felt about my last few cycles, I finally broke down and invested in an ovulation predictor: a microscope.

When I first heard about fertility microscopes, I thought that they were a scam. Seriously, I thought it was bunk (of which there is no shortage) designed to target desperate mother-hopefuls. The idea of pinpointing ovulation by looking at your spit through a microscope seemed...well, like something that somebody made up.

But after doing a little bit of reading, I realized that these things are legit. Apparently, as a woman approaches ovulation and her estrogen levels rise, the salinity of her saliva increases as well. The salt actually starts to crystallize as her hormones peak, resulting in the appearance of fern-like structures, which can be viewed under a microscope. Check out the progression below:

Not fertile: Kinda fertile: Fertile!

There are many brands out there, and after perusing some websites and reviews, I chose the Maybe MOM Mini Ovulation Microscope. I chose it primarily because of the microscope's lifetime guarantee and because of their FDA approval. It just looks like a fat little stick of lipstick and is just as portable (not that I need to carry a microscope around with me - I just leave it in my bedstand - but whatever, the option is there, I guess).

Technically, this cycle is not over yet and I'm in the two week wait, but I'm positive that it's a bust. I am eager to see if the microscope lives up to the hype, so I'll just be waiting patiently until my next O day.

Perhaps Things Are Not As They Seem

After being surprised by last month's cycle (which ended two days earlier than expected) and being downright baffled by this last cycle (three whole days?!!), I decided to re-examine my assumptions. While it would seem that my luteal phase - the progesterone-dominated phase of the menstrual cycle between ovulation and menses - is suddenly shortening, the fact is that LPs don't often vary in length by more than a day, if at all. For me to suddenly go from having a 14 day LP to an 11 day LP is ridiculously unlikely.

What's probably happening, which I am loathe to admit (even though it's the least ominous possibility), is that my LP is normal and that I've been ovulating earlier than my chart indicates. If I count back 14 days from the end of my last cycle, that puts my actual ovulation at cycle day 12 instead of 15 - meaning that our timing for sex was actually really very awful this past month, with one encounter happening 3 days before ovulation and one on the day after. Ouch.

Fertility Friend's own FAQ confirms my suspicion:

The luteal phase (the time between ovulation and menstruation) does not usually vary much from cycle to cycle, while the follicular phase (the time between menstruation and ovulation) can vary considerably. A variance of more than a day or two in your luteal phase usually means that ovulation may have occurred earlier or later than your chart indicates on one or more cycles and you may need to make some adjustments to your charts.

So, there you have it. It's a bit frustrating to think that there was probably little to no chance of success in the last two cycles due to our poor timing, especially considering the money and energy wasted on testing. But I prefer failure due to a human/software error over an actual biological deficiency any day of the week.

On the plus side, I still get to participate in the first four weeks of dodgeball season. Go, balls, go!

5 Things You Didn't Know About Pregnancy (II)

Here are the answers to Pregnant Lady Quiz 2!

1. Nosebleeds are a symptom of early pregnancy.

True. I never heard of this particular symptom until I became pregnant myself; my nose frequently bled during my more violent bouts of morning sickness. Since a woman's blood volume expands during pregnancy, this can increase the pressure in the blood vessels in her nose, resulting in more frequent nosebleeds.

2. Semen contains an enzyme that can cause early labor.

Maybe. There seems to be some disagreement on this one. Semen does contain hormones called prostaglandins, which cause the cervix to soften and ripen for delivery, but whether or not exposure to semen is sufficient to start labor in a woman who was not otherwise ready for labor is debatable. This study suggests that semen may trigger labor in women who are already at term. Frequently, women who are already at-risk for pre-term labor may be advised against sex. But there doesn't seem to be any indication that a woman in a normally progressing low-risk pregnancy has any reason to fear semen causing her to go into labor before the baby is ready.

3. The oldest woman to give birth was 61 years old at the time of delivery.

False. The world's oldest mother (so far) is Omkari Panwar, pictured below, who gave birth to twins at age 70 earlier this year. Omkari and her husband, who was 77 years old at the time, already had two adult daughters, but were determined to have a son. They turned to IVF, paying for it with their life savings, their land, and their livestock. The twins, one boy and one girl, were born a month early.

4. The worldwide average of weaning a child from the breast is four years old.

That statement appears to be false. When I posited this question, I honestly thought that it was true. I've heard time and time again that the average age of weaning is 4.2 years old, and that this number was originally provided by the World Health Organization. Indeed, a quick Google search brings up plenty of websites that make the same statement...but I couldn't find anything from either WHO or UNICEF backing up the claim, only a multitude of third parties. In fact, I couldn't find any authority on breastfeeding backing those numbers.

Eventually, I came across the page of another blogger who had noticed the same thing in the course of her research. I also found an article on the natural age at which a child may wean herself from the breast, which has this to say about the 4.2 stat (emphasis mine):

One often hears that the worldwide average age of weaning is 4.2 years, but this figure is neither accurate nor meaningful. A survey of 64 "traditional" studies done prior to the 1940s showed a median duration of breastfeeding of about 2.8 years, but with some societies breastfeeding for much shorter, and some for much longer. It is meaningless, statistically, to speak of an average age of weaning worldwide, as so many children never nurse at all, or their mothers give up in the first few days, or at six weeks when they go back to work. It is true that there are still many societies in the world where children are routinely breastfed until the age of four or five years or older, and even in the United States, some children are nursed for this long and longer. In societies where children are allowed to nurse "as long as they want" they usually self-wean, with no arguments or emotional trauma, between 3 and 4 years of age.

It would appear that the oft-repeated 4.2 is indeed bunk (but if any of my readers can point me to a page where WHO or UNICEF actually make the claim, I'd seriously appreciate it!), and my efforts to look up what IS the worldwide average age of weaning was entirely fruitless, as 99% of the results come back to third parties claiming that "WHO reports that the age is 4.2." I'd like to be proven wrong on this one, but so far it looks quite false.

5. After the first trimester, amniotic fluid consists mostly of fetal urine.

It's true! Pregnant women are full of warm baby pee. The fetus doesn't just LIVE in pee; he breathes and swallows it too. Amniotic fluid is not only essential for development of a healthy digestive system and lungs, but it serves as a cushion in case the wobbly mama-to-be happens to fall on her belly (or otherwise injure herself).

The winner of this month's quiz is Chole, who has won herself an invisible Great Dane, as well as this haiku:

Homeless puppies and
hurt kittens will remember
your warm, loving care.

And, because I feel generous, here's a bonus haiku!

Fingers fly over
plastic rainbow keys. You are
my Guitar Hero.

Thank you BerlinBear, Tigerwong, Kat, and the Broken Man for participating!

Pregnant Lady Quiz 2

It's quiz time again! This month, the prize is something [slightly] more substantial. In addition to an invisible puppy, the person who scores best will get a haiku written about them or their blog. I know some of you may not think that there's anything particularly glamorous about a stranger writing a poem about you, but I like to think that there is something attractive about earning the bragging rights to say, "I'm so kickass that the Internet wrote a poem about me."

As per usual, we use the honor system around here, but I like to think that nobody was really tempted to use Google in the first place.

Here are this month's True or False questions:

Yay or Nay?

1. Nosebleeds are a symptom of early pregnancy.
2. Semen contains an enzyme that can cause early labor.
3. The oldest woman to give birth was 61 years old at the time of delivery.
4. The worldwide average of weaning a child from the breast is four years old.
5. After the first trimester, amniotic fluid consists mostly of fetal urine.

I'll go over the answers in a few days. Leave your answers in the comments below!

Also, here's the link to Pregnant Lady Quiz 1 and the answers if you missed it.

The Pregnant Woman As A Warrior

I found this interesting little tidbit about the role of pregnant women in Aztec culture (emphasis mine):

The setting western sun would then be greeted by female warriors, which were the souls of those women who died in childbirth. In Aztec thought, the pregnant woman was like a warrior who symbolically captured her child for the Aztec state in the painful and bloody battle of birth. Considered as female aspects of defeated heroic warriors, women dying in childbirth became fierce goddesses who carried the setting sun into the netherworld realm of Mictlan.

At first glance, that sounds a hell of a lot better than the all-too-frequent Western perception of pregnant women as emotional harpies, doesn't it? However, another source (again, emphasis mine) points out that the only reason pregnant women were considered important was because of the potential war fodder that they carried:

Women were expected to be virginal at marriage, and, according to Clendinnen, and they were given to cement alliances. They could have no public role and only men could speak on high public occasions. In sum, the pregnant young woman was a revered possessor of a valuable commodity: another warrior to die the "Flowery Death" or a girl child to remain (again, in the words pronounced over her at birth) to "provide water, to grind maize, to drudge..."

I managed to find a preview of Aztecs: An Interpretation on Google that allows you to read a significant chunk of the chapter on the role of Aztec mothers. (Start on page 174 of the preview). It's a fascinating read that includes an idea of what an Aztec birthing was like; the kinds of prayers and songs that were sung over pregnant women and their new babies; and neat information about the culture in general, including the fact that the Aztecs thought that the mingling of bodily fluids was necessary for infant growth even after birth - meaning that the parents were obligated to have sex for months after a birth or else they feared that the child would not grow to be a whole person.

Despite the fact that I've never had any personal interest in Aztec culture specifically, I'm almost certainly going to buy this book. There apparently is much more to the story about pregnant warriors than either my first or second source would have me believe.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Pregnancy

Here are the answers to Pregnant Lady Quiz 1!

1. Pregnant women are recommended to forgo eating hot dogs.

True, if the hot dog is uncooked or not hot enough to be steaming at the time of consumption. Not only are pregnant women recommended to avoid eating hot dogs, but they should also avoid deli meats, soft cheeses, meat spreads, raw or undercooked meat or fish, and refrigerated seafood. This is because of the risk of contracting Listeriosis, which is caused by eating food contaminated by the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. Complications from exposure to Listeria may include miscarriage, early labor, or even neonatal death. Listeriosis is actually pretty rare, but pregnant women just happen to be particularly susceptible compared to their non-pregnant adult counterparts.

Fortunately, pregnant ladies don't have to completely cut their favorite deli meats out of their diets; nuking the meat until it's steaming hot is enough to kill off the bacteria, making it safe to eat. Personally, I think that sort of defeats the purpose of deli meat, but what do I know?

2. The youngest mother on record was five years old.

True, unfortunately. Her name was Lina Medina (warning: there is a naked pic of the pregnant child on the linked page) and she was born in Peru in 1933. She suffered from extreme precocious puberty; she started menstruating at the age of 3 and had breasts at the age of 4.

Lina gave birth to her son by C-section; the identity of the father has never been established. Her son has long since died, but she still lives in Peru.

3. Some women have experienced orgasm while giving birth.

True, although this has been contested. At the very least, there are women who claim to have experienced it. Katrina Caslake is one such woman, and she has made it her mission to spread the good news after her unexpected experience.

I'm prone to believe these women myself; not just because of wishful thinking, but because I could definitely see how the sensation of a baby sliding over one's G-spot as it is born could trigger some pretty intense sensations. Every woman's birth experience is different; and even if a pleasurable birth may not be altogether likely, I don't think that it is impossible.

For more information, there is a film called Orgasmic Birth, which chronicles the birth experiences of eleven lucky women.

4. A woman cannot get pregnant if she is breastfeeding.

False. The Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM) is a valid and reliable method of birth control with a failure rate of only about 2%, but only if the new mom is breastfeeding exclusively at least 6-10 times in a twenty-four hour period (including several feedings throughout the night), has not had a period yet since delivery, and her infant is less than 6 months old. Once any of these criteria are no longer met, she must find another method of contraception.

Many casually breastfeeding moms can and do get pregnant, mostly due to the misunderstanding of LAM and its rather finicky criteria. For more information on LAM and other natural family planning methods, check out Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is also an excellent resource for those of us that are trying to conceive.

5. Pregnant women should double their caloric intake.

False. Despite the popular myth of pregnant women needing to "eat for two," pregnant ladies only need to eat an additional 300 calories (on average) during the second and third trimester. You can get that many calories by eating just one low-fat cup of yogurt and an apple.

Congrats to Fiesty, who got all five answers correct. Enjoy your invisible puppy of an unspecified gender and breed, and may you have a happy and healthy pregnancy. And many thanks to Lexy, Nicole, Tigerwong, and chole for participating.

Pregnant Lady Quiz 1

Because I am a nerd and enjoy stuff like this, here's a simple true-or-false quiz. The prize for the person that scores highest is an invisible handshake from me (I know, I'm too kind).

Leave your answers in the comments section. You could cheat and use Google, but then you wouldn't want to taint your victory with the bitter taste of deception, would you?

Yay or Nay?

1. Pregnant women are recommended to forgo eating hot dogs.
2. The youngest mother on record was five years old.
3. Some women have experienced orgasm while giving birth.
4. A woman cannot get pregnant if she is breastfeeding.
5. Pregnant women should double their caloric intake.

I'll go over the answers in a few days. In the meantime, enjoy!

Education Is The Key To Informed Reproductive Choice

Thank you everyone who commented on Thursday's post. I was rather pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response! In the future I'll be addressing a question posed to me about fetal homicide laws; any other questions or comments are very much encouraged (and if you'd rather not make your comments public, you can always forward them to me here.)

Also, I've decided to add a little something else to this blog. In addition to the cat pictures, complaints, and the occasional venture into controversy, I will be using this blog to educate myself and others. One of the things I've realized since my pregnancy is that there is absolutely no shortage of misinformation about reproduction (both male and female roles), pregnancy, birth, and everything that comes afterward.

I am by no means an expert in these things, and my limited experience doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Every woman's body, pregnancy, and birth experience is unique to her, so I certainly can't speak for everyone. But I do enjoy hunting for information and learning more about pregnancy and birth, and you, my dear friends and readers, will be coming along for the ride.